When COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill in 2020, most professionals were clinging to job security. Shiv Rao Challa did the opposite. From his flat abroad, he launched a waste management startup that would go on to influence 1.4 million people and challenge how two nations think about trash.
It was an audacious pivot for someone who had spent 25 years managing some of the world’s most complex infrastructure projects, from the largest power plant in the Southern Hemisphere to cutting-edge LNG facilities across five continents. But for Challa, the connection was clear: the same rigorous, data-driven approach that built power plants could be the key to solving one of humanity’s most pressing crises.
Quarter-Century of Global Infrastructure
Before Challa became a champion of the circular economy, he was the person companies called when projects couldn’t afford to fail. Based in Kingston Upon Thames, England, his career spans 12 countries and encompasses sectors that quite literally power modern civilization: utilities, oil and gas, energy, LNG, mining, and infrastructure.
His resume reads like a map of global development. Engineering work at KIPIC from 2017 to 2020. Project Director at PROJECTSCENTRAL, overseeing everything from shipbuilding to real estate. Contributions to South Africa’s energy transformation. Building 110 mega modules in the Philippines for the GLNG Project in Australia Each role demanded precision, the kind where a miscalculation could mean millions in losses or critical delays.
“Sports taught me early that you either win or you learn,” Challa reflects on his formative years at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkatta, where athletics instilled the resilience that would define his professional journey. That mindset carried him through his B.Tech at JNTU College of Engineering in Hyderabad and into the unforgiving world of mega-project delivery.
His technical arsenal is formidable: earned value management with CPI and SPI metrics, mastery of contractual frameworks like FIDIC, JCT, and NEC, and fluency in the digital tools, Primavera P6, Power BI, JIRA, that turn chaos into coordinated execution. But Challa didn’t hoard this expertise. He became an educator, training professionals in PMP certification, Primavera P6, and the forensic planning techniques that separate successful projects from spectacular failures.
The Pandemic Pivot
The decision to leave a stable position during a global crisis might seem reckless. For Challa, it was the culmination of watching a mounting catastrophe unfold in slow motion.
India alone generates 1.8 billion tons of waste annually, with 70% dumped into landfills where it festers, pollutes, and represents an epic failure of resource management. Globally, the linear “take-make-dispose” economy was proving economically wasteful and environmentally unsustainable. Someone needed to build the infrastructure for a different model. Why not the person who had built infrastructure everywhere else?
3R ZeroWaste Private Limited emerged from that conviction in 2020. With over 40+ awards in the span of 4 years and Incubated at IIT Kanpur & IIM Vizag and recognized as a winner of STPI Chunauti 4.0 and CII 4R Awards best Innovative startup , the company didn’t just recycle bottles. It reimagined the entire waste ecosystem with the same systems-thinking Challa had applied to power plants and pipelines.
The company’s 360-degree approach tackles seven waste streams: solid waste, plastic, e-waste, construction and demolition debris, hazardous industrial waste, and food waste.
Technology and Innovation in Waste Management
Traditional waste management operates on feel and approximation. 3R ZeroWaste operates on data. IoT sensors track waste streams in real-time. Geospatial technology provides global monitoring. Blockchain technology, through the company’s Karma Coins app, creates a transparent incentive system that rewards individuals for segregating waste properly or choosing public transport over private vehicles showcasing 100+ sustainable ways citizens can be rewarded.
Its waste management was rebuilt with the same technological sophistication typically reserved for Fortune 500 supply chains.
The model also challenges conventional wisdom about the “three R’s.” Challa’s framework adds a fourth: Repair. Extending product lifecycles isn’t just environmentally sound, it’s economically rational. His advocacy for four-bin segregation over the standard two-bin system reflects this more nuanced understanding of material flows.
Numbers That Matter
Four years in, the metrics tell a story of systematic change. Through policy advocacy and community engagement, 3R ZeroWaste has raised awareness about municipal solid waste and e-waste regulations among 1.7 million people. The company secured the Top of Category Award at the 10th International Conference on Waste to Worth Technologies, presented by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
Challa himself earned recognition as a top 10 Goldman Sachs-ISB honoree, validation that his hybrid model of rigorous project management meets social entrepreneurship was creating genuine value.
But the most compelling numbers lie ahead. Projections suggest that adopting circular economy models could unlock ₹14 lakh crore in economic value for India, generate 15 million green jobs, and eliminate 450 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions by 2030. It’s the kind of transformation that requires exactly what Challa brings: infrastructure-scale thinking applied to infrastructure-scale problems.
The enterprise now operates on three fronts. 3R ZeroWaste Private Limited handles commercial operations. 3R ZeroWaste UK, established in 2021, focuses on Net Zero projects for SMEs and councils around Kingston. The 3RZW Environment Foundation, the NGO arm, works directly with waste workers and marginalized communities near dumpsites in Assam and Bengal, providing skills training and support.
India’s Scale Meets UK’s Systems
Challa’s dual presence in India and the United Kingdom isn’t coincidental; it’s strategic. Each market offers what the other needs.
India has scale, urgency, and communities already engaged in informal waste recovery. The UK has established regulatory frameworks, Net Zero commitments, and local governments actively seeking circular solutions. Challa’s work creates a knowledge bridge, adapting successful Indian models for UK contexts while bringing British systems-thinking to Indian implementation.
His collaboration with the Royal Borough of Kingston Council exemplifies this exchange. The partnership focuses on low-carbon operations, behavioral change interventions, and recycling incentives all informed by what’s proven effective in high-density Indian urban environments.
The ReviveAll Project, backed by the Kingston Neighbourhood Fund and formalized through a partnership with the Save The World Club in August 2023, brings circular economy principles to the community level. The initiative promotes repair and reuse, reduces landfill dependency, creates volunteering opportunities, and provides practical support for low-income residents.
Education represents another bridge. As an advisor to Kingston University’s AI-integrated BSc Environmental Science program, Challa helps shape the Future Skills Advancement Module. The curriculum covers IoT applications, data analytics, lifecycle assessment, and digital tools, preparing graduates for ESG-focused roles that didn’t exist a decade ago.
His influence extends to global forums as well. As a UNDP SDG 2030 Advocate, social entrepreneur mentor, and Zero Waste partner for Rotarian events, Challa speaks at venues ranging from Catalyst 2030 at London Business School to the MSME-CII event at Vigyan Bhavan, addressing plastic waste policy. At the KFUEIT SDG Conference in Pakistan, he confronted the “E-waste Crisis.”
The Project Manager as Environmentalist
What makes Challa’s approach distinctive isn’t just his environmental commitment; plenty of activists share that passion. It’s his refusal to separate that passion from the hard-edged discipline of project delivery.
He speaks the language of CPI metrics and FