Mathew Jackson — Building Circular Systems That Scale | Future Ventures Podcast Ep. 12

Matthew Jackson is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Alimentary Systems, a New Zealand company rethinking how the world handles organic waste and sewage. An Edmund Hillary Fellow with a track record of building and scaling high-growth ventures across global markets, Matthew has helped drive billions in market value creation — including bringing Netflix to New Zealand and triggering a wave of industry convergence that reshaped the local media landscape. But what makes this conversation matter isn't the resume. It's the way Matthew thinks about impact, risk, and the responsibility of building something that outlasts you. 

This episode switches between two styles, which makes it interesting. First, it honestly tells the personal story of the founder — his childhood, losing his father at 15, studying process philosophy, and the daily habits that help him stay steady during tough times. Then, it explains one of the smartest business ideas we've discussed: a system that turns sewage and industrial waste into fertilizer, energy, and carbon credits, all at a lower cost than landfills. If you want to see what real product-market fit looks like — where investors, cities, residents, and the environment all benefit — this is a good place to start. 

Some of the key topics covered in this episode were: 

• From media changes to climate projects — Matthew's first business helped Netflix start in New Zealand, increased its value by $2.1 billion, and led to a lawsuit that taught him what true commitment costs. 
• The Alimentary Systems model — Why combining two waste streams into one unlocks five distinct revenue lines and a 2.4x value multiplier over the traditional landfill. 
• The economics of impact — How the company hits roughly 30% IRR while saving municipalities money and lowering household costs, proving environmental gains and returns aren't a trade-off. 
• Carbon credits as arbitrage — The four-year effort to get onto compliance markets, and why the same credit can sell for $45 in New Zealand or $127 into the UK. 
• Founder psychology — Managing ego, mental health, and presence as the real infrastructure behind sustained execution. 

Key Insights 

1. Being right and being effective are two different things. Matthew argues that when you treat the person across the table as the obstacle, your ego takes over, and progress stalls. Real change comes from meeting people where they are and moving forward together — not winning the argument. 
2. The term "risk-taker" is often misunderstood. What seems like bold risk-taking from the outside is usually careful planning—trying different approaches to reduce risks before making a big move. Matthew knows exactly what his current risks are, how much they cost, and has a clear plan for how to back out if needed. 
3. Capital allocation is the number one risk every company faces. Working on the right things with the wrong people — or pointing capital at the wrong priorities — is what sinks ventures. Helping founders sharpen their capital allocation framework is the highest-leverage support you can offer. 

Links & Resources 

• Alimentary Systems: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alimentary-systems/ 
• Matthew Jackson on LinkedIn: https://nz.linkedin.com/in/matthewjackson 
• Future Ventures LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/future-ventures-corp 

About the Guest 

Matthew Jackson is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Alimentary Systems, where he's building circular waste-to-energy infrastructure across global markets. A four-time founder and Edmund Hillary Fellow, he has helped generate billions in market value, from pioneering media access in New Zealand to advancing climate-positive sanitation technology. He works closely with Indigenous communities on water security and is driven by a single conviction: that the best ventures make an impact and return the same thing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Notice you put your name and then sorry, could you stop it for a second?

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Yep. Recording resume, perfect. Okay. Welcome to the Future Ventures Podcast, Scaling with Clarity. Today's guest is Matthew Jackson, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Alimentary System, a company that's transforming how we think about waste energy and infrastructure. Matthew has built and scaled high-growth ventures across global markets, helped drive billions in market value creation, and is a fellow of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, an international network of impact-driven leaders. At Alimentary, he's focused on turning organic waste into energy value and measurable climate impact. Welcome, Matthew.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Thank you. Kyoto Maxim from New Zealand, Long Bay, coming here from Tamaki Mikado in Auckland.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Fantastic. It's great to have you. Um so do you do you speak the native language or we just know a few words?

SPEAKER_02 1:01

My journey in Todeo has has started when I entered the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. So I've tried to learn as much about uh Todeo and Turia Waitangi as a part of our work because Manafenua or the people of the land in New Zealand have a lot of rights here about what happens in the environment, and they are very much aligned with the way we think. So we spend a lot of time on Morai. I'm doing a lot of work with leading um indigenous leaders at the moment around water security. So it's a very important part of our work.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Oh, fantastic. Um it's uh by the sounds of it, I've never been to New Zealand. I've always been intrigued. Obviously, uh the Lord of the Ring has made New Zealand famous. Uh wine, I love wine. Um, but it's it's kind of similar in Canada. We have a lot of indigenous nations. Um, and so we quite often we would open up meetings and and uh acknowledge the like you know, start with a land acknowledgement. Perfect. Well, it's great to see you again. I'm disappointed you're not wearing your look of Donchi jersey, but we'll go with business casual.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

So, Matthew Max, and you're gonna have to tell that story now, otherwise, you're gonna leave the viewers wondering.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Absolutely. Um, so so the last time that Matthew and I met, Matthew was wearing a hoodie, and I don't know how we got talking about basketball, but if you lifted your shirt and there was a look at Donci jersey underneath it, I was like, Okay, well, he's one of my favorite players. I'm originally from Bulgaria, I mean he's Slovenia, but close enough. My wife is Bosnian, and we both love the same player. And then you went to your wardrobe and you brought these like original jerseys that they were at Luca Donce jerseys, and some of them were kind of a combination because uh obviously Luca Donci started with Dallas Mavericks before he was traded by Nico to uh LA Lakers, and then you had was it a Dallas Mavericks shirt that that had like I'm at Dallas Mavericks?

SPEAKER_02 3:06

I got the Luca LA. I picked it up last time I was in Austin.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

Yeah, yeah. That is awesome. That is awesome. One of the greatest players, uh, one of the greatest players.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah, true story, Maxim, as well. Our lead investor, he was introducing us to some of his team, and I I walked off the beach much like I did this morning, yeah. Uh wearing an NBA jersey, and I came into this meeting call Matthew Jackson talking about why how to kick it to Y Punamo. And the US investors literally had no idea what to do with me. Who's this guy walked off the beach? Too casual for us. So sometimes, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Yeah. Well, I think you've right. I think you have had some amazing career, and I'd love to I'd love to double-click on it because I mean some of the things are I guess infamous rather than famous. Like you told me that infamous is a good way of looking at it. So why don't you just kind of walk us through your journey, yeah, leading from kind of where you started to where you are now with elementary systems.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Um yeah, well, sorry, a little bit emotional there because uh it starts with my parents. If you don't mind, I will do my pepeha. Um in New Zealand, when we work with indigenous groups, their belief is that their relations are the land, and so we are completely connected. So I'll do my pepeha in Tarao in Māori and then I'll explain it in English, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

So what I said was um I was born in a place where the mangrove, uh where the flat centers the mangrove, in a place called Benham. My Fakapapa, my family comes from Waikara. I talked about Waikara being the river that makes my heart sad. And my mother was a senior lecturer at Waika University, but she'd taken us to Florida when she wanted to do a master's and a doctorate in music education. And so that for me has created a lifelong love for learning. I talk about Tom Rero being the mountain that makes my heart happy because I love being on a board, whether it's a snowboard or a skateboard uh or a kitesurfing board. And where in Telpo, my father was a Baptist pastor. And so he he gave me my um my commitment to community. You know, when you go back and my fucker papa, my my great-grandparents were actually missionaries to Kenya, and on my father's side, my great-grandparents were radio operators in World War II. And so to ask me about who I am, it comes from where I come from. And so for at a very young age, my my mother gave me opportunities to be online in 1992, um, which is is quite early in the in the age of the internet era.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

It is. I mean, I think I got my first demo in '94. Two years later, it was like 28.8 kilobits. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Uh see, it's showing our age a little bit now with those that are on the call that remember dial-up modems. Uh but it meant I my eyes opened to technology at a very early age. Um at the same time, it was quite formidable. My father passed away when I was 15. So that meant I became very independent very quickly and didn't really like high school, dropped out. By that stage I'd been to 17 different schools, um, went to university because it was I could still play basketball at high school and I could get an education. And after that, went straight into tech. So that's that's how I got into the industry. Okay. Um, what would you like to talk about?

SPEAKER_04 7:41

What brought Netflix to New Zealand, you give it to 300 people, like 300,000 people. Um, yeah, all the media companies, you know, like what was the origin for the first company?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Okay, so I mean, my my the beginning of my career, I was an employee. I worked for an infrastructure company, you know, I worked in software as a service, I worked in digital marketing. And at the end of the day, what I realized is the only thing that stopped me from starting my first company was my courage. And so uh it was like any other business. We ended up meeting at a coffee shop off the main street. There was a couple of technical co-founders, they asked me to come along. I said, What do you want me to do? They said, Look, we need somebody to sell it. I said, What is it? What does it cost? What is it worth? Yeah. And, you know, that was the start of the journey. It was uh unintentional. Now, when we got to the end of that, what we realized is that we had changed the market nearly $2.1 billion in three years, and we had caused convergence in New Zealand, where we had collapsed the bitstream between the television providers and the internet service providers. Um, at the time we had two monopolies having a doing a pretty good job. One was running copper networks, the other one was running satellite networks. So they had um existing infrastructure assets, the deployment of fiber was behind. There wasn't a reason to use it because we didn't have access to international, really didn't have access to international content over the internet. So by bringing Netflix to New Zealand, we gave people an option to be able to purchase international Netflix at the same time as purchase local content services. We built the technology directly into the internet service provider in a way that the internet became transparent, much like it was designed originally, removing the geographic restrictions that prevent people from accessing international content. Fast forward three years, we had 17 customers, around one in nine New Zealanders using the network. And all of the media companies funded out of California decided to take a lawsuit against us. You go back on my Twitter feed and there's a picture of me drinking a beer on Easter having been served documents saying we're taking you to court.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

So that's a fun ride.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Um in moments like that, kind of like uh what what what does that feel like? Is the world caving in? Like, like, I mean, this is like a highly unusual situation, and it in in some ways it's a privilege situation because obviously you're successful, hence why the media companies are pseudo, but kind of like what did that feel like?

SPEAKER_04 10:15

What how deep did you have to dig in order to uh you know persevere?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Yeah, well, you know, the reason we've tweeted it is because we didn't take it seriously at first. So I can I just be really honest, I was quite naive, you know. Um, we're a small team, we were making good money. At some point, we'd broken PlayStation's network, and you can imagine me on the phone with retailers with television being returned to the store. I'm trying to trouble support the fact that my team has broken PlayStation Network. So it was a bit of a wild west while we were doing something that was disrupting global DNS. Um but the real experience was that I was out of my depth. Um, we had back-to-back service contracts with our clients that allowed us at any point in time to cancel the service because it was operating in a gray area. Um, we believed it was aligned to parallel importing and that parallel importing protected the distribution right of the end user. Uh, we also had legal rights for users which allowed them to remove a geo-prevention measure. Otherwise, we wouldn't have had DVD shops and we wouldn't have out-of-zone DVDs in New Zealand. Um, and the the television provider said we have exclusive distribution rights and you're breaching those. So we knew that you could talk to one lawyer on this side of the street and get an opinion, and one lawyer on this side of the street and get an opinion. But ultimately, for us, it was about decreasing piracy and increasing choice. Um, but the the way it ended was we got into a boardroom. We had, you know, the biggest boardroom of our largest customer. And you know, I'm sitting there with my co-founder and we have written a letter underneath, sitting underneath my laptop, and it says, We don't have the resources to fight these guys.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

