Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

I've worked in the circular economy since 2011, starting in college, where I built a social enterprise focused on upcycling—empowering informal waste pickers and waste banks—before expanding into marine debris work. In 2014, I studied global environmental issues at the East-West Center, then joined Octopus Indonesia, a reverse logistics platform for post-consumer materials, where I led our expansion from 1 to 21 cities across 5 provinces over five years. In that role, I worked directly with informal sectors, industries, FMCGs, and government officials. After Octopus, I joined Systemiq Ltd as an Associate for Materials and Circular Economy, working at the district level on waste infrastructure, advising local governments on waste management planning, and helping shape policy recommendations for Indonesia's national planning agency. Today, I'm Co-Founder and CEO of Rebru.id, where we collect spent coffee grounds and agricultural waste and convert them into biochar — cutting landfill waste while capturing carbon.

Q2. What structural shifts are reshaping the waste management and circular economy landscape across Indonesia and Southeast Asia?

We're seeing a shift from waste management as purely a "collection and disposal" problem to treating it as a resource and climate issue. Informal sectors are slowly being formalized and integrated into supply chains, cities are moving toward decentralized waste processing instead of relying only on landfills, and there's growing pressure—from both regulators and investors—to show measurable carbon and material recovery outcomes, not just volume collected.

Q3. How are changing consumer expectations and corporate ESG commitments influencing demand for waste management and recycling services?

Corporates, especially FMCGs, are under more pressure to show where their packaging and waste actually end up, not just report tonnage. This is pushing demand for traceable recycling and offtake partnerships. On the consumer side, awareness is growing but still behind corporate commitments — so right now, ESG targets and compliance are the bigger demand driver than grassroots consumer pressure.

Q4. How is the competitive landscape evolving between traditional waste management companies, climate-tech startups, and digital waste platforms?

Traditional waste management companies still control the physical infrastructure and last-mile collection, which is hard to replicate. Climate-tech startups and digital platforms are entering with better data, traceability, and financing models, but often need to partner with or build on existing informal and traditional networks rather than replace them. The winners will likely be the ones who can combine both — infrastructure plus technology.

Q5. How are government policies such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and carbon reduction initiatives changing the industry's growth trajectory?

EPR is starting to shift responsibility (and cost) back to producers, which creates real commercial incentive for proper collection and recycling systems rather than voluntary CSR programs. Carbon initiatives, especially around carbon credits for waste diversion, are opening a new revenue stream for companies like ours that can quantify emissions reduction. But implementation and enforcement are still lagging behind the regulations on paper.

Q6. How are AI, digital traceability, IoT, and data analytics transforming waste collection, sorting, and recycling operations?

These technologies mainly improve three things: route optimization for collection, sorting accuracy (especially with AI-based vision sorting), and traceability—being able to prove where waste actually goes. For companies like us, data is also becoming essential for carbon accounting and investor reporting, not just operations.

Q7. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?

I'd ask: "How do you make sure your unit economics work without depending on subsidies or one-off grants — and what's your plan when the informal sector, your biggest cost advantage, gets formalized and more expensive?"