Hungarian invention CompoBot could be an effective way to provide sustainable office buildings with an eco-friendly way to compost and recycle biodegradable and food waste. Icon Real Estate Management supported the startup behind the robot in the pre-production phase to offer its tenants a new option for environmentally conscious office operations.
An office community of 50 to 100 people can fill the replaceable capsule of the CompoBot, a home-grown waste processing robot, in about a week or two. The robot can produce roughly 20 kg of CompoMix, the nutrient essence of humus, from 50 liters of organic waste, typically food waste, which is ecologically extremely valuable. This innovation offers an effective solution for companies that pay particular attention to sustainability and the environment. Icon Real Estate Management was one of the first in Hungary to announce support for the waste processing robot, even at the prototype development stage.
The CompoBot was launched in the kitchen of the Icon office building in December 2022 and has been rapidly growing in popularity ever since. It allows employees to return leftover food and other valuable organic waste from office life, such as fruit and vegetable scraps, and fallen leaves from office plants or coffee grounds, which have been “dumped” in the municipal waste bin, to the urban green environment in the form of nutrients.
“At Icon, we believe it is very important to leave a liveable world for our children and grandchildren. That’s why, when we learned about the concept of Compocity, we didn’t think twice, we ordered the composting robot while it was still in the development phase, and in doing so, we helped to perfect the CompoBot. And our experience has given us the opportunity to learn how the solution can be integrated into the operation of the houses we manage,” said Gábor Nagy, managing director of Icon.
“The CompoBot also helps us in community building, as thanks to the associated app we can track not only on an individual but also on a company level how much compost Icon’s robot has produced and how much we have contributed to reducing the environmental impact of our office and feeding different plants,” he added.
The composting robot in Icon’s office building, which employs more than 100 people, has clearly been liked and well-maintained by the staff: in the first three months of operation, it “ate” enough food waste to process and contribute to the production of 210 kg of compost, with the amount increasing month by month.
Furthermore, Compocity is seizing the opportunity: in partnership with NGOs, it is actively participating in weekly tree planting programs in Budapest this year, using CompoBots to involve composting communities.
CompoBot is currently operating successfully in the offices of seven large companies.
The Hungarian startup behind the robot is building on the experience gained from robots already in operation and is preparing for series production, which could start in the second half of this year. After that, they plan to deploy around 100 devices by the end of the year, and with plans for international expansion, they expect to deploy around 500 CompoBots in the next two years, which could prevent the release of up to the equivalent of 4.8 million kilometers of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions from air travel.
Compocity has already won the “Most Improved Startup” award in January 2020 and was awarded the “Scale & Connect” tech award in Birmingham in June 2022.
Source: Budapest Business Journal
