“The essence of a circular economy lies in the transformative shift from a disposable mindset to embracing multiple-use perspectives. It's about reinstating the tradition of reusing items that have long served their initial purpose, infusing new life into products and materials."
In this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we bring to you a riveting conversation with Annanya Agarwal, the CEO and Co-Founder of Runaya. With an extensive decade-long career, he has held pivotal roles across renowned organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, McKinsey & Company, and Boston Consulting Group. His academic foundation includes a BA in Economics attained from Emory University.
In this episode, Annanya brings a fresh perspective to the resources industry, emphasizing the importance of ESG and carbon neutrality. He shares the transformative journey of Runaya and how their passion for sustainability is shaping the future of the sector. He also enlightens us about the concept of a circular economy, a potent solution for our resource-intensive lifestyle.
Episode Highlights
Follow Annanya on Linkedin
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Archit Sethi
About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation building tools and products to simplify recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify— B2B verification platform
EngageWith— employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system.
Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture, leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.
“The essence of a circular economy lies in the transformative shift from a disposable mindset to embracing multiple-use perspectives. It's about reinstating the tradition of reusing items that have long served their initial purpose, infusing new life into products and materials."
In this episode of The Shape of Work podcast, we bring to you a riveting conversation with Annanya Agarwal, the CEO and Co-Founder of Runaya. With an extensive decade-long career, he has held pivotal roles across renowned organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, McKinsey & Company, and Boston Consulting Group. His academic foundation includes a BA in Economics attained from Emory University.
In this episode, Annanya brings a fresh perspective to the resources industry, emphasizing the importance of ESG and carbon neutrality. He shares the transformative journey of Runaya and how their passion for sustainability is shaping the future of the sector. He also enlightens us about the concept of a circular economy, a potent solution for our resource-intensive lifestyle.
Episode Highlights
Follow Annanya on Linkedin
Produced by: Priya Bhatt
Podcast Host: Archit Sethi
About Springworks:
Springworks is a fully-distributed HR technology organisation building tools and products to simplify recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, and retention. The product stack from Springworks includes:
SpringVerify— B2B verification platform
EngageWith— employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches company culture
Trivia — a suite of real-time, fun, and interactive games platforms for remote/hybrid team-building
SpringRole — verified professional-profile platform backed by blockchain, and
SpringRecruit — a forever-free applicant tracking system.
Springworks prides itself on being an organisation focused on employee well-being and workplace culture, leading to a 4.8 rating on Glassdoor for the 200+ employee strength company.
Hello and welcome to the Shape of Work, a podcast series by Springworks. My name is Anoop and I am your host. Each week, we'll be talking to top people managers across the world on the future of work and how it's shaping our workplace. So sit back and get ready to find out more from these movers and shakers, as we have a no-holes bar. Anything goes. Conversation with them about their journey, their insights, their thoughts, most importantly, their ideas and vision for the workplace of the future. Join in on the conversation, leave a comment and don't forget to hit that subscribe button.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to another episode of the Shape of Work podcast, and for today's episode, we have with us Mr Anandey Agarwal, who is the CEO and co-founder of Runaya. Hello, anandey, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3:Hi Archit, afternoon. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 2:So, to begin with, could you please take us through the journey of Runaya and what inspired you to start this venture?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, I'd love to. So my brother and I, we founded Runaya in 2017. We, of course, come from a background of resources and of mining, but our family business is Vedanta and we didn't want to. Vedanta feels like an ocean, and my brother, when he finished his MBA, he joined the company and he worked in Vedanta for a little bit and he found himself being a cog in a very, very, very large machine that was already up and running and it didn't feel at the time he was around 27, 28, it didn't feel like it was ours, like it belonged to us, like it was something we could drive and create and mold into the kind of company that we wanted to do, to sort of run. So we decided to start something, start something of our own.