You know, by this stage, we've already issued a letter saying these guys are bullying us. I've tried to talk to politicians, but we've got this room full of people in the boardroom, and then a standing room only around everybody that's sitting down and a teleconference with the whole, basically the whole industry. And um, somebody that knew a lot better than me got up and said, We will not stand for this. And it was an out-of-body experience, uh, because I remember thinking we have created something that is much bigger than us, and yeah, it's being taken on by others, and so it was very real. I'm almost getting goosebumps thinking about it at the moment. Um, and yeah, it we we in that meeting decided to put a thousand hundred thousand dollars into a media campaign to take crack memes and probably make fun of the media companies. And in the middle of that, our major backer and our major customer sold his business to an Australian firm and the whole thing went away.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

That is a crazy story, but uh I mean it it goes to show that if you create something that people value, they'll fall with a fire.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah. Yeah, very much. If you I like to say we had the moral high ground, and I think it's a position, it's a lot easier place to be than it is when you are being caught up in what is current. And I sometimes think that the people I'm talking to are gonna be on the wrong side of history, you know?

SPEAKER_04 13:35

Yeah. So how do you feel about the current environment? Like I I know you're doing something that's like that that that is special, and and and I think that if there's kind of one theme that's kind of permeating throughout your uh professional careers, like you're very focused and driven by impact, and so even with elementary systems, impact is is core to what you're doing. Um, but I think that's the reason why you were selected to be an Edmund Edmund Hillary fellow as well. So um, and he talked about kind of who you are and kind of where you're coming from, but like if you if if you were to put yourself in a current environment, what do you think it's the most impactful thing that you can do? What is the what is the more impactful thing that we can do? And kind of like, what does the world look like in five to ten years?

SPEAKER_02 14:28

That's a lot of questions. I don't know for me to consider. Um sometimes it helps me work through what I'm thinking by talking. So if you allow me some space, I can answer answer those questions. Um I tend to think about impact in terms of legacy, and one of the characteristics of legacy is that it happens in your past and you're not usually aware of it. Um usually legacy is something we think about it later in life, but it's actually something that's been created as we're living our lives constantly. And so I I tend we I mean, I know you're talking about the context on impact of of a commercial organization, and we can we can talk about that, but I tend to think about impact as something that occurs every day with the people that I'm around. And uh what I find is if I'm in the impact space working with customers, if I'm not putting that same lens on, then they become an adversary and my ego will get in the way. And I think about them versus us. So impact for me today or yesterday was you know being in a conversation with my daughter about her emotions. She's 18, she started her first year at university, she wants to study at Texas State, and she's thinking about leaving home. So being present in that conversation. Uh, I have two employees that they're a little bit younger, and spending time with them on their health issues and their mental health issues was the one of the most impactful things I could have done in the last 24 hours. Wow, okay.

unknown 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

Um, at the same time, we're working with um an indigenous group called Nati Toa in Porerua, where the local mayor and counselors have been told by their engineering partners that they cannot extend their landfill because of the odor. And they cannot, and the only option that they have is to put the waste on trucks and send it somewhere else, which would require them to invest in a transfer station. And that process is a public process, and we have been excluded from it. So that creates frustration. And when I get frustrated about the impact I'm creating, I'm not being in service of the mission that we're following. And so when I'm in that impact space and I'm struggling, what happens is I'll put my attention onto an individual who is occurring to me as the block for us creating the movement. But that's not helpful because that then distracts from what is really necessary, which is co-creation or finding a new pathway forward. So when I tend to think about impact, it's really at two levels. One, it's it's who are the people I'm with at the time and being present and changing their mindsets one conversation at a time. And then also just removing the ego from the removing the ego from the conversation so that you're when you're in a conversation about creating change, that you are where that person is and helping them move forward. And that's how we actually catalyze the change in people.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

I mean, this is this is really important, and the one um saying that comes to mind is like there's a difference between being right and being effective, and you can be right all you want, but unless you park your ego or leave your ego at the door, it's kind of hard to be effective. And so um in the moment, it's it's it's quite convenient for you to just kind of you know focus on I'm right, like this person is wrong. Why were why we were excluded from like from this consultation? There should be a public.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Um so yeah, I agree with you. My wife, my wife says, uh, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? You know, it's a really really succinct way of putting it. Do I want to be right or I don't want to be happy? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

So how do you get to be happy?

SPEAKER_04 19:23

Because obviously, we mean using happy in a bit of a quotation mark here in the extent, but but how do you keep those emotions in checks so to make sure that you're you know get to the happiness?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

I I go for a walk on the beach this morning and I mistakenly took my phone.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Half of it was on mental health support with one of my team. Uh and so I couldn't focus on the sound of the water and the ocean and the sun. But you know, I like I watched the sunrise. Um in about a week I head to Indonesia for a meditation retreat for two weeks to reset. So I think I think um you talked about how to be happy. And I don't know that there's one state called happy. I think in general it's a birthright to be in the experience of life and enjoy it. But that doesn't mean that it always works out the way you intend it to.

SPEAKER_05 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

And it's it's your responsibility as a human to understand your own biology and how it's reacting and how that impacts others and take responsibility for it. And so for me, that's playing basketball, that's journaling, that's spending time in nature, that's meditating, and then that allows me to stay present. And I have an environment around me that supports that. So my co-founder, my wife, my team knows when I'm not happy, when I'm not present, they give me permission to be like that, to know that it's not normal, and then to take space to go and clear it. Um, but it's not an easy thing. I don't think anybody um when we have one condition of life that's not working, whether that's health, money, career, identity, relationships, it usually impacts all the others. So I don't pretend to think that that I don't experience those breakdowns in life just because I have these practices.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

What's I mean being centered, being grounded, like uh taking time, meditating? This I mean, it has become more popular. Mental resilience and strength has become uh like a really important issue for especially for farmers because of all the amount of stress that we we are going under. Were you were you always like that, or is this kind of more of a recent um?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

phase of your life where you've understood how important it is for the body mind to be fully connected and and and and think um if i explain to you why i or how i've come to think like this i have to i have to explain some of my education and so as i as i unpack your question um what comes up for me is when i was last an employee and i worked for an amazing company uh introducing software as a service to CIOs is often the first cloud service that MIT team adopted so incredible experience to bring the cloud to market in New Zealand and India and Japan and I'm still best friends with the founder of that company I'm texting him this morning when I'm on the beach um but I was I wasn't able to progress in that company and I had three managers hired above me for a job that I then trained them in and there was two pathways forward from that one was is to understand and start to take responsibility for my own emotions and so I went into a self-development program is the easiest way to describe it where I started to take responsibility for um a simple concept which is what happened and then how I feel about it and recognize that those two things are separate and we'd like to collapse them into one thing. So there's what happened and there's how I feel about it. And that so there was one path of of taking responsibility for my own actions and then the other path was uh I had I didn't desire a career in a corporation. My ultimate expression or desire in life is to experience freedom of choice. And so undertaking an MBA was not logical for me. And so I studied philosophy. And so that was really the foundation for my perspective I studied process philosophy with an institute in California looking at the work of Alfred Dewey and Whitehead and the concept of transactionalism not in terms of an exchange of money but in terms of exchange of or an interaction between two objects what I mean by that is humans are object oriented. We are you think of me as my name as my company as my relationship to the fellowship as the companies these are all objects that help you relate to who I am and give you a sense from your perspective. And the study of transactionalism is about understanding how humans are object orientated it helped me understand my own biases the biases of others that I can't understand and how to work well with others. And so that really laid the foundation for how I think and how I operate in the world now well I love and admire um what you're doing it's super important.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

It's not at least I haven't found this to be common for people to to do this but I think it's I think it's very necessary because um I I did something similar in 2018 uh I took a program called the other Everest and the whole premise behind it it's very it's very similar but it was like a meditation yoga retreat and it was all about kind of figuring out who you are as a person what's your personal mission statement like what drives you to be like like like why you're on this planet and so it was it was it was it it it still shapes me to this day the the person leading the session was uh a medical doctor by the name of David Irvine he still is probably one of the most impactful training I have ever uh attended but it was yeah yeah to this day yeah the signpost in your life for sure I can feel that I can just sense I can sense how you're feeling about it right now just reflecting on that I mean to your point I still get emotional about it because it put things into context for me as to why am I here and for like I I kind of adopted uh Dr. Irving's um personal mantra that like I want to be a change maker for change makers I'm driven by impact so for me it's like very important like when I'm leading teams I'm obsessed in making them better and so I was describing this recently last week to to someone's like I I I feel like people um at least from professional setting like they have a tool chest and my job is to fill the tool chest with tools that they can use and and that tool chest is portable whether they stay with me or whether they go somewhere else they they get to carry that tool chest and that's how I view this it's like I want to make the life of the people around me better.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yeah yeah wow I I I totally get that I think most people if you think help is a very interesting characteristic that I think a lot of us don't understand and let me let me explain why that what you shared with me makes me think of that because if you think like last night my wife had worked uh a very long day yesterday and I'm very lucky she trained as a French chef when she was younger and so we have we have very nice very nice meals. She doesn't work in a restaurant anymore but we we are the we are the lucky people that get the benefit of that. Yep and and last night she didn't want to cook and I'm really good at burgers.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

All right that's my thing with our family and that's the help that she needed at that point. But I got more out of that than she did because I get to be I get to look after the kids I get to give the kids something they enjoy. Yeah I get them happy with me. And so that nature of help is that it's usually the person who's in service that gets the most from it.

SPEAKER_04 29:13

Absolutely and yeah no it it it's kind of like um when when somebody's making donation who or somebody's gifting the person giving is the person gets more than the person receiving um it's it it completely resonates with me because like my wife is like why are you driving the kids everywhere I'm like well it's it's winds your time but it's winchio time that's one on one time that they wouldn't normally get with them and my kids are teenagers they're 12 and 14 at the moment they're all very keen on mom and dad so I'll take whatever time I can with them yeah yeah my wife was the same she taught me this for sure I understand um the other element of help I find is that by the time you have to ask for it you don't really know what help you need.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Yeah and so it's really important to recognize that that the help that's offered is has two factors. One is that it's what the other person is willing to offer and the second thing is that they might be offering something you don't understand you need. So yeah that's how I think about help it's reciprocal in its nature and it gives to the people that are generous with it and and in service of others and that often you don't know the help that you need.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

