Our partner Basil Seggos recently sat down with Ron Gonen, the Founder & CEO of our client Closed Loop Partners, to discuss the company’s emergence as a powerhouse behind the growth of the circular economy. Through a dynamic investment firm, broad partnerships with corporate America, technological innovation, and operational businesses, Gonen has kept billions of pounds of materials in circulation through Closed Loop Partners' investments, all while supporting good-paying jobs. Circular Services, a company launched through Closed Loop Partners’ operating group, is now the largest, privately held recycling, reuse and composting company in the United States, with facilities in twelve states including a flagship recycling facility in New York City. Through Closed Loop Partners, Gonen has upended traditional business models, and is showing that what can be good for the environment can also be good for businesses and taxpayers alike. And he has big plans for the future.
1. Can you walk us through your professional journey before founding Closed Loop Partners — what experiences shaped your thinking about waste, materials, and the circular economy?
In high school, I worked for one of the first green architects in America, Paul Macht, where I first learned about the concepts of sustainability. I brought these concepts to life at an early age, and started a reuse program in my high school cafeteria.
When I graduated from college in the late ‘90s, I started my career in management consulting and software development, and realized there were a lot of technologies coming out that would make things more efficient from an environmental standpoint.
In my 20s, I decided to go to business school, as I was looking to start a business in the environmental space. While at Columbia Business School, I invested in my first business in the recycling space. I eventually exited that business, and in 2011, was recruited to join the Bloomberg Administration as the Deputy Commissioner for Sanitation, Recycling and Sustainability.
That role helped me understand the impact of public-private partnerships, and how to best collaborate with municipalities. Coming out of the Administration at the end of the third term, I started having conversations with brands that had backed my other ventures. The idea of a firm focused on investing in circular economy infrastructure was of interest amid growing market tailwinds, and that laid the foundation for Closed Loop Partners.
2. What was the specific moment or realization that convinced you there was a viable investment thesis — not just a moral argument — for funding circular economy infrastructure?
The first moment was recognizing that digital and social media tools were making it much easier to identify labor and environmental abuses across global supply chains, shedding light on the weaknesses of this system and spurring the need to move away from supply chains that were not only damaging, but costly.
The second was recognizing that transportation costs were going up, and increasing environmental weather challenges were making those transportation nodes more vulnerable, creating a need for more durable, domestic circular supply chains.
3. In the early days of Closed Loop Partners, what was the hardest part of persuading institutional investors and major consumer brands that recycling and reuse infrastructure could generate competitive returns?
A challenge in the early days of building the firm was breaking through an antiquated view that investing in something that also had a positive social and environmental impact would erode market-style returns. Since then, we have built a good track record that demonstrates the value of the circular economy.
Company Focus and Strategy
4. Closed Loop Partners operates across private equity, venture capital, and catalytic private credit, with an innovation center, and an operations group that manages Circular Services.
How do you decide which stage of the circular economy value chain — whether it's collection, sorting, processing, or manufacturing of new materials — offers the most compelling opportunity at any given time? How does Closed Loop Partners' platform help meet these opportunities?
At this stage, all three businesses across the firm have opportunities. It’s not about choosing between them, but about each business’s areas of focus and leveraging what each business can unlock to create maximum value.
By staying focused on building the circular economy, we have the ability to help eliminate the cost of waste and inefficient materials management, and take advantage of opportunities across the firm.
5. Your firm has attracted corporate backing from companies like Walmart, PepsiCo, and Unilever. What role do these strategic partners play beyond providing capital, and how does that relationship differ from a traditional LP-GP dynamic?
Many of our limited partners are leading strategic corporations. Those relationships give us a more grounded understanding of how sectors are evolving, and they make us part of a broader community of operators, innovators and decision makers. It’s a network we’re proud of, and it helps us meet founders and management teams we might not otherwise cross paths with.
6. Closed Loop Partners has been steadily growing since its founding in 2014. Can you tell the readers about some of your biggest accomplishments? In pure numbers, how much material have you prevented from entering landfills?
Since our founding, we have been investing in innovative entrepreneurs and municipal leaders advancing the circular economy. As of year-end 2025, we have kept nearly 20 billion pounds of materials in circulation through our investments.
The Circular Economy
7. How has the current landscape of shifting global trade and supply chains impacted the opportunity of the circular economy?
The volatility in global trade and supply chains has illustrated the opportunity to invest in domestic supply chains that rely on recycled and reused materials.
8. What do you see as the greatest structural risks to the growth of the circular economy — whether from policy uncertainty, commodity price volatility, or gaps in infrastructure? How do you convince a skeptical CFO or portfolio manager that circular supply chains can be more resilient and cost-effective than linear ones?
A challenge to the growth of the circular economy would be policies that favor extraction or use of virgin material. Good policy can be a major driver of keeping more materials in circulation.
Keeping valuable materials within domestic supply chains reduces the cost of extraction and landfilling, and makes supply chains more resilient. When the majority of commodities used in supply chains and manufacturing are recycled or reused commodities, that will be a milestone for the circular economy.
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