Speaker 3:He always had an interest in manufacturing and in technology based manufacturing, and from a very young age, I had an interest in sustainability and climate change. In fact, if I can give you a little bit of backstory, when I was 16 years old, I spent one summer running a tree plantation drive in Rajasthan, in the desert state, where we raised money for to sort of have 30,000 saplings planted in various arid areas of Rajasthan and each of these saplings to ensure the plant was taken care of. We appointed one child in one public school in Rajasthan as the ambassador of that plant, and that child was given a booklet that taught him the importance of having and taking care of plants from all kinds of perspectives, and I'm happy to say that there are over 20,000 trees today in Rajasthan still alive and kicking that we planted almost 15 years ago now. So that is so in. Climate change and the environment has always been something of interest to me, so that is why we decided to. It was we were so perfectly positioned as well. It was 2017.
Speaker 3:Conversations around ESG and carbon neutrality you were just picking up around the world. This was definitely an interest of mine. Having this resources sector is in our blood. Every day, at lunch, at dinner, the conversation at home is around the resources sector. It's something we know so well, so it's what we're good at.
Speaker 3:So this was Runaia was a very natural merge of our interests, our passions and our specific skill sets and abilities. So that's a little bit about why we decided to branch off on our own and start something of our own. The vision that I had when we started Runaia was that sustainability will be one of the three largest drivers of profitability for the resources sector in years to come, and I think, I think I'm very, very glad to see that we are seeing. We are seeing that sentiment that we started with in 2017 materialized today. I think the resources sector at large has come to the understanding that longevity in terms of perception can only come from becoming more climate friendly and more ESG friendly, and also, we're seeing the resources sector every day look to find solutions that are not cost based solutions, but circular solutions, solutions that increase their output but improve their performance in terms of climate change. So that's a little bit about how we were well timed, I think, to start Runaia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, totally. It's very relevant during the current times because a lot of people have now started talking about ESG and carbon neutrality has sort of become the first words today. So you're already ahead in the game, I must say.
Speaker 3:A little bit ahead of the curve, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, as I was reading about Runaia, I came across this concept of circular economy, which I would want you to elaborate a little bit more for us, and how Runaia is the leading player in this particular space.
Speaker 3:So I'll give you two perspectives, actually, arshad, on circular economy. The first is a consumer perspective. So what really we need to start thinking about from a consumer perspective is multiple use. Right now we've right now the world is evolved into the single use mindset, where we are using several things once and then throwing them away, discarding them unethically. This ranges from plastic cups to mobile phones, you know, and everything in between.
Speaker 3:And the crazy thing here, the thing that I find craziest, is in India we've grown up at least when I was growing up, my grandma, even my mom If a plastic bag came home by chance, it was folded and kept in a drawer to be reused. If a plastic water bottle or a 2 litre coke bottle has come home, there is a 0% chance that it's going in a dustbin. That is being saved by someone and has been used for years preciously as a water bottle. So we've come from this tradition of multiple use. But sadly, these planetary global movements towards single use have sort of seeped into our Indian culture as well. And that is what circular economy is. Circular economy is reuse. It's if something has finished its initial use and then gets used again for alternative purpose. From a consumer point of view, I see that as maybe the most beautiful circular economy. And then, of course, we have circular economy from a manufacturing point of view, which is where Runeia operates. From a manufacturing point of view, what circular economy means is it can have a few connotations, but what it means is any waste that we generate in the manufacturing process are then repurposed to either create other products or to create more of that same product, and any products which finish their life cycle reenter the manufacturing space and then are recreated into finished products to be reused. A circular economy is an economy in which all raw materials which enter get turned into finished products and then finally come back into being a raw material to be turned into finished products again. And this is exactly how we operate at Runeia.
Speaker 3:What we are doing is we are looking at the larger resources sector. This includes ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and oil and gas, and we are understanding what waste and byproducts are being created in the manufacturing of these products. We are taking those waste and byproducts. We are recovering metal from them. So our current technologies are able to recover a whole around 10 metals from waste generated in aluminum manufacturing and zinc manufacturing, and we are able to return those metals to the manufacturer. So the manufacturer they are becoming sustainable and they are drastically reducing the environmental impact. But it doesn't become a cost factor, it becomes an increase in volume, it becomes a profit factor for them, it increases their bottom line. And then, of course, they are able to brand themselves as being circular, as we have been discussing. So this is exactly what we do. All of our processes are able to recover metal and then convert whatever residue remains into saleable products. So all our processes combined leave not one kilo of waste or byproduct untreated. Nothing that comes to Runaya will ever enter a landfill.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome. So now that we are speaking about Runaya, I would also want to know what are a few initiatives that you lead at Runaya and like to know a bit more about it. Sure.
Speaker 3:So between my brother and I, we lead Runaya. As I mentioned to earlier, we have two verticals. We have a manufacturing vertical, which is led by my brother, and we have a sustainability vertical, which is led by me. This division that has happened has happened very naturally, based on both of our interests and, apart from this, everything within the sustainability vertical is being led by me. I also look after ESG across all our businesses, so our sustainability businesses and our technology businesses.
Speaker 3:Within sustainability businesses, esg is not just a business practice, but it is our core business in itself. But even within our manufacturing businesses, we have brought in complete ESG global practices. So even our manufacturing businesses function 100% within what you would want an ESG focused company to sort of how you would want an ESG focused company to operate. So, for example, we even have, I think, is the only company in the, especially in the resources sector, where in our direct team, we have close to 60% diversity, and that's something we're very proud of, especially being in the resources sector, where the rest of the sector will be at around one digit, less than 10% diversity. And again, these are not things that we do out of some altruism. We believe that a diverse organization will deliver more for us than a traditional organization. We believe that an ethical organization will deliver more for us than an organization where integrity and principles are lacking. And then, lastly, in terms of ESG, climate is important for us across our businesses. So, across our manufacturing and sustainability businesses. We are currently at around 65% renewable energy for all our requirements and by the end of this financial year we'll be at 100% renewable energy. This is mostly rooftop renewable energy. So those are a few of the initiatives which I'm driving across the group.
Speaker 3:Another initiative which I drive from the Vedanta Point of View is we have a program called Vedanta Football within Vedanta Sports, and it's a we've been, I've been running this, it's my passion project, which I've been running for around six years now, and we completely focus on grassroots development of talent for the country. So in football, we have two focuses. The first is what I just mentioned in terms of excellence to create a funnel of talent for our national teams, and then the second is in terms of right to play. We want all children in the country to have a safe space to be able to play with a qualified, licensed coach that understands some basic first aid and is able to offer all children in India a very safe space to play. This is something that that that that I had to mention to you, arjun, because it is very specifically a passion of mine We've had we have currently three of our alumni in the Indian national setup, whether that's the men's national team, the women's national team or the under 19 team, and we are hoping we are hoping one day that that, from our facilities in Goa and Rajasthan, we we soon dominate in terms of talent creation for the country.
Speaker 3:And, on a very personal note, I know somewhere inside me that what I want to contribute is I would like to be significantly involved in taking the Indian women's national team to qualify for the World Cup. I have worked with our Indian women's national team players in the past and the experiences have left me unimaginably optimistic. The amount of talent and the amount of lack of infrastructure and training and importance given to these athletes is really eye-opening. So this is something that somewhere inside me, I know this is something that I want to work towards. I truly believe that spending 100 rupees on women's sports in India today is worth millions of rupees, if spending 100 rupees on men's sports is worth thousands of rupees. So that is a little bit on the personal side of something that I really am driving and I hope that in my life that is something that I'd be able to achieve.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. I must say kudos to you for you. I hope we have more people like you, who are there to make things work, not just for your sense, but also from seeing it from a very not just a humanitarian point of view, but just to give them what they actually deserve.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could tell you 100 stories, and I will one day. But these girls, they deserve the world. They deserve the world. They've touched my heart very personally, and the boys as well, and we're willing to say that, indian football, we are only moving upwards from you.
Speaker 2:Definitely so. Talking about Runeia, could you delve into the specific technologies and the cutting edge solutions that Runeia has been implementing to eliminate waste and recover mental sustainability?