Yeah a hundred percent in in in our company we talk about TTF and TTV and uh the the the TTF is is from um oh try no blank he's a famous restaurantur in in New York uh unreasonable hospitality is the book that he wrote uh um and so ttf is time to fun and ttv is time to value so with us we are absolutely obsessed when you when we're working or we're starting to work with with a company give value give value give value it's not about keeping count as to how many hours i like I spent it's like yeah we try we're planning a launch event in at the end of May and it's like what's our TTF what's our TTV how are we going to drive unreasonable amount of value for the people that are attending and what's the fun experience how can we have an elevated experience so as soon as people walk in is like oh my god this is a fun event and so we were kind of brainstorming like okay we we gotta have a photographer on staff we got a videographer we gotta send them with clips we have to provide them with a marketing package we like as soon as they walk in they have to have a glass of champagne like we just like TTV TTF love it yeah I love it yeah that single that single unifying idea that everybody can get behind and they can understand and they can make their own it's fantastic Max I love that idea I think I might steal it please do please do I've stole it from somebody else so we'll uh we'll we'll uh will gabor i I can't remember his name but anyways he's amazing uh it it's probably one of the I read a lot of books it's probably the one book in that they've read in the last six months where I I actually I listen I don't read um I probably listened like Walking the Dog in probably like 36 hours I just crashed that book because I loved it so much nice make sure you put it in the show notes so people can find it I will I will it's amazing but this kind of digressed into more of a personal side I want you to tell me a little bit about elementary systems because I think that you guys are building something special there um in terms of what you're building how you're turning waste into capital the four revenue streams how you're impacting the environment how everyone is benefiting from this and so talk to me more like tell tell the listeners the viewers about kind of like what you're building and why it's so special yeah so to so the foundation of it is my business partner and the founder of our company Haman Maran used to work for Tata Motors and developed sustainable biofuel with Jaguar Landrova who was involved in vehicle testing true story um one time we were talking about the use of artificial intelligence in our organization because we're very very very advanced with AI and he developed machine learning for motor vehicles to tell him about testing that they were doing and how he didn't always trust the machines and in one use case they were putting the Land Rover under a 35 degree angle and it had rolled because the sensors didn't activate the braking system.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Okay so he went through and told me this story for about five minutes and I got to the end of it I said hey Amant who was in the car was there it was it automated driving and he goes oh no no I was the driver of the car so he's the he's a guy that made cars and vehicles safe for Tata Motors and a lot of the UK brands and then he'd gone home and had the Godavri River where he had grown up as a kid in India was polluted so his kids couldn't play. Yeah and so he'd realized that sewage was being discharged into the ocean and the Asian development bank was funding water treatment but because energy as a country was sorry India as a country was energy poor and the treatment system sat dormant so it wasn't occurring. At the same time um the energy from sewage is is quite low value when it's on its own and in parallel India has a large horticultural industry and I'm not sure if you know about wheat but when they clear the field it gets burnt and so it when it they burn off the waste of the wheat industry it creates huge amounts of smoke and of course that carbon being released into the atmosphere. So there's two disparate problems one sludge that on its own creates a lot of um nitrogen release and on the other side the industrial waste that creates a carbon release both damaging the environment the thought process was to combine those two waste streams into a single waste stream so that when you mix the carbon with the nitrogen it would increase the amount of energy and then that energy could be exported to the wastewater treatment system so that it could take care of providing clean water to India. So that's where the origin of the company comes from and Hamam had won an incredible contract to build 20 facilities in New Zealand sorry in India and had a change of government and they cancelled the contract which she then took to their Supreme Court and realized that India was not the place to build the company we met through the Edmund Huey Fellowship and at the time I had realized that I was working on the right things but with the wrong people and it taken really a one and a half year sabbatical to figure out what do I want to do next after exiting my ventures. And we met and I acted as a friend as a confidant somebody that decides to move to New Zealand I helped them understand what are the differences with New Zealand's culture and introduce them to people so that they can develop a network and after about nine months I said okay I'm all in on this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing the mission is that big that we will never run out of ideas and I want to put my single focus into doing this for the rest of my life so that's how we started the business um what we do is develop um low cost and high energy output sanitation solutions and so the core of the organization is that we at this stage have uh I'm right in the middle of a subscrip drafting a subscription agreement and updating our shareholders agreement and constitution for our lead investors and so we're in the middle of that capital raise right now and we are building a 20 ton facility in Belle Island in Nelson where we will divert industrial organic waste away from the landfill working with waste management New Zealand and we charge them a lower price than the landfill so that it attracts the waste rather than sending it to landfill. Now we also process the sludge that comes out of the Bell Island waste treatment plant instead of it going into a geobag and just sitting on the side of the road or being sent to landfill because sludge is sent to landfill and organic waste is sent to landfill when there's no alternative option.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

So what we've figured out is we can be paid to process the organic waste and instead of it going to a landfill where they also play a levy for the waste minimization into it's a levy to prevent more landfills being built effectively and they pay an emissions liability we get paid through that levy and we reduce emissions and so we can claim a gross emissions reduction based carbon credit. We can also sell the energy and we can also sell a synthetic fertilizer replacement that has a similar MPK value and can be used through existing fertilizer systems. When we do that what happens is the unit economics change. So for example one ton of waste that's processed at the landfill will create $183 worth of value for the landfill owner whereas one ton of waste processed through an alimentary system will create 441 tons of economic value for the technology owner. So what that does is it increases the the revenue multiplier by um 2.4 times and that's that's really important because we're not going to improve the environment unless we improve the economics of the technology that improves the environment um everybody kind of understands now that solar is actually a really cost-effective um technology widely deployed there's no question about that unit metric at the moment but right now most of our customers still prefer to build a landfill or use a sludge pond or a geobag system or a compost and in all of those situations we know that we can come in at a lower cost create more value and actually save money for both the municipality the industry and the environment while making significant returns for investors the types of returns I'm talking about are significantly above industry average our base case just if we're processing gate fees sits at around 30% IRR on our projects and when we're assessing versus traditional technologies um in one case we've looked at we will save the local municipality um close to three I think the the prices they're looking at now for transporting waste out of region are seven $560 to $680 and we can come in at around $311 at the same time we can reduce the cost to the residents of that community by around $88 per household per year while we make a return on investors return for investors using some really interesting financial tools that exist um essentially green bonds to provide a net benefit for investors of close to $42 million in less than three years on a capital spend of under $1 million. So we're at the point now where we have figured out the unit economics to build a billion dollar business in New Zealand and we'll be able to do that probably in the next 10 years.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

And New Zealand is just the starting point um this solution scales to any geography anywhere where there's like wastewater.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Yeah well 80% of wastewater globally is still discharged without treatment um even in New Zealand we have a council in the Banks Peninsula um that's looking at spending $200 on an what they call an outfall $200 million on an outfall pipe which basically means they build a big pipe into the middle of the ocean so that they don't dump it near the sea near the near the near the near the shore. That's it that's the solution we're gonna pipe it into the middle of the ocean. Yeah all right um so we have we because of the nature of the technology it has five revenue streams both inputs and outputs and um effectively every market we operate in there's some type of government subsidy. So we can play with those um levers in order to operate in any global market. I've currently got revenue opportunities in the UK Indonesia Vietnam I have more demand for our technology than I have the resource available to meet the needs of it.

