At a composting and compostable products conference in Fall 2024, I watched a room full of passionate professionals agree that funding and infrastructure were their biggest barriers to diverting food waste from landfills, then struggle to find anyone willing to actually do something about it. Shortly after, a private capital provider asked me which composters were looking for capital. I didn't have an answer, so I said: let's get intentional about this, and I co-organized a networking event at the national composting conference. That's how the Compost Capital Network (CCN) was born. It exists to educate and connect composters, organic waste haulers, and capital providers.

My background is in environmental and agricultural engineering and permaculture, and I've spent 15 years in this industry working across the country, from the design and permitting of composting facilities to environmental compliance and the training of operators and entrepreneurs. I keep seeing the same thing: good businesses that can't get financed. Meanwhile, 40 million tons of food waste are landfilled every year, generating 58% of the methane emissions that come from landfills. At the same time, our soils are starved for the organic matter that compost provides, the foundation of long-term fertility and resilience.

To start closing that gap, CCN teamed up with a student consulting group at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. We interviewed composting businesses and lenders across the country and found the core disconnect: operators lack the financial fluency lenders require, and lenders don't understand the composting business model well enough to get comfortable with the risk.

CCN would like to launch an investor readiness program that combines financial training, expert-led workshops, and one-on-one mentorship. This funding will help us finalize the curriculum and run our first cohort of up to 10 composting businesses this Fall and Winter. Our goal is simple: more composters who are both environmentally vital and financially sustainable, turning wasted food and other organic wastes into products to develop healthier soil across the country.

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Asides from this, since January 2025, CCN has organized 2 networking events at the national composting conference, a state level financing workshop in NC (and published the presentation recordings and slides for free), was invited to speak on The Composter podcast about the future of financing alongside BioCycle, and co-organized financing panels at the national conference. CCN is a fiscally sponsored project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.