Speaker 3:Definitely, this is the core of what I do every day. This is the heart of Runeia. What we do is as a mode of operation, mode of execution. We understand waste management problems being faced by the resources sector. So even our first project, for example, it was born through us understanding that the aluminum sector is struggling to dispose of waste and that waste in India is generated at around 100,000 tons a year. And all of this was being landfill up until 2017. And 2017, there was legislation which prevented companies from landfilling it, and then they were forced to look for a solution. But and so, in terms of our technologies, what we do is, when we identify a problem, we go out to the world and to the country to understand what the best solutions are available and then we partner with those solutions. Our partnerships have ranged from technology transfers to JVs and, in partnership with those solutions, we deploy them. We deploy them in India, but our technology selection process is a little bit different, archit, than what most might look at.
Speaker 3:There are several factors here in terms of technology selection that one must consider, the most important of which will always be metal recovery. So what we are doing, the essence of what we are doing, is circular and to be circular we must recover as much metal as possible from the waste. So first we look at metal recovery and then our second criteria, with which we have no room to wiggle, zero tolerance to move away from, is emissions, total emissions. So we will only select technologies that are end to end, so 100% of the waste which is generated is metal, is recovered, and then the residues have to be completely, 100% treated and processed to become saleable. So this is the exact thing that we have implemented in both the aluminum and zinc industries. As of today, we are recovering upwards of 30,000 tons of metal from waste. 30,000 tons of metal which was earlier going into landfills is being recovered by Runaya Technologies. So we have around we have one technology in aluminum or two technologies in aluminum and around seven technologies in zinc, and we are recovering aluminum, zinc, lead, silver, copper, cobalt and zinc sulphate. So we have a product which we are currently recovering from our existing technologies. With a few expansions, we will very soon be at 80,000 tons of metal to recover. And that is a little bit about our technologies. In fact, in aluminum, the technology which we've selected is the only global technology that recovers aluminum from waste. That does not include the use of a furnace. So that was our main criteria to selecting the technologies. This technology the process of recovery in itself is so sustainable as compared to the other processes. In fact, through our aluminum technology, it is in partnership with a German company called Taha International.
Speaker 3:Through our aluminum process, we are able to recover what we believe is the lowest carbon aluminum in the world. I'll give you a very brief idea, arjun. If you produce aluminum through traditional energy, you would consume around 15 tons of carbon to manufacture one ton of aluminum. To be considered green aluminum, you need to manufacture aluminum at four tons of carbon. So what that would entail is switching from traditional energy to renewable energy. So once you switch to renewable energy, you can produce aluminum at around four tons of carbon per ton of aluminum. Our aluminum that we are recovering has been certified at 600 kgs of carbon per ton of aluminum. It's ultra-green. We are confident that it is the greenest aluminum in India, via Country Mile, and in fact I have not heard confirmation from anyone in any manufacturers in the world that they're able to manufacture aluminum at 600 kgs of carbon. So these are the kind of technologies which we are using to deliver results for our clients and to also sort of reduce the impact of the resources sector on the plant.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So we've been talking about a lot of milestones and accomplishments of Runaya, so is there anything that you would like to add up?
Speaker 3:So, Milestones, we're still a young company. I think that we have a long way to go. We have been brought up to dream very big. Currently, as of last month, Runaya would have prevented 100,000 tons of waste from entering landfills. That's something that really really helps me sleep at night. It's something that I could not be more proud of. But, at the same time, our journey to 100,000 tons has been four years. We expect our journey to 200,000 tons to be around six months. So by around the first quarter of next year, we expect to double our capacity and I have a target by 2025 to be at at least 500,000 tons of waste prevented from entering landfills and by 2028, we want to be at 3 million tons. That is the target that we hold for ourselves. That is the only milestone that I see in my mind. The day we can say we've started preventing millions of tons of waste from entering landfills through Runaya, that'll be the day that I feel like we've. You know, that's the beginning. That's the new beginning of our journey. That's something we're really looking forward to.