SPEAKER_04 43:41

So yeah it's a it's a it's a good thing and also um we need to get more resources on board to have more impact you know amazing can we just quickly step through the five sources I'm assuming governance subsidies off deck agreements um the carbon credits um energy generation. Uh I'm drawing a blank through the fear, but do you mind just talking a little bit about each one of the revenue sources?

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Yeah, sure. So a gate fee is is also known as a processing fee. So instead of paying the landfill, you you would pay us. Okay. That makes up about two-thirds of our revenue. And we can do it cheaper than a landfill. The second thing and we've got a this is um it's still an approving stage and so uh we have some a huge amount of central government funding and that's for what we're raising co-funding from from our impact investment community is to do a research program with a university uh to prove the efficacy of the fertilizer replacement product. And so what comes out of the system is a liquid that is nutrient rich and bioavailable for soil and for plants. And there's three elements that we have to prove one is safety two is efficacy and the other thing is acceptance. So we have three of the largest farms in New Zealand involved in that program. We have farming partners signed up to that program. We have the safety and the efficacy as a part of the research program and we have the channel to market all in place ready for the Nelson project. But that fertilizer if we can sell it for just its value of its new of its nitrogen nutrients would be around $180 per ton. If we would sell it for the market price of its nitrogen potassium and phosphorus it would be around $480 per ton. So that's what the research is designed to do to determine what is it really worth.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

Okay interesting and and and and in this case the the fertilizer is a direct replacement for nitrogen based um um fertilizer so we we instead of natural gas we're using the off gases from processing the the the sludge or the wastewater and so we're creating the the fertilizer so it's a byproduct derivative product that we couldn't monetize it before it at the gate because we were dumping it into landfills but now we're taking it then turning it into an additional product.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Yeah I mean we we the common word for this would be the circular system um most people understand that we what we're doing is called bioenergy it's a little bit it's a little bit more advanced than that um we do use hundred year old technology that's proven a combination of anaerobic digestion and thermal hydrolysis. The thermal hydrolysis is think of it like a pressure cooker so um it it heats up and sterilizes the pathogens in the sludge so that it's safe to apply to land. And because we mix the organic waste and the sewage sludge we get a co we what's called co-digestion and what it does is reduce the level of contamination in the what we call digestate. And so that's where we basically remove and are significantly safer than the existing health based health based guidelines that exist globally. So we measure into international standards what the output of our fertilizer looked like um what our job is with the farmers of New Zealand is to prove that we can improve their soil health improve their water holding capacity of their farm. That's the biggest issue that we have with farmers is the is the amount of water that's available for growing food or growing grass. And if you haven't been paying attention to the Strait of Amus, the two biggest problems are fertilizer and energy fertilizer is a key ingredient for food security. So uh the current way that fertilizer is created is it's mined from phosphorus and then it's put onto a ship and then it's sent and it's a very high and energy intensive process called Haberbosch which was developed for the atomic bomb. So yeah not one of those things we think we really need to have in a world where we want to create green fertilizer from the nutrients that are already bioavailable from our waste.

SPEAKER_04 48:37

Yeah um in our in our city we we have uh a company that's in the space used to be called agrium then agrium and portash merged so now it's called nutrient um and they have operations all over the place including Australia I don't know if they have operations in New Zealand but it's a global company um it's it's somebody uh I don't know uh from a because nutrients business is really um wholesale retail and precision agriculture there may be some potential opportunities to uh to collaborate there at least on the distribution site yeah absolutely we rely on distribution partners we don't we don't pretend to want to have the sales channel for all of our products um we do do a direct energy offtake to a lines company or directly into the wastewater treatment plant is a is that one of those core revenue streams the the electricity makes up around five percent of revenue and then the other business is the other part of the business is that gross emissions reduction so um every market is different but we use international standards that are aligned to the uh international best practice one of our board members uh dr Ann Smith we're very lucky to work with her uh she is on the she's involved in the setting of global standards for carbon credits and in fact invented the world's first carbon trading platform in New Zealand when she worked for Landcorp it eventually became Toy to Environcare and has over a hundred staff at it so she's been at the forefront of um carbon emissions regulation for 20 years and she's a part of our team so it's an incredible incredible knowledge base and what we're doing is even challenging her because it's kind of pressing the boundaries of what's possible under regulation based on global standards.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

So uh what I mean by that is in New Zealand um we have offsets which are forestry. So if you pollute and then you need to buy carbon credits the only way you can do that is to buy them from somebody that is growing a pine forest that's the emissions trading scheme. Or you can buy a voluntary unit and that's coming from native forests. That's how you'll offset your carbon emissions to become net zero. And there's some other intricacies intricacies to it but that's essentially how it works. Yep. Well we are a gross emissions reduction and that means we sit in the compliance market and we've figured out how to get onto the compliance market through existing regulations and auditors. So we'll be the first New Zealand based carbon credit under existing regulations to be on the emissions trading scheme which has took us about four years to figure out and is a bit of a trade secret. So I'm not sure why I'm telling the world about it.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Yeah no that's that's that's fair um anything laid out it's hard fought hardworn uh in terms of getting to this point but um it's it it when it comes to buyers of carbon credits they want that verifiability of yeah of the origin yeah it's also very interesting because because we create can create an international unit um and carbon credits in different markets have different prices really interesting I find myself coming back to the G1 blocking solution where we're looking at the price of media in one market and playing with it in the other um so I can sell the same carbon credit in New Zealand as a compliance unit for $45 or I can sell it to a New Zealand exporter who's selling into the UK for $127.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

Yeah. Yeah so same carbon credit same customer different market yeah different because of different regulation but has the same impact on their on their ability to be net zero so yeah there's some complexity to it but at the moment my credits will be sold into the UK voluntary market.

SPEAKER_04 53:16

Makes sense in Canada the federal government said uh carbon pricing um and it was escalating price curve I don't remember the exact price I think it was the 2025 it came at like 150 per ton and then it it was supposed to peak at like 250 or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 53:39

The price is I don't know how many uh how many companies actually paying that price um but it's it there's definitely a market um in in this yeah this there's definitely a market and like for just to give you a comparison we've determined that if we only based our business based on selling carbon credits and not any of the gate fees or the electricity or the fertilizer or the grant subsidies we could still create carbon credits for $31 New Zealand.

SPEAKER_04 54:17

And the selling price in New Zealand we said is 47 so 31 so you still have Delta if you sell it to the UK you're doing 4x the the cost okay so healthy margin we've got some we've got some healthy margins and we also let's be clear we've we've we were at in our business we have we've built somebody we've built a project that's 200 tons for somebody else that team is together it's now building in the New Zealand market for the first time we're building we've got the project we've got the land we've got the leases we've got the offtake agreements we've got the government support we've got the investors on board and we'll we will have another 12 to 18 months before we get that project stood up and at that point in time all of the things that I'm talking to you about now are projections based on what we expect to happen in the future you know makes sense and and in terms of building all these projects I'm assuming that many of them would fit under kind of like a PPP uh umbrella public private partnerships so the government would invite like private companies to to co-develop the project and then you will get like the off the agreement or gif you or licensing for the use of technology with this kind of how we see scale where you are now two core business models so we have projects that we would we would fund and own that would provide a return on investment to investors we've got three of those identified for a total of around 320 tons processing capacity across across different locations in New Zealand.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

And then we have what's known as our 220 model so it's a fairly standard model of managing capital where uh you raise a large fund um the conversations we're having around 200 million US at the moment and we take a 2% management fee and we take a commission on the revenue of the profit of the system that's shared with you know for us 20% and then for the investor 80. And the reasons to do that are that we maintain the control of our IP and it means we don't risk losing our IP based on um having sold access to it. So it does a little bit of protection and it also means that we can rapidly scale accessing private market capital. So yeah that's the that's the thinking of how this business scales it accesses sovereign wealth fund long-term capital infrastructure projects bring in highly efficient technology at a lower cost from international markets undercut the existing service providers provide a better service at a lower cost at a lower risk better for the environment and then do it as many times as possible based on international standards.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

Yeah I mean it's a win-win win from every perspective investors win stakeholders win environment wins um everybody wins yeah that's the including the taxpayer base because to your point uh Matt you you said they have to pay less in terms of their uh monthly fees to the municipalities yeah what I don't what what frustrates me to no end is when I see an increase in the rates when I know it doesn't have to happen.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

Yeah it I just I don't understand sometimes the inertia behind the decision making to not assess risk that's occurring because you're you've got momentum. Now many people think I'm a risk taker and it's to some extent it is it is true I can sit in uncertainty in a way that's a lot easier than others. But the reality is is I'm actually very risk averse what I do is identify what the problem is and I solve it as fast as possible and create and remove the uncertainty. And so it's it's really interesting the perception of of my work is it's risky. The reality is is that I have rapidly iterated time and time and time and time again to remove as much risk as possible regularly.

SPEAKER_04 58:56

So it's yeah it's an interesting space to sit in sometimes being the thing that's new for for sure for sure and and so as we work with our clients uh we tell them that it it it it this is a bit controversial we are firm believers in this and and it kind of uh daft daft was nicely with something that you said earlier we believe that the number one risk that any and every company faces is capital allocation risk you framed it you were working on the right things with the wrong founders and so when it comes to capital allocation the same thing where you put your money um what are you gonna allocate the capital towards and the best thing that we can do um for for these founders or the CEOs leaders is to help them with their capital allocation framework so that they to your point you said I'm a risk averse we are risk averse because you have done a lot of work to make an informed decision as to why you're doing this and how have you taken risks off the table and what the things that must go right and spending four years on convincing the government or the regulators that this is what it what needs to it it's it's all about de-risking or providing protection.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:14

I couldn't agree more with you saying oh we we will always have risk yep um but we have we prioritize that risk agreed i'm i'm very clear on what my it what my current risks are and they will be different in six months time and they will be different in six months' time and it will be different in six months time so I can state my current risk I can state my current mitigation cost my risk so I know exactly I know exactly what my risk will cost me and how to undo my plan so if you want to talk about risk I'm I'm really happy I'm really happy to have a conversation about risk it doesn't mean I'm risky it means that we've thought through the consequences and we have remediated actions and those those things are in contracts you know um for example if if we in the Nelson project we can't sell the fertilizer um we don't have a liability with disposal because we'll give it back to the wastewater treatment plant and so they'll they'll process it through their existing trade waste system. Now it's just a practical example of if this research program doesn't work the way we think it will do what's what will the alternative process be? If we can't process the land if we can't process the waste into our system because we've taken it offline it will still go to the landfill.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

So there is resiliency and redundancy built into this project at Nelson. It's what we call a safe to fail environment. Yeah um at the same time I can still make $1.6 million dollars in processing fees and have very low disposal costs. So we're in a what some people refer to as a bluebird.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:04

So it's a we've got a good project it's commercially viable it's designed to be a demonstration of what's possible at a commercial scale in New Zealand using proven technology imported from overseas and if we can do that then we can change the world Matthew couple a couple of questions on on on the scalability side what's the smallest plant size and like if if if like let's say I don't know if if is it 50 tons or is it like so and how easy to go from 50 to 100 to 200 to 300 to 400 kind of like like what what is the scalability uh curve looking like yeah great so so first thing to understand is 20 tons sounds like a lot but it's not really it's um 20 tons would support a community of around 4000 people. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

Okay. A 20 ton system is an will create enough energy that it runs itself. So at that point in time it's a it's basically a fertilizer plant it's not necessarily going to have an energy output that we can sell to the grid so it's profitable it's self-sustaining yeah it has um like if you if you look at at Nelson um Nelson has a payback of five and a half years wow right so it's it's it's not it's not a bad business it's not a it's not a bad business still makes good returns it's better than putting in the bank so that's what that's what a 20 ton system looks like in New Zealand. Of course it's different when you go to Vietnam or you go to India or Indonesia but that's a New Zealand use case. Okay. When we yeah when we go up to up to 200 tons um that is that's when we get the energy offtake that will provide enough gas for around 1600 households to use it for heating their water or for cooking. We can so that gas requires treatment so when it comes out of the system it has a high level of carbon dioxide so we have to undertake a process called scrubbing to make it fit to put into a gas network or to convert into electricity. And then the price of electricity has it depends on the time that you sell it. And so you we could create effectively a large battery that stores energy to be released in peak which is one of the projects that we're looking at and then that changes the price of energy on the system. But we we that's the difference between a 20 ton system and a and a 200 ton system it's the amount of energy that we can put back into the grid. And from a scalability perspective we don't go any larger than that it requires um a change in the engineering um everything prior to that is modular and scalable can be doubled in size for a for minimal cost you know we put everything into a container that it's shipped it's packed it's you know it's like a Lego set basically and so we don't go any larger than that because the structure engineering becomes it's everything's too heavy. Yeah so so 20 ton is about 5000 people 200 ton is about 8000 people sorry 100 ton is about 8000 people 200 tons about 2000 people and so those those those are really nice sweet spots they sit around two or three hectares we can go into a brownfields location so there's already land available and because these systems are odorless um And it's not like a compost in a landfill where there's smell. Um it means that it's easier to get consented or because it's at an existing location, they already have the consent to do the project because it's existing use. So they're much easier to deploy than consenting for a new landfill and which could take up to 10 to 12 years.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

So in I live in Calgary, and in Calgary we have these massive, massive sewage lagoons that they breed a river, and obviously I'm assuming they combine some kind of a cap chemical to to let the sludge settle down and then they clean out the water and what would it the clean water is pipe from a processing time? How does how does this compare to like the traditional manner of just kind of spinning it through a uh like the the lagoons let in and settle versus like piping it through your system?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

Well, the the first thing to realize is that that's that's called a settling pond. And what happens is that they'll aerate it, but that sludge settles to the bottom, yep, and they still have to do something with that sludge.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Clear it out, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

Yeah, they put it they put a try a big vacuum truck into it and they suck it up, and then they'll do one of two things. One is they'll put it into a geo bag and just leave it on the side of the road, and it will all the water will leak back out into the groundwater, yeah. Or they'll put it in a truck, and the reason they the reason that they've sucked it out of the pond and de-watered it is so they have less weight to move. Okay, but that sewage pond is still sending sludge to landfill. That's what's happening in your backyards.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:45

Interesting. It's very noticeable. It's it's like it it's the car for all bridge, so it's like we have these like massive highways in Cowboy that now they're extending them to eight lanes, so four in each direction. And as you pass over the car for bridge, you can smell it depending on where the wind is blowing, you can constantly smell it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Yeah. So we we're the replacement for so if you have the sludge pond, we take the sludge out, yeah, we process it, we put the energy back into the wastewater treatment system. What that energy, what that energy is used for is what they call an aerated lagoon. And so an aerated lagoon, it reduces the footprint to a much smaller size, so you don't need huge amounts of land. Um, because we process it to a much safer perspective from to a much safer standard for either disposal or for resale, it is much smaller amounts of land. So we're all about because we have a limited, I mean, New Zealand has abundant land, which is what's led to landfills. Yeah, um, but in large municipal centers, we're all about minimizing the footprint, of course, reducing the use of um sludge ponds where the effluent quality is very low, yeah, as we it doesn't have a good impact on the environment to enable the energy to improve the water quality to improve water treatment. That's that's our core business.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:17

Love it. Uh I know we're way past our time, but I think that what you're building is fascinating. And yeah, I mean, we talk about product market fit. I think that you have hit product market fit on the head because it's a win-win from every perspective. Investors win, environment wins, municipalities win, stakeholders win, uh, municipal dwellers win. It just I think it's a beautiful solution, what you've created, and as well, like it's a circular system, so it there's just so many benefits that they're attached to us. Uh, I just want to thank you for the time. It was fascinating. Can't wait to continue the conversation. I think that what you've done is it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:01

Yeah, well, would you mind if I just offer one more gift before we close out, Maxim? Please. Yeah, so we talked a little bit about um Toreo and Mataranga, but I would love to close with a karakia, if you would allow me.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:19

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

Now, a karakia, an easy way to look at it, and you're familiar with indigenous work in Canada, so you you would have heard something similar, but essentially it's a prayer or a way to close a space. Uh, and before I do the karakia, I will I'll read to you the English version. Okay. Um, it's from an artist called Scotty Morrison, and so it's for companies like mine, which are not a Māori company, a Toybi company to use, so that we're not taking anybody else's work.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Um, so the karak here is it is completed, it is done, we have achieved our purpose and completed our forum. Let the purpose of our gathering rest for now. Let the vitality of our discussions replenish as we depart with fulfilled hearts and minds, strengthened immunity. So that's the English version, and I'll I'll do the karakia now.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

Tefuka tonga e te fuck a tonga e tenne a ko papa kai tenne a fuckatanga kai. Fuckamoye. Kui runa, kuiraro, kuye, kuye.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:53

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

Yeah, thank you for that. Appreciate you getting us close to space like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:23

My absolute pleasure. Um you're one very grounded individual, very connected. Um it's been an absolute pleasure meeting you and getting to know you, and I can't wait to continue the conversations. Um yeah, it's beyond expectation in terms of the the conversations we've had. I just want to say thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate the opportunity to have this corridor. And um, if this helps any founders, um, I'm open to having that conversation with with them about how we manage this. And you know, if there are comments about diving deeper, then we can have another one of these and and try to help the community because nothing what nothing that I'm doing is unique to me or secret. It's just my own personal journey, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:19

Of course. Of course.