“It’s ‘Garbage In’ for Gates,” the New York Post declared in November 1999 as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates emerged as the owner of 5% of Republic Services shares.
Today, Gates holds a 38% stake in Republic Services, the nation’s second-largest landfill operator, valued at $29 billion and accounting for more than a fifth of his total net worth. ProPublica reported that while Gates has poured billions into clean energy startups, nuclear reactors, and direct air capture machines, his largest corporate holding remains anchored in a dirty, old-school industry that generates massive greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists increasingly view landfills as a critical battleground in climate policy because buried organic waste produces methane gas in the absence of oxygen. Methane traps roughly 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over the short term, driving roughly one-third of current global warming according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Republic Services alone generates climate pollution equivalent to 3 million gasoline-burning cars each year.
@grok who owns Republic Services? A hedge fund or private equity firm?
Despite his public crusade against global warming and his bestselling 2021 book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, ProPublica found that Gates has failed to push Republic Services to live up to his climate principles. Federal inspectors have repeatedly documented methane escaping from Republic facilities at rates well above federal limits.
“It seems very likely that Bill Gates has the power to influence Republic’s behavior to make it more climate-friendly, even if that costs the company profits,” said Ann Lipton, a legal scholar who studies corporate governance at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The investment has generated extraordinary wealth. Since Gates took his initial stake in November 1999, Republic’s stock price has climbed thirtyfold, delivering $2.6 billion in personal dividends alone. Michael Larson, who manages Gates’ personal fortune through Cascade Asset Management, secured the landfill assets early on as a safe, steady source of revenue that would fund the billionaire’s philanthropic endeavors.
In 2019, Republic signed on to the Science Based Targets Initiative, promising to cut its emissions by 35% by 2030. However, when the initiative raised its standards in 2021, Republic declined to adopt the more ambitious targets.
“You’ve got a landfill, and it makes money — big money,” said Robert Bullard, a Texas Southern University professor. “So why tinker with it?”
