Kenn Budlong, COO at NantBioRenewables, discusses carbon-negative packaging, Wave Ware™, and scaling sustainable manufacturing.
Welcome to Business Insight Journal, Kenn. We’re delighted to have you. To start, could you share a bit about your professional journey and what led you to your current role as Chief Operating Officer at NantBioRenewables?
My 43-year journey in plastics manufacturing has been about building and scaling operations—leading teams of 400+ employees and managing multi-facility operations generating $120M+ annually across start-ups, turnarounds, and rapid growth scenarios.
What drew me to NantBioRenewables was the opportunity to apply decades of operational expertise to solve plastic pollution while maintaining performance standards and businesses demand. After years optimizing traditional plastics manufacturing, I realized the future isn’t about making conventional plastics more efficiently—it’s about fundamentally transforming what we manufacture. NantBioRenewables’ Ocean Calcium Sand technology and Dr. Soon-Shiong’s vision offered that rare opportunity to leverage everything I’ve learned to build something that actually makes the world better.
NantBioRenewables has made headlines with the launch of Wave Ware™, the world’s first bioplastic made from Ocean Calcium Sand. Could you tell us how this innovation came to life and what makes it a true sustainability breakthrough in the packaging industry?
Wave Ware™ represents a paradigm shift. Most “eco-friendly” alternatives focus on being “less harmful.” Our Ocean Calcium Sand raw mineral flips that equation—it has a carbon-negative footprint because it actively removes CO₂ from the atmosphere during its natural formation in the ocean. We’re starting with a material that helps restore the climate before we even begin manufacturing.
What’s truly transformative is that we’ve achieved this without compromising functionality. Our straws don’t get soggy like paper. Our tableware maintains structural integrity under real-world conditions. Our sister company, Calcean Minerals, harvests and processes Oolitic Aragonite into SandyCal™ and OceanCal™, which we transform into BioCal™—the foundation of our BPI certified compostable products. We’ve proven environmental responsibility and premium performance work together.
From concept to commercialization, what were some of the biggest operational challenges in developing and scaling Wave Ware™, and how did your team overcome them?
The biggest challenge was inventing a new material category with no playbook. Blending Ocean Calcium Sand with biopolymer matrices required hundreds of formulation iterations to achieve products that maintain integrity in hot and cold liquids, remain stable during storage, and decompose completely in composting environments.
Supply chain integration was complex—coordinating between Calcean’s processing and our Alabama manufacturing demanded new logistics frameworks. We built factory-to-warehouse efficiency delivering 3-4 week lead times versus 8-12 weeks for overseas alternatives. Achieving BPI certification required extensive testing to prove our Ocean Calcium Sand straws met the most rigorous compostability standards.
We overcame these challenges by building a team combining deep manufacturing expertise with genuine commitment to the mission. When people believe they’re building something important, they bring creativity and resilience that overcome seemingly impossible obstacles.
NantBioRenewables operates within Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s visionary ecosystem. How does that broader mission influence your company’s approach to sustainability and innovation?
Being part of Dr. Soon-Shiong’s Nant ecosystem provides the resources and strategic vision to pursue transformational innovation rather than incremental improvements. His approach has always been solving fundamental problems through breakthrough science.
The ecosystem provides access to research capabilities, strategic partnerships, and patient capital to develop entirely new categories. Most companies face quarterly pressures forcing incremental improvements. We have strategic freedom to ask: What if packaging could use raw materials with carbon-negative footprints? What if environmental responsibility and commercial success are mutually reinforcing?
This mission influences everything. We’re not trying to be 10% better than conventional plastic—we’re reimagining packaging from first principles. We’re establishing proof points that innovative sustainable manufacturing is commercially viable at scale, demonstrating American manufacturing can lead the world in sustainability and innovation.
With decades of experience across high-growth environments and complex supply chains, how do you approach building scalable systems that balance environmental responsibility with economic performance?
Environmental responsibility and economic performance aren’t opposing forces—they’re different facets of operational excellence. The same discipline driving cost efficiency drives resource efficiency.
I integrate sustainability into core operational metrics. Material efficiency and waste reduction are KPIs alongside throughput, quality, and cost per unit. Our factory-to-warehouse model reduces shipping distances while eliminating tariffs and reducing inventory costs. We built Alabama manufacturing because it was the right business choice that also reduced our carbon footprint.
Technology is essential—precision manufacturing reduces waste, process control optimizes energy. But scalable systems require culture as much as technology. You need teams asking “how can we do this better?” That requires hiring for values alignment, empowering teams to improve processes, and celebrating innovations enhancing both performance and sustainability.
The most powerful environmental innovations emerge when sustainability becomes your competitive advantage, not your compromise. Build solutions that work better and cost less than harmful alternatives, and you’ll create change that scales.
The topic of microplastic reduction has become central to environmental discussions. What role do you see bioplastics like Wave Ware™ playing in tackling this global issue?
Traditional plastics don’t biodegrade—they break into smaller pieces persisting for centuries. We need materials that perform during use but genuinely disappear afterward.
