Bintel Interview with Mateo Neri
This is our continued series of interviews with leaders in ESG and Sustainability. Our interview with Mateo Neri was April 13, 2023 and the transcript has been edited to fit this format. We had a chance to sit down with Mateo to talk about what he’s working on and his outlook for the future.
Mateo Neri
Innovator, Designer and Entrepreneur
Mateo Neri is an accomplished innovator, designer and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience working with some of the world's largest brands. As an advisor for Sneaker Impact, Mateo is committed to promoting shoe and textile recycling worldwide. He is also an advisor for SHO.AI enterprise software, an intelligence platform revolutionizing branding, marketing and operations, with over 600 advanced ai features. The platform delivers personalized customer experiences while helping businesses achieve higher revenue growth and reducing operational costs and time.
Mateo's previous work includes co-founding a company that manufactured rPET fabrics from recycled plastic bottles and domestic manufacturing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed an emergency LA supply chain for gown manufacturing for hospitals and governments, utilizing upcycled SMS from manufacturers. Mateo was an original co-founder of URB-E, a zero-emission delivery system for cities that replaces trucks. URB-E has some of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies as its clients.
In 2012, Mateo co-founded an innovation agency with Fortune 500 clients, such as Nike, and developed R&D and climate innovation across four continents with a team of over 50 science, health, and climate experts and organizations around the world.
Prior, he also created an entrepreneurial program, accelerator and licensing program for one of the world's top design universities, ArtCenter College of Design, where he is still a professor for entrepreneurship and closed-loop solutions. Mateo's expertise in sustainable design, innovation, and technology has made him a sought-after advisor and consultant for businesses looking to make a positive impact on the world.
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Tom Marsh: Great to have you speaking with us today and looking forward to hearing your story. Any entrepreneur that starts a business from school and goes straight to Mercedes and Disney is impressive. I think you ought to be in some sort of book somewhere. Please introduce yourself in that respect and talk a little bit about how you got into design, education and sustainability.
Mateo Neri: I went down a long path in the early days. I started as a designer in the early 90’s and came out of school, starting a digital agency working with big brands like Mercedes-Benz, Nike, the Olympics and Coca-Cola. We developed a lot of high-end work with kiosk systems and CD-ROMS and then transitioned to web 1.0, and built applications, software and websites.
We helped transform Disney with digitization from their first global brand guidelines, digital toys, websites to tv shows with JJ Abrams and Ron Howard's company. We developed innovations with Nike and the Nike Town stores with fully automated store concepts.
There were all kinds of really cool applications and really pushing technology with a design perspective and background. The design approach to everything we did, and that has carried throughout my entire career.
I was trained as a designer to go work somewhere, but that didn't happen, so I became an entrepreneur out the gate. I brought that approach into every company, whether it was a digital agency, then software companies after that, but then I fast-forwarded later in my career back to the ArtCenter to develop an incubator and entrepreneur program, which is where I still teach today. Even today I find myself going back into the entrepreneurial world, and I’m really focused on sustainability and climate, but that came into focus in 2012.
In 2012, with another agency I co-founded and working with Nike again, we were looking at the future of climate change 15 years out on 4 continents.
You know you're diving deep into research to come up with solutions for a client, and that's the key to at least the design area that I came from. So, you approach that with research, gathering all the data as much as you can, and then you create the solutions. And again, we were making digital solutions, apps, in order for their executives to look at that data in an easy, engaging way, as we were talking about a 235-page digital PDF of information that we had to design.
"NIKE WAS THE FIRST COMPANY THAT ENGAGED IN SUSTAINABILITY."
Tom Marsh: Relative to your background and the 90’s era, what were the goals in the design world around sustainability and climate change? Were any of those issues even talked about back then?
Mateo Neri: Not really. That wasn't really even talked about. So, yes, it was different. We did have one client that was a small organization. It was an environmental group, and we provided pro bono work for them. We developed a web application and system for the organization.
Tom Marsh: So, the first time sustainability really got into an engagement was in 2012 for Nike?
Mateo Neri: Yes, 2012. Nike was the first company that engaged in it, and that was on 4 continents, 4 major cities, LA, Rio, Shanghai and London. That's where we took a really deep dive and had the opportunity to hire and collaborate with 40 global scientists, experts and organizations in their field, such as glaciers, flooding, pollution, urban planning, etc.
Tom Marsh: And Nike, asked for the sustainability focus? It wasn't something that was just sort of 4th or 5th priority, or how did that sort of weigh in?
Mateo Neri: They were doing things in sustainability, but when you talk about climate change, it's really a different kind of level. And, I think they wanted to understand two things. They wanted to understand what was going to happen in the future, how will it effect their business and how they could capitalize on that with innovations. As you know, they are a big company, and that's kind of expected.
We were thinking in terms of athletes and active users, as well as the future of youth. What's their life going to look like while playing outside or running during certain times of the day, having pollution on different continents at different levels?
Could glasses, clothing or some other element or technology protect you from those issues? That's how we were looking at those things. It wasn’t about looking at reducing the supply chain like it is now.
Tom Marsh: I was thinking about the news the other day, that said they would know EPA requirements for EV's by 2032. They were justifying health concerns. They stated that there would be a reduction of pollutants in the air causing a fair amount of asthma and other kinds of respiratory ailments, which are expensive for us to deal with. It was a different angle on justifying EV's. And, you were talking about that with respect to the Nike project?
Mateo Neri: Yes, we researched Los Angeles. We were looking at all the issues from pollution caused by trucks, flooding to wildfires. If you follow the supply chain out of the port, and all the trucks coming out of there, you'll find that. It affects the whole supply chain. If you follow the route of those trucks, you will see those regions where the most people are affected and their health problems, even dying. Looking at this from a scientific standpoint, you see the data, it's all right there.
It's not good. Then you look at fires. Fire season goes from August to now, year-round. The trickle of that is not just a fire for a couple days now, it’s like weeks or months and the air pollution from that. Then, there is also the flooding issues from that. Before it was fire in a region and the air pollution stays, but now we are seeing that go across the nation.
Tom Marsh: I know, we get your fires here in Colorado.
Mateo Neri: And then there's also things like the brown cloud, which is actually pollution that comes from Asia. It goes up in the atmospheric level. Above the Earth it travels and then drops back down in western parts of the United States. So, there's all kinds of things people aren't aware of because it doesn't get talked about.
Tom Marsh: When you were doing your projects, were there any sort of noticeable differences in the various countries you were working in? In terms of interest around climate?
Mateo Neri: If you look at the report and you look at those regions, it's across the board, but the difference is in percentages and scales of it. You could say, well, the fires in LA are stronger than London. And, then Asia, you have more pollution from factories than you do in Rio. They all have different levels, but they all have it.
Tom Marsh: One of the things that we heard was that that Europe and even Southeast Asia were ahead of us in terms of regulations on climate. Do you see any of that in your work?
Mateo Neri: Yes, Europe is definitely ahead of us. France is passing certain laws, and Europe is following that, and California for the United States. California just passed a textile recycling bill, and they're working on the EPR bill, which puts the responsibility on the brands and producers. I would say Europe is ahead, and then it trickles here.
"THERE SHOULD BE A WHOLE DEPARTMENT
DEVOTED TO SUSTAINABILITY."
Tom Marsh: Has there been any real change in the curriculum at the ArtCenter related to sustainable types of design issues? Or has it been the same curriculum and it's just always been a factor?
Mateo Neri: In my opinion, no. There's one instructor named Heidrum, who heads that up and she's really the lead, and the only one that's been doing that so far. But, you know in my opinion there should be a whole department devoted to this for the students, as well as every department. A product needs to be designed to be taken apart, right? Deconstructed, so it can be recycled properly and efficiently. So, that's where that should be happening. And, if that's not happening in the schools, then it's not happening in the companies, because they're hiring from schools.
Tom Marsh: Yeah, I was thinking when I was in college, I don't know that I ever called the administration and said, why don't you have courses in a certain thing? Do you get any of that from the students? Is there any kind of initiative, passion or priority from them saying, hey, we need X? Do more about this.
Mateo Neri: I mean, I haven't personally experienced that, but I have in the classes gotten a very small percentage. But, I'm also kind of pushing that in my entrepreneurship closed loop course. The students had to design a new product, and work with a local manufacturer. They could only use local materials or dead stock. Everything had to be done within a mile or two radius, and sold within that area, too. The students loved the project and they did great.
Tom Marsh: When you're teaching design, how do you handle supply chain decisions?
Mateo Neri: It depends on what I'm teaching, and if it’s an entrepreneurship class or not. Lately, I'll talk about supply chains and how things are made. Our class will typically talk about making products in Asia and then shipping them over here, but they're not really thinking about what that means versus being made locally. The control that you have which relates to the quality and time versus cost, and all the things associated with that versus overseas, especially when starting a company.
Tom Marsh: Yeah, I'm curious about that. It's kind of a through line in terms of the interviews that I'm trying to do to understand where the conversation is with big companies, and then where they are really doing something about supply chain resiliency and local sourcing.
Mateo Neri: I wish it was cheap. I wish it was the same or cheaper. Then it would be easy. But it's just not.
Tom Marsh: Well, you had an interesting anecdote about the dye.
Mateo Neri: My partner Scott Wilson, who started Ustrive Manufacturing, has been in apparel manufacturing for 30 years in LA, and he created the only GOTS certified vertical factory in North America. The goal was to develop a 47-step process and software to track all the steps from fabric to cut & sew to dye to print. This process forced better processes and this is where the dye innovation was born. It's basically water, baking soda, vinegar and salt. A non-chemical dye, and it was so great that they figured it out and were saving money and energy, and converted the whole factory and at the same price or better, so it is possible.
Tom Marsh: That's a very cool story.
"FIRST, I'M HUMAN."
Tom Marsh: So, tell me if you agree with the theory that solving climate change is a giant problem of ours? It’s really in many respects, going to be trying to do what you just described, but doing it thousands and thousands of times in thousands of places.
Mateo Neri: Right.
Tom Marsh: Around the world, I mean, people are pretty ingenious and innovative. If you press them a little bit and the incentives are right, do you agree with that?
Mateo Neri: Yes. We have the technologies to solve this. I heard Musk say a couple times over the years like hey, if we cover this state with solar, we can power the whole country. We have technologies that can do all these things, but it comes down to funding them and taking the steps a lot of companies don't want to take. Companies don’t want to take that first step or even pilot it just to prove it out.
Tom Marsh: Right.
Mateo Neri: Or the government. We had that big Biden bill, right? But, where does that money go? And, what are the results going to be? They're going into all the cities and the states, the EPA has all these grants going into cities and states and we just need a lot more of that. So, things can be proven. Then, I think companies would be like yeah, I'll do that. But, they don't seem to want to really take that first step. There are obviously companies doing things and great things at that, too.
Tom Marsh: Yeah, I did see an encouraging article on that. Something like $100 billion was invested in US manufacturing. I think it was the first increase in a long time where companies were starting to come back. But, the stories were mixed because they'd say, “We could bring this much back. We still can't find a supplier that'll do X or Y and they're still over in China or someplace else.”
You have a technology background in software, and you've talked about data and research a couple of times. One of the hypotheses we have is that the sustainability challenge of climate change revolves around data and getting the data right, getting it to the right people's hands. To support this kind of work that needs to be done, do you see this as a factor in some of these problems? Do you teach this or how does that work in terms of your curriculum?
Mateo Neri: Well, I think it's a part of the solution. I mean in terms of the curriculum, they're not. It depends because all the students get to choose. Unless, I have a specific project where they like the closed loop and would then focus on that. But, the data is important and then really the key is how it's communicated right? Because we have all the data in the world we need, it's just how that's really communicated and used to develop solutions. I just had this conversation today as I was talking about one of the scientists I work with that does all this type of work. She's an ex-EPA scientist and I'm in a discussion talking about sneaker impact. We have software that does internal data, so we know where it's all coming from. The United States is all going to Miami. We know the pounds and we know how many shoes, how many million pairs of shoes per month. Then we know where they go and what percentage is wearable. Repairable. And, percentage that's not wearable. Those go to innovative waste energy facilities, and the other ones go to micro businesses. I'd look at that like, ok, how can we turn that into actual more information that can be used for companies that have their ESG and scope 3 coming. These things are starting to come down the pipe to be able to give companies that, and then doing it in a way that's designed with metrics that matter. If you have the data from a programmer type view, it's not really powerful, so you have to be able to take that and make it cool, beautiful or branded. Make it a way that's visual and instant with impact.
Tom Marsh: I think you said before that you have someone at ArtCenter that teaches AI or is working with AI as a tool?
Mateo Neri: Yes, there's a former student of mine named Sho who started an AI company, SHO.AI. They've been developing this for five years and his background was in design and branding. He was in that space and then he started this company. He saw where it was and what was coming, and jumped into it. So, it's an artificial intelligence platform that has over 600 features, and they have one aspect, which is brand, marketing and operations focused. He is actually going to be teaching an AI class to the designers, which would be good because they need to just understand that technology.
"BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR IS NOT EASY."
Tom Marsh: Very cool. Coming at this as an entrepreneur, designer and professor, working with these young kids, are you more optimistic about the future? Where do you come on in terms of your own feeling about where we're going with all this?
Mateo Neri: I knew that question was coming. I mean, first I'm human, but yes, I'm optimistic. When we did that report 11 years ago, there was some really deep research data in there, and that was scary. Really scary stuff. But, I have to be optimistic so that we can overcome this. We have the brain power, people and technology to pull it off.
Tom Marsh: So, can we quote you on the statement that you're human? Is that ok?
Mateo Neri: Well, yes. You'll love this part. The first company, which is called Cow, had our titles based on the person. And, my title was human. I wasn't the VP or President, I was human. So, when we hired people, we actually told them you'll get a card in a couple weeks once we get to know you because we have to figure out what your title is going to be.
Tom Marsh: That's great.
Mateo Neri: So, it was very non-corporate.
Tom Marsh: I don't remember titles being quite that crazy back in the 90’s. I know they've got the Chief Happy Officer and stuff like that. I've seen those. But, you are human and your title is human. You weren't head human or you were just human?
Mateo Neri: I was back then, but I guess I'm not human anymore. I don't know. I guess I shouldn't keep that title.
Tom Marsh: Alright. Do your students know that or is that something we need to keep quiet?
Mateo Neri: No, every beginning of every class I tell my history, but I might not. Sometimes that comes out, sometimes I forget it, or I'm pretty transparent about what I tell the students. I like to tell the hard stories because that's when you learn the most. I want them to know being an entrepreneur is not easy. I’m not going to lie to you and tell everyone to go out and just do it. It's not easy. I also want them to know that anything is possible if your committed and work hard and have patience, shoot for the sky especially when you're young, explore as much as possible.
Tom Marsh: Thanks again for your time. This has been fun. Thank you for inspiring the youth.
