The REUZE Foundation

Jonah Shell, Chief Sustainability Officer, REUZEit Inc is featured in CXO Magazine on Aug 28, 2025.

Narrated by Justin Andrews

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Or, if you prefer to read the old-fashioned way….

REUZEit is on a mission to help the world make better use of its equipment while reducing waste. The company supports industries in balancing profitability with sustainability by applying Circular Economic principles to surplus asset management. In the biotech and life sciences sectors, REUZEit has reshaped how companies such as Thermo Fisher, Gilead, and Moderna manage excess lab and production equipment.

“Our platform makes it simple for labs to reuse, redeploy, and remarket valuable capital assets instead of throwing them away,” says Jonah Shell, Chief Sustainability Officer at REUZEit. Powered by AI, this approach has kept more than 4.3 million pounds of equipment out of landfills and generated over 45 million dollars in managed assets each year.

From Finance to Sustainability

Jonah began his career in finance and sales before moving into sustainability. He chose finance because it offered a solid understanding of how different functions work together to run a business. His time in sales taught him the importance of solving customer problems instead of just making a sale. “Rather than “selling” the customer, which can create a winner-loser mentality, I found that being an advocate for the customer’s needs helps the customer trust your input is in their best interests and leads to better results in the long-term, even if you don’t make a sale today,” Jonah says.

He realized that in any business decision, money is only one part of the equation. There are often hidden benefits and secondary stakeholders who also gain from a deal. This thinking shaped his decision to pursue an MBA in business sustainability, allowing him to help businesses integrate environmental and social considerations into their decisions.

Life took a turn when Jonah became a single parent. He balanced PTA meetings and coaching soccer with his work as an outside B2B sales representative and capital asset buyer for a life sciences contract research organization. To be more present for his children, he shifted to part-time remote work for almost two years. “Not many working parents get to chaperone every field trip and be there for drop-off and pick-up. It’s probably even less common for dads, so I’m grateful I had that time,” Jonah shares. During this period, Jonah earned his MBA from Marylhurst University in 2014, focusing on business sustainability and renewable energy.

The experience taught him that running a home, much like running a business, works best with collaboration. Leaders, he believes, should be ready to lead by example and step in to help with any task, even the less glamorous ones. It also shaped his approach to hiring, making him more open to candidates with unconventional career paths. “I often gravitate more towards someone that’s been knocked down but was able to pick themselves up than a “perfect candidate” that has had less to prove. I’ve ended up hiring some stellar employees who didn’t necessarily have the strongest resume,” Jonah explains.

Building REUZEit’s Foundation

When Jonah joined REUZEit, the company was a small, committed team with a single branch. Everyone wore multiple hats to meet client needs. Jonah knew his sustainability training would be valuable in the long run, but in the early stages, his sales and marketing experience had the biggest impact. “I was often the one taking pictures and creating listings of the equipment we had and then, once I found a buyer, I’d have to collect payment, test the system’s functionality and even pack it for shipping,” he recalls.

As the company grew, Jonah naturally took on more hiring and training. His wide range of experience within the business made him a go-to resource for new team members. He eventually became President, building a team where employees could focus on specialized roles instead of trying to do it all.

Today, REUZEit operates six branches in three countries, each with teams dedicated to their specific markets. This growth allowed Jonah to step fully into his role as Chief Sustainability Officer. “While I’m still involved with the sales and marketing of the company, one of my main focuses now is reporting the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to our clients that our asset management program provides primarily through landfill avoidance and lifecycle extension of equipment,” Jonah says.

Circular Economy in Action

REUZEit’s CE-SAM model combines Surplus Asset Management with Circular Economy principles, creating a complete solution that includes asset pickup, refurbishment, redeployment, resale, and donation. Its AI-powered platform has cut the time it takes to process surplus equipment from 45 minutes to just seconds, enabling real-time listings and valuations. This approach delivers value in four areas: sourcing cost savings, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and landfill waste, improving customer access to equipment and extending its lifecycle, and providing data-driven insights. Some clients have seen up to 99 percent GHG reduction when redeploying equipment.

