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Optoro - 2015 Sustainability Award Winner

Optoro Award Winner

Optoro is a technology company that is focused on connecting returned and excess retail goods with customers who can use them, keeping items out of landfills and extending products’ lifespans. From its humble origins as an eBay drop-off location in Georgetown to its Series C funding as a Green Growth organization, Optoro has been dedicated to creating a more sustainable retail industry. Founded in 2004 by two D.C. residents, Tobin Moore and Adam Vitarello, Optoro grew from the idea that items unwanted by one person still had value to others. Growing rapidly in the past few years, Optoro now employs more than 200 people locally, works with 20 of the top 100 retailers in the world, and has a corporate office located in the heart of downtown D.C.

Optoro presents a new solution for an outdated and environmentally damaging industry, reverse logistics. Traditionally, when purchased products are returned or deemed excess, they are thrown away or shipped in highly fuel-consumptive trucks to a distribution center, after which they are sent to a series of  liquidators and resellers. During this prolonged chain of excessive shipments, many more goods get discarded because of shipping damage. Optoro provides a software solution that enables retailers and manufacturers to sell this inventory directly to consumers from a centralized location. As a result, this reduces shipments and waste generated from transporting these goods and facilitates the reuse of functional, used products.

Optoro’s environmentally-focused mission has been recognized by some of the biggest tech venture capital firms in the world. In December 2014, Optoro raised $50M from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ Green Growth Fund and Generation Investment Management, co-founded by former vice president Al Gore.

Optoro’s business model and company culture are dedicated to protecting the environment and building a more sustainable world for its inhabitants. Here are just a few examples of Optoro’s sustainability initiatives:

  • Optoro has a full-time Director of Sustainability, who has measured the transportation and waste impacts of the returns industry and comparative impact that Optoro’s solution makes.
  • Optoro’s warehouses recently switched to shipping materials that have higher recycled and biodegradable content and use less virgin plastic.
  • Optoro partners with Trees for the Future, an organization that plants trees in rural communities in developing countries. For every purchase made on BLINQ.com, Optoro’s eCommerce website, Optoro plants one tree through Trees for the Future.
  • Optoro offers a monthly stipend for public transportation, as well as an in-office shower and bike storage room.
  • Optoro has created a Green Team. The Green Team has led the development of a more streamlined, understandable recycling system; begun research on the most effective smart power strips to save energy; and has helped fellow employees learn behaviors such as turning off lights and monitors when they are not in use.
  • On Earth Day, volunteers worked at the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, an organization that supports community gardening as a means to increase access to local, healthy food. Another volunteer group helped the Anacostia Watershed Society to pick up trash along the Anacostia River.

Optoro Award Winner
Two members of the Green Team with a new three-dimensional trash sign to help employees sort waste more accurately

Optoro Award Winner
A group of Optorians volunteering at the Neighborhood Farm Initiative
Optoro Group

Group Photo from left to right are: Lindsey Fell, Ryan Howard, Christina Chang, Ashley Field, Amy Sung, Joe Nicolia, Anne Rodriguez, TJ Bozada, Ann Calamai, Omar Elitreby, Vanessa Lam, Kelsey Woodard, Caitlyn Campbell