CLOSE THE LOOP LIMITED (CLG) - Transforming Waste into Resources: CEO Joe Foster on Global Recycling, Circular Economy Innovations, and ESG Leadership

Curious about how waste can become a treasure trove of resources? Tune into our latest ASX Briefs episode featuring Joe Foster, CEO of Close the Loop Limited, as he shares the transformative journey of their global recycling empire. Joe provides an inside look at how Close the Loop collects everything from print consumables to e-waste and turns them into valuable assets, championing the circular economy. You'll gain exclusive insights into their operations across Australia, Europe, South Africa, and the United States, and learn how their practices support ESG initiatives around the world.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about sustainability and innovative business models. Joe discusses the company's recent rebranding and its ambitious projects such as the HP Renew Solutions program, which aims to refurbish consumer electronics with certified warranties to reduce new manufacturing. He also highlights the strategic benefits of expanding their IT refurbishment services globally. Join us as we explore how Close the Loop is leading the charge in creating a sustainable future by keeping products in circulation and minimizing environmental impact.

Transcript

Andrew Musgrave: 0:02

Welcome to another episode of ASX Briefs, and today we're joined by Joe Foster, the CEO of Close the Loop Limited, who are a global leader in the collection and recycling of imaging consumables, plastics, paper and other materials. With operations spanning Australia, Europe, South Africa and the United States, the company is at the forefront of the circular economy, turning waste into valuable resources. We'll discuss their innovative recycling processes, recent developments and strategic goals. Joe, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the ASX Briefs podcast.

Joe Foster: 0:34

Thank you, Andrew, for this opportunity to talk about our business.

Andrew Musgrave: 0:43

Okay

Andrew Musgrave: 0:45

Just to get things started, can you just give us an overview of who Close the Loop are and your primary focus areas?

Joe Foster: 0:47

Yes

Joe Foster: 0:48

Thank you for that, Andrew. Close the Loop has been in operation, and certainly on the ASX, for the last two and a half years. What we've tried to sum up, our business model is what we're about really is collecting today and creating tomorrow. What we collect is, as you said, print consumables, consumer electronics, soft plastics, cosmetics, batteries, e-waste and so forth. What we do with those products? We actually create new products and keep them going in the circular economy. Our model is very much around working within the ESG space from our businesses around the world North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

Andrew Musgrave: 1:22

Okay , and that circular economy economy. You hear this term bandied around quite a bit, so can you just go into a bit more detail exactly what that is?

Joe Foster: 1:30

Indeed, as part of our model of collecting today and creating tomorrow, our opportunity really is to keep products in circularity as much as possible. A great example is our business in North America, where we actually are the certified refurbished company for HP consumer electronic products. We take these products back, we refurbish them and we put them back into circulation, into the marketplace. Another great example would be our print consumables. We sort of collect anything in excess of about 30 million print consumables globally, and what we do with these print consumables toner cartridges, ink cartridges and so forth is that we sort, we recycle, we separate the parts, we harvest for individual units that we need to put back in circularity and provide these products back to the OEMs, the original equipment manufacturers, for reuse, instead of having to remanufacture products utilizing virgin materials. The objective for us is very clear. The circular economy model is to keep our products in circularity as much as possible, and that goes the same for our plastics and packaging business as well.

Andrew Musgrave: 2:37

Now I see that in the last few days, you've updated your brand, bringing all the group of companies under the Close the Loop brand and a new investor deck that highlights several key developments, including IT refurbishment expansion, so can you provide more details about these projects and their significance?

Joe Foster: 2:54

Yes, indeed, Andrew.

Joe Foster: 2:55

The rebranding and certainly the rollout of the brand has been significant milestone for Close the Loop.

Joe Foster: 3:08

Since we listed in 2021, we've actually been quite active across a number of market sectors around the world, acquiring businesses within different spaces within the packaging space, within the ITAD space, the refurbishment of electronic consumable space and so forth and each one of those individual businesses had their own sort of unique DNA, so to speak. Putting them under the one name, the Close the Loop name sharing the same values and sharing the same vision around collecting today and creating tomorrow really saw us as a true ESG global circular economy business. The event of getting involved within the ITAD space say, the electronic consumable space, has been significant for the Close the Loop business. Back in April last year, we took a business on which was called ISP Tech Services and their modeling was very much around working with your consumer electronics returns that came back to store within 30 days. We have the ability to refurbish these and have these products back into the marketplace within 30 days under what we call is a HP certified warranty product, which is soon to go global through the new HP Renew Solutions program. What were finding A ndrew, is that OEMs, and particularly like HP, who are very progressive, are certainly wanting to look at the refurbishment model and the renew model of their consumer electronic products.