One notable example was a multimillion-dollar site shutdown for a service partner in the Northeast, covering more than two million square feet. The REUZEit team managed asset transfers, redeployments, and lease turnovers, recovering $34 million in equipment value in 2024 alone. This translated into $13 million in recurring revenue for REUZEit, along with cost avoidance and savings for the client. More than 200 metric tons of scientific and analytical equipment were kept out of landfills.

“We use metrics set by the EPA to calculate the metric tons of carbon equivalent from lifecycle extension and recycling of e-waste. To add context, we then use another calculator from the EPA that demonstrates the GHG impact in an easier to understand factor such as the number of homes powered for a year,” Jonah explains. For the project above, the GHG reductions equated to removing more than 10,000 passenger vehicles from the road for a year or growing 780,000 tree saplings for a decade.

REUZEit’s sustainability reporting is based on EPA e-waste studies, but many types of lab and analytical equipment do not fit standard material profiles. To address this, REUZEit’s white paper examined the manufacturing of two common systems it works with, minus-80C freezers and mass spectrometers, to create better estimates of the environmental impact of lifecycle extension. The findings showed that refurbishment and redeployment through a closed-loop supply chain can significantly reduce CO? emissions while delivering clear financial benefits to global buyers.

The Business Case for Being Green

Many businesses still see sustainability as a cost center. Jonah believes that does not have to be the case. He says, “That’s why we provide free reporting of the GHG emissions reduction from our activities. We can show you the savings from moving equipment internally instead of buying new, give you a check for the secondary market sales, and let you know how much waste and emissions you avoided.”

A common misconception, Jonah says, is that environmental impact and shareholder returns are in conflict. While that may have been true in the past, companies like REUZEit are finding ways to deliver environmental benefits alongside financial returns. Capital recovery through resale, or cost avoidance by reducing manufacturing and sourcing needs, can create a net-positive outcome.

Jonah also points out that recycling is often seen as the best end-of-life option for used goods, but according to the 10 R’s of circularity, it ranks near the bottom, just above incineration. “We operate higher in the order of priority by helping reduce, reuse, repair, and refurbish our client’s equipment, he explains.

Industries such as aerospace, healthcare, oil and gas, and manufacturing are especially well-suited for circular economy adoption. These sectors depend on expensive, specialized equipment that is often underused or discarded too early. Circularity in these industries can reduce costs, extend equipment life, lower environmental impact, and strengthen supply chain resilience, a growing advantage in a time of global disruption.

Leading Sustainability at Scale

Jonah opines, “The ESG or sustainability departments of many companies have direct access to the C-suite and corporate leadership which gives them a voice with the primary decision makers of an organization. On the other hand, the people that actually implement an initiative are often on the frontlines or the tip of the spear.” He believes the role of a sustainability leader is to connect these two sides, ensuring that the needs of frontline teams are understood by leadership, and that those same teams are engaged and supported when executing a plan. Empathy, assertiveness, and a creative approach are central to making this work.

Looking ahead, REUZEit aims to scale its AI-powered platform to manage 20 times more equipment over the next five years. From a sustainability perspective, the focus will be on carbon avoidance by significantly lowering clients’ carbon footprints. Jonah stresses that a product’s carbon footprint represents more than its role in climate change. It also reflects pollution from mining, processing, manufacturing, logistics, and use. “These impacts can and should be addressed by applying circular economics, which not only reduces waste but also delivers net-positive financial returns, as we’ve seen firsthand at REUZEit,” Jonah says.

The total carbon footprint of new equipment entering and re-entering markets is vast. Scaling circular practices can deliver environmental gains that are both significant and lasting. Jonah believes this approach offers faster and deeper benefits than many mainstream sustainability measures because it tackles the problem at its origin by reducing the need for new resource extraction. For him, the path forward is clear: the more businesses embrace circularity, the more they will unlock a future where economic growth and environmental responsibility move forward together.

For More Info: https://reuzeit.com/