Redwood Materials and ERI Enter Exclusive Strategic Partnership to Recycle Batteries and Solar Panels

Redwood Materials makes a significant strategic investment in ERI; JB Straubel will join ERI’s Board

FRESNO, Calif. & CARSON CITY, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ERI, the nation’s largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company, and Redwood Materials, a company inventing sustainable materials by creating circular supply chains, turning waste into profit and developing the solution for a fully closed-loop recycling for lithium-ion batteries, announced today that they have entered into an exclusive partnership for battery recycling.

As part of the partnership, Redwood Materials has made a significant strategic investment in ERI. JB Straubel, co-founder and CEO of Redwood Materials (and previously Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Tesla), has been elected to ERI’s board of directors.

Additionally, the partnership marks the launch of Redwood and ERI’s new business line to recycle solar panels. ERI will now team with Redwood Materials for the responsible recycling of solar panels.

“ERI and Redwood Materials working together signals a unique, unprecedented partnership that will tackle the ‘last mile’ of electronic recycling: solar panels and batteries,” said John Shegerian, ERI’s Co-Founder and Executive Chairman. “And it will be done in a radically transparent, end-to-end closed-loop manner where elements – from cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium – will be kept out of landfills, responsibly recycled, and put back into new products. We are incredibly excited to be entering into this strategic partnership with Redwood Materials.”

“Redwood is focused on steadily and relentlessly improving recycling economics with technology to reduce the cost of materials and create a circular supply chain to power a sustainable future,” said JB Straubel, Redwood Materials Co-Founder and CEO. “By partnering with ERI, we’ll be able to ensure the largest supply of e-waste batteries in the US is recycled into materials to build new EVs and clean energy products.”

“For ERI, as always, radical transparency is key,” added Shegerian. “The strategic partners with whom we work to achieve Circular Economy goals are not only our downstream partners, they are investors in our company and sit on our board. This is a paradigm that is unparalleled in the recycling industry throughout the world.”

About Redwood Materials:

Redwood Materials is inventing sustainable materials to build the world by creating circular supply chains, turning waste into profit and solving the environmental impacts of new products before they happen. Based in Northern Nevada, Redwood was founded by JB Straubel in 2017.

About ERI:

ERI is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States. ERI is certified at the highest level by all leading environmental and data security oversight organizations to de-manufacture, recycle, and refurbish every type of electronic device in an environmentally responsible manner. ERI has the capacity to process more than a billion pounds of electronic waste annually at its eight certified locations, serving every zip code in the United States. ERI’s mission is to protect people, the planet and privacy. For more information about e-waste recycling and ERI, call 1-800-ERI-DIRECT or visit https://eridirect.com.