Andrew Musgrave: 4:33

And with that, with the IT refurbishment opportunities, particularly in the US, Europe and the Middle East. What are some of the strategic benefits to the company that will be the outcome of that?

Joe Foster: 4:44

Yes, I think the benefits to the company.

Joe Foster: 4:46

First of all, that we're operating within the space of the starting point is our customer returns, which are practically brand new units.

Joe Foster: 4:55

The expansion for our business now is to go into the ITAD space, where we're talking about models that are two and three years old and then having these products refurbished and remanufactured and put back into the marketplace under a certified brand from the OEM in this particular case would be HP.

Joe Foster: 5:12

For us, it's obviously an opportunity to grow our revenue and take the modeling of not just working with customer returns but working with the two-year-old and the three-year-old products and roll that model out into other parts of the world as an example, roll it into Europe, across into Dubai, into the Middle East, into Australia, into Africa and so forth and working very closely with large OEMs, in particular in this case, HP, who have put it out there, Andrew, that by 2030, they want to refurbish or remanufacture up to 70% of all electronic products that are provided in the marketplace. Now that's quite significant if you think about the amount of units that are in the marketplace at one particular time. At this moment, we think there's like 300 million PCs in the marketplace at one particular time. There's an opportunity within itself in terms of revenue for a business like Closer Loop to partner with companies like HP to be their global platinum partner to provide that service around the HP Renew Solutions product.

Andrew Musgrave: 6:18

Okay, and if we look forward, what are some of the market opportunities, either in the existing jurisdictions you're working or other ones that can grow the business, particularly in that waste management sector?

Joe Foster: 6:29

Yeah, so we've talked about the waste management sector. Of course We've talked about consumer electronics as one part we put that aside for a moment but of course, what we're doing within the print consumables there's a great opportunity to expand our suite of services. We've got existing facilities in Australia, Europe and, of course, North America where we want to bring other verticals into these units. We want to work with really complex waste streams and generate revenue out of being able to physically recycle and size reduce, recycle these materials into their raw material components and bring, as I said, other revenues into our business.

Joe Foster: 7:08

We talk about working with soft plastics as a great example here in Australia to our packaging business, working hand in hand with the traditional Close the Loop business, where we can take soft plastics and recycle it with the Close the Loop traditional business, blending it with materials like toner as a great example, Andrew, from toner cartridges and make products like asphalt additive, which improves the efficiencies of the roads here in Australia, as well as a product called Orflex which is used for injection molding material One of our ideal opportunities. Really, we want to work around their initial brand promise of zero waste and landfill, so we're looking to try and find a second life for these materials, particularly these complex waste streams. And we're talking about complex waste streams, we're not talking about your everyday recycled plastic materials. We're talking about materials that are pretty difficult to recycle.

Andrew Musgrave: 7:59

And just to wrap things up, Joe, what are some of the key milestones that investors can look forward to over the next 12 to 18 months?

Joe Foster: 8:10

Yes, good question. I think some of the key milestones for our business is very much about where do we go from here with regards to our expansion model. We put it out there that, of course, there's great opportunities in North America to expand, not just from the customer returns but into the actual ITAD space. We've identified opportunities within that area. Number one. Number two, again, supporting our clients like HP within the HP Renew Solutions. We want to look at rolling out facilities across Europe and into the Middle East. We want to do the same in Australia and we certainly want to do the same in Africa. That's when we start talking about the ITAD space. And, of course, for us, we want to look at rolling out additional opportunities around the recycling of complex materials across the different jurisdictions that we operate in at this moment around the world. Andrew.

Andrew Musgrave: 9:01

Okay, Joe. Well, thanks for joining us today. It's been a great update on where the company's at and we look forward to further updates in the upcoming months.

Joe Foster: 9:09

Andrew, thank you so much and we really appreciate this opportunity to speak to you today.

Andrew Musgrave: 9:15

That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.