Wave Ware™ addresses microplastic pollution by replacing persistent plastics with materials that completely biodegrade. Our BPI and TÜV AUSTRIA certified straws break down fully in composting—into CO₂, water, and biomass enriching soil.
Ocean Calcium Sand adds another dimension. Starting with naturally occurring minerals rather than petroleum-based polymers fundamentally changes what enters the waste stream. The calcium carbonate base is benign—the same material forming seashells.
We can’t solve global microplastic pollution alone. What we can do is prove high-performance, commercially viable alternatives exist. As we scale and license our technology to other manufacturers, we create ripple effects accelerating industry transformation.
Carbon-negative manufacturing is an ambitious goal. Could you share some insights into the technologies or processes NantBioRenewables is leveraging to achieve it?
Let me clarify: The calcium carbonate used as a raw material has a negative carbon footprint. We’re working toward carbon-negative manufacturing overall, but we’re not there yet. The breakthrough is the material itself. Oolitic aragonite forms as cyanobacteria capture atmospheric carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and biomineralization, triggering the precipitation of calcium carbonate in the ocean. When Calcean harvests and processes this material, we’re working with a raw material representing captured atmospheric carbon—nature did the sequestration.
At our Alabama facility, we transform OceanCal™ into BioCal™, blending calcium carbonate with biopolymer matrices. This reduces petroleum-based polymer content by up to 35% compared to conventional alternatives while enhancing performance.
For manufacturing operations, we’re continuously reducing our footprint through energy-efficient equipment, waste heat recovery, and zero waste-to-landfill operations.
We’re exploring renewable energy integration to achieve truly carbon-negative manufacturing across our entire operation—that’s the goal we’re working toward.
As an operations leader, what’s your personal strategy for driving both innovation and accountability across teams in a fast-evolving, sustainability-focused business?
Innovation and accountability are complementary. My approach: establish clear metrics integrating both. We track operational KPIs alongside sustainability metrics like material efficiency. When innovation is measured as rigorously as execution, it becomes operational discipline.
Create psychological safety for calculated risks. We’re inventing new processes requiring experimentation. Teams must know we expect boundary-pushing and rapid learning from failures.
Hire for mission alignment and empower teams. People intrinsically motivated by our sustainability mission bring creativity you can’t manufacture through incentives. Maintain relentless focus on customer commitments—we innovate to serve customers better. And stay visible in operations—I spend time on manufacturing floors staying connected to actual work.
The result is culture where innovation drives accountability and accountability enables innovation.
For professionals and entrepreneurs striving to make a positive environmental impact, what key piece of advice would you offer based on your experience?
Stop treating sustainability as separate from business success. Integrate it into your core value proposition. Don’t ask “How can we make our business more sustainable?” Ask “How can sustainability make our business more valuable to customers?”
Do the hard work proving your claims. Get third-party certifications. Document impact with data, not marketing copy. Credibility requires proof.
Accept that meaningful impact requires patience. Build solid foundations before scaling. The world needs solutions working at scale, not promising concepts collapsing under commercial pressure.
Remember: profitable sustainability scales; charity doesn’t. If your solution requires ongoing subsidies or consumer sacrifice, it won’t achieve transformational impact. Focus on creating genuine value—environmental and economic.
Finally, Kenn, as you look ahead, what excites you most about the future of sustainable packaging and NantBioRenewables’ role in shaping it?
We’ve proven that packaging made with carbon-negative Ocean Calcium Sand delivering high performance and commercial viability is real. We’re shipping products, serving customers, earning international recognition. The question isn’t “Can this be done?” It’s “How fast can we scale?”
According to Grand View Research, the global sustainable packaging market is projected to reach $448.53 billion by 2030, growing from $272.93 billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 7.6%. Companies leading this transition will define the next era. We’re positioned to play a catalytic role—not just manufacturing products, but establishing new material categories and proving American manufacturing can lead global sustainability innovation.
What energizes me is seeing mindsets shift—leading brands now understand sustainability drives competitive advantage. After 43 years in this industry, witnessing this transformation and helping drive it forward is incredibly rewarding. We’re building something that will matter long after we’re gone.
With over four decades of manufacturing leadership, Kenn Budlong shares how NantBioRenewables is redefining sustainable packaging through Wave Ware™—the world’s first bioplastic made from carbon-negative Ocean Calcium Sand. In this conversation, he explores scaling innovation, balancing sustainability with performance, reducing microplastics, and why profitable sustainability is key to real global impact.
A compelling read for leaders shaping the future of packaging, manufacturing, and climate-positive innovation.
Kenn Budlong
Chief Operating Officer at NantBioRenewables
Kenn Budlong is Chief Operating Officer at NantBioRenewables, bringing over 43 years of plastics manufacturing expertise to lead the company’s revolutionary sustainable packaging operations. Throughout his career, Kenn has led multi-facility operations with workforces of 400+ employees and annual revenues exceeding $120M. At NantBioRenewables, Kenn applies his deep technical knowledge to scale compostable packaging made with carbon-negative Ocean Calcium Sand technology, manufactured in Gadsden, Alabama, USA.
