Chinese recycling firm Carbon Zero aims to replicate success overseas after Nasdaq IPO

Shenzhen-based recycling firm Carbon Zero Technologies International, which is eyeing a US listing, is aiming to replicate its success in mainland China globally despite geopolitical uncertainties, according to its founder.

Carbon Zero, founded in 2016, operates an online platform that dispatches recycling orders from individuals, retail outlets and consumer brands to its recycling personnel. With thousands of physical sorting centres across China, the company then sells recycled items to dismantling and disposal firms.

"The recycling industry in China is relatively fragmented ... with a large number of individual practitioners," founder and CEO Baitong Tang said in an interview last week. "There is a need for a platform-based company or a formal recycling system to effectively integrate these scattered and disorderly operations. Our model happens to address this issue."

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge , our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Last year, Carbon Zero generated revenues of nearly 4 billion yuan (US$564.6 million), an increase of 35 per cent from a year earlier, it said in its initial public offering (IPO) prospectus.

Baitong Tang, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based recycling firm Carbon Zero Technologies. Photo: Xinmei Shen alt=Baitong Tang, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based recycling firm Carbon Zero Technologies. Photo: Xinmei Shen>

In May, the China Securities Regulatory Commission approved the firm to go public abroad. The following month, it filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange, with the timing of the IPO yet to be determined.

While the net profit margin remains low at 0.4 per cent in 2022 and 0.1 per cent in 2023, Carbon Zero is already gearing up to launch its services in Singapore by February 2025, followed by Hong Kong, Europe or the US, according to Tang.

"From a long-term strategy perspective, what we need is to capture more markets," Tang said.

While many Chinese businesses going overseas in recent years have faced increased geopolitical headwinds amid escalating trade tensions between the US and China, Carbon Zero is optimistic about making it in Western markets, according to Tang.

"It would be false to say that we absolutely don't have any concerns, but I think these concerns are minor because of the nature of our industry," Tang said, adding that the company does not fall under high-end technology categories such as semiconductors or biotech.