Speaker 3:Apart from landfill waste, we have a target to be at around 65, 70% diversity in our direct and indirect workforce. So currently we have over 100 direct employees and over 600 indirect employees and we're working very closely with our partners to bring up, to upskill their diversity workforce, train them to become forklift operators All my shift in charges are already diversity candidates and the. So that is. I think 55% is a milestone we're very happy to talk about and show off about, considering the industry standard is less than 10. But again, like I said, we have a very, very long way to go. Milestones and achievements will continue to happen, but our eyes are to the sky. For us, this is just the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I mean as much as I've heard from you. I totally confide with your vision and I hope and I pray that it's definitely a way to go for Runaya and more organizations like that were actually making an impact. So, talking about the future of the growth of sustainable ecosystem in India, how has the sector evolved and what do you see are going to be the upcoming developments down the line?
Speaker 3:I think this is a super interesting question that you've asked. I'd love to set a little bit of context here, arjun. When we talk about the sustainability space globally and in India, I think we can break it up into three categories. The first is what is called MSW. Msw is municipal solid waste, for in layman's language, that is our urban waste. That is waste we generate through just living every day and ordering food and all the waste we generate from just being alive. The second category is agricultural waste and, as we know right now, delhi is about to start experiencing a lot of trouble through agricultural waste that is not being ethically disposed. And then the third category, where Runaya operates, is industrial waste. So when we see this breakup, you will find I'll chip that when we look for startups in sustainability in India and if you want to create a fourth, you can say energy, but for me energy is a separate piece in itself you will find companies that are operating in MSW. I myself know of more than 10 startups that are looking towards how, towards collection, segregation, conversion of municipal waste into biofuel and to plasma gas into several usable products. We have a few companies. There's need for more, but we have a few companies that are operating in this MSW space. In terms of the scale of MSW, it is estimated that humanity this year will generate around 2 billion tons 2 billion tons of municipal solid waste. Then, if we come to agricultural waste again, you'll find there are 10 to 15 startups, now quite mature as well, operating across Indore, delhi, bombay, chandigarh. There are looking into this agricultural waste space. They're taking the rice husk from Chandigarh, which will soon start being burnt, and they're converting it into biofuel so that those fumes, the smoke, doesn't hit Delhi super hard in the winter months. But of course there is still room for more companies in the space. But there are a few companies that are operating already and globally. This year we are expecting between 10 to 20 billion tons of agricultural waste to be generated, so agricultural waste is already 5 to 10 times larger of a problem than urban waste.
Speaker 3:And then when we look at our third bucket, industrial waste, I hope you can try your best, but we've been looking around. We can't find more than two or three companies in India and not more than five or six companies around the world that are operating in this industrial waste space, and there's so many reasons for that. If I was a startup founder that did not have such a deep understanding of the resources space, even I would struggle to how to enter this space Like who to speak to. There's like five companies that are mining, three companies that are doing oil and gas. All these companies are mega corporations that have hundreds of thousands of employees. It's intimidating. And but the in terms of the actual waste generation, the industrial sector this year, this calendar year, is expected to generate just under 100 billion tons of waste. So the industrial sector is 50 times bigger than the urban sector and five times bigger than the agricultural sector. And even though the scale is Infinite, 100 billion tons of waste is infinite. The participation of startups is the least.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping more companies come up in our space. I'm hoping young entrepreneurs and engineers at our Indian schools and colleges start looking towards, from a young age, developing solutions, creating technologies. If there are any young engineers listening today that are looking at creating technologies to recover metal or to convert industrial waste into any products and they have some lab results or some pilot results and you're looking to take the next step, please be in touch with us. We'd love to support you in any way, but there's a lot of room for our Indian startup ecosystem, specifically engineer founded startups, kids who've come from top engineering colleges that are interested in the metallurgical sphere. I think there's a lot of potential for that, for technologies and startups to evolve to recover metal or to process industrial waste, or to understand more very large picture structures and processes for this 100 billion tons of industrial waste. So I think the size of the space right now is close to infinite. So there can only be more room for young entrepreneurs to get involved.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and that's going to come with awareness, with people like you who are pioneering the way into this particular industry. So my last question to you is how does Runaya Group align with the vision of Atman, irbhad Bharat and Make in India, and what is the role of manufacturing sector in achieving India's dream of becoming the 5 trillion economy?
Speaker 3:This. I wish my brother had joined as well to answer this question. He's very, very, very passionate about Make in India. What we, in terms of we want to completely align with the government's initiatives. Even if you see our sustainability businesses, it is moving in line with Swachh Bharat. It is we want to align ourselves with the government's vision for India's tomorrow and I think Make in India is one of those beautiful initiatives. If startup founders, companies, dig into the kind of incentives and programs that the government has created for people to switch manufacturing setups into India, I think they'll be super interested to see what exists already. This is exactly what we believe at Runaya. We believe that in India we can manufacture better quality at a drastically lower price than 95% of the rest of the world. That is so clear to us. The quality of engineers and craftsmanship that we have in India is unmatched, and there has been a few of global companies have had this fear for many years that, even if we see Apple and iPhones and their heavy reliance on China for manufacturing and for many years they've tabled with this concept of can we make our phones in India, can we make our phones in India? The fear which sits with them is a fear of quality and I think we are entering a time where India is positioned to deliver that top notch quality and I think that's going to be super exciting for Make in India, even at Runaya.
Speaker 3:We are currently manufacturing several products in terms of Make in India, the first of which is we are manufacturing what is called FIP rods. These are fiber reinforced plastic rods. We manufacture them here and we are exporting them to customers all around the world. Any country where they are going for 4G or 5G expansions would be target markets for us. This product is the strength member of an internet cable. So when internet cables are laid to give it strength and that it doesn't perish under the elements very quickly, you add a rod, an FRP rod. So we are currently manufacturing around 2 million kilometers of FRP rods.
Speaker 3:And our second product it's in JV, with an Australian company called Minova. We are manufacturing products which are used for tuddling. So these products are called rock bolts, resins and wire meshes and you might have seen them when, if you're driving, maybe from Mumbai to Pune on the wherever we have the parts, the landslide kind of from the places where the landslides happen often you'll see these wire meshes put around the rocks. So at Runaya we're manufacturing these products. The product which we are manufacturing was earlier being manufactured in Australia. Now Minova is switching its entire manufacturing strength to India basis the quality with which we are able to manufacture and India is, of course. We are manufacturing at the lowest cost that Minova is able to produce its products anywhere in the world and we are selling what was earlier being imported. We are now meeting India's requirements, plus exporting the product into several parts of Australia, africa and Europe.
Speaker 3:And the tunnels in terms of tunneling, this is the only rock bolt, minova's rock bolt. It's the only rock bolt in the world that since the 1960s, since it started, it has had zero failures. There have been zero bolts that Minova has manufactured that have failed and zero tunnels that Minova has secured with their products that have collapsed. And it's been, I think, over 60 years now. So the quality is there, the cost effective manufacturing is here, india looking forward five trillion economy.
Speaker 3:Everyone is saying the same thing. I went to college in the states as well. I wanted to hang around there for a bit as well, but what enticed me back wasn't being at home, it was the idea of India and the unlimited potential that we have here today. I think it has to start with manufacturing. I think we have to stop importing products which we can manufacture in India in a much more cost effective fashion. I think the government is very ready to support these initiatives. I think making India is a beautiful, beautiful thought process, and it is supported with various grants and subsidies for companies and young entrepreneurs that are looking to stop the import of some of some products into India and start manufacturing of those in the country.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So, who knows, to all the work that you and Runaayana have been doing and I hope that there's definitely a way to go ahead and thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and coming over for this podcast and sharing your amazing point of views and enlightening us with such new terminologies and new initiatives that Runaayana has been running.
Speaker 3:Thanks a lot, archit. It's been a pleasure. I think this is just the start of our journey. I know this is not just the start of your journey. You guys are approaching 500 podcasts now. Congratulations to everyone who I've spoken to in the last couple of days. It has only had kind things to say A lot of listeners amongst my friends as well, so I'm hoping I haven't embarrassed myself too much today. But thanks for your time. It's a pleasure. I hope we can keep in touch.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and thanks to all the listeners for tuning in to this episode.