Thierry Sanders
The Netherlands, Founder of Kolekt, Netherlands
Abstract Title:
Optimizing National Investments in Waste ProcessingBiography:
Thierry Sanders is an entrepreneur and strategist dedicated to applying technology and finance to solve systemic social challenges in emerging markets. Thierry bridges the gap between high-level policy and on-the-ground operational reality. Thierry has presented at TEDx, the G20 Summit in Seoul Korea, and numerous international waste conferences. His work in the waste sector focuses on Digitisation, traceability, financial inclusion, EPR policy simplification and data simulation. Thierry is the founder of KOLEKT (kolekt.com), a Netherlands-based technology firm developing software solutions that help formalise and finance the waste management sector globally.
Research Interests:
What are the best investments in waste recycling, incineration, composting and other forms of waste processing for a country that will deliver the highest (a) financial returns, (b) levels of circularity, (c) diversion from landfill or (d) lowest CO2e emissions? The Kolekt Waste Investment Optimizer is an online decision making tool that helps governments formulate their policy decisions and investment proposals that will support the national waste objectives. The optimizer analyses the composition of a country’s waste streams, selecting feasible waste processing technologies from a portfolio of a hundred options such as waste-to-energy, recycling, composting, fillers, biogas, co-processing, pyrolysis. It then composes an investment plan over a 10 year period expanding existing facilities or proposing new processing options. The Optimizer provides the Capex, Opex, Revenue, Jobs, GHG emissions and NPV forecasts that a country needs to convince Development Finance Institutions or the Ministries of finance or economy. The key innovation is the use of Operations Research and Optimization techniques, developed in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam, which we have applied to datasets from the World Bank (What a Waste 3.0, 2026), Eurostat, ESA and publicly available vendor information. Attendees will gain insight into how optimization, and AI can be used to generate easy to understand policy options for the waste sector.