OUR STORY
CERO (Cooperative Energy, Recycling, and Organics) is an award-winning commercial composting company based out of Boston, MA. CERO provides food waste pickup and diversion services for a wide range of commercial clients in the metro Boston area, and transports organic waste to local farms where it's recycled into rich soil products used to support the local agricultural economy. Our mission is simple: keep food waste out of landfills, save money for our clients, and provide good green jobs for Boston’s hard working communities. CERO was brought to life by a passionate group of black and brown people from Boston neighborhoods who believe the way to a more equitable, healthy society is through a worker-owned solidarity economy.
We wish to acknowledge our founders including Josefina Luna, Timothy Hall, Steven Evans, Guadalupe Gonzalez and Evelin Fuentes. Their vision for a better world will always be the light guiding CERO.
Founded in 2012, CERO is more than just a compost hauler. We are built on the mission to improve our communities while doing right by the environment. As a worker-owned cooperative, every one of our employees, from truck drivers to managers, has a deep, vested interest in successful outcomes for our clients.
We take pride in raising the bar for commercial composting; making it easier, cleaner, and more accessible than ever.
WHO WE ARE
We are a dedicated, bilingual team of worker-owners connected with Boston's working class and communities of color. We live where we work, and we believe in Boston's thriving local communities. Meet the Team.
One of CERO’s founders Tim Hall says, “When I heard about the green economy for the first time, a light bulb went off in my head. We can create businesses and jobs for ourselves.” He and his partners formed Roxbury Green Power and started a waste vegetable oil collection business, selling used cooking oil from restaurants for reprocessing as biodiesel fuel.
By day, Guadalupe Gonzalez did backbreaking work, cleaning commercial buildings. At night, she collected bottles and cans from the trash, selling them to earn precious extra money to support her family -- one of the thousands of "hidden" green economy workers.
Determined to put the brakes on unacceptable wages and working conditions, Guadalupe and a team of MassCOSH worker center members joined forces with Tim and Boston Workers Alliance to create a worker-owned zero waste enterprise.
It wasn't long before CERO was born. Unique as a bilingual, multicultural co-op, in 2014 CERO completed a year long Direct Public Offering, raising capital by selling shares of dividend-paying stock to regular community people. Lenders who were initially hesitant to take a chance on lower income entrepreneurs in the green economy are now on board. CERO is growing and providing the jobs it promised to workers who own the company. CERO is proud to be part of a burgeoning solidarity economy fostering workplace democracy and new forms of sustainable community investment.
