Who We Are
Driven By Purpose, Inspired by Progress
Bringing together diverse backgrounds and expertise from the public sector, nonprofits, businesses, and consultancies, we are a passionate group of changemakers.
Mission
Our mission is to redesign human systems for the good of people and the planet by developing innovative, scalable solutions.
At Delterra, we focus on the world’s most complex systemic environmental challenges, where incentives, information, and infrastructure are misaligned, making them appear too hard, too complex, or too costly to fix. To start, we’re tackling the broken recycling system in the global South.
Our Vision
We envision a world where human activities protect and restore a healthy planet.
Today, we are reimagining and redesigning the recycling systems in Argentina and Indonesia. Over the next few years, we plan to scale our operations to other countries struggling with the growing waste crises across Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
In the coming years, we aim to add other initiatives to our portfolio, all with the mission of developing innovative scalable solutions that redesign human systems for the good of people and the planet.
Founding Story
2018
McKinsey & Company founded McKinsey.org, a private corporate foundation, to develop and incubate innovative approaches to the world’s most complex environmental and social challenges.
2019
McKinsey.org launched Rethinking Recycling to help cities and communities transform their recycling and waste management systems, effectively improving environmental outcomes and boosting circularity while benefiting health, livelihoods and the economy.
2021
Having reached an inflection point where we were ready to further accelerate our impact, Rethinking Recycling transitioned out of McKinsey.org to become the flagship initiative of Delterra, a new independent environmental nonprofit. McKinsey & Company continues to support Delterra’s work and remains our Founding Partner.
2022
We are rapidly scaling our work in Indonesia and Argentina, with our flagship program Rethinking Recycling on track to reach 1.5M people with recycling and waste management services. Meanwhile with our second program, Plastic IQ, we are helping companies in Indonesia and Brazil rethink their packaging strategies with circularity in mind.
Our Values
Deliver impact commensurate to the crisis
- We design for inclusion and act with the urgency that sustainability challenges demand.
Serve as an ecosystem force multiplier
- We work hand in hand with partners to scale what works.
Cultivate a high-performing, inclusive culture
- We inspire and support each other to do our best work.
Working Principles
1. We go beyond theory to create practical solutions
We rapidly test, learn, and iterate our solutions on the ground to create proven impact in the real world that affects real lives, because changing systems means first understanding the human and economic dynamics at the heart of it all.
2. We leverage partnership for impact
From technology to implementation partners, corporations to governments, entrepreneurs to activists, we team up with those who are best placed to drive and scale change for maximum efficiency and impact.
3. We commit to the biggest picture
To create change that matters, we look at the broader circular economy and refocus our resources as needed. We think about how to make the greatest impact from end to end, designing scalable solutions for real people.
4. We adopt an inclusive approach
An inclusive approach is essential to creating effective human systems as well as contributing to a more just and equitable society. We unite diverse perspectives and lived experiences, from global business leaders to local community members.
5. We bring a track record of high performance
We bring strategic and analytical rigor to every problem we solve. We bring creativity and persistence to consistently deliver results in the face of broken systems and inevitable setbacks.
Impact
At Delterra, we measure our progress and ambition against our core success metric: environmental impact. These numbers highlight our ability and ambition to deliver system-wide change on large-scale environmental problems while improving people’s lives.
By 2025, we are on track to deliver:
How We Think
As an independent nonprofit, we combine our purpose-driven mission with the rigorous problem-solving approach of our founding partner McKinsey & Company and the pragmatism of the community organizers with whom we collaborate.
The result: real people working together to create real change across the ecosystem.
We are Delterra.
Team
Our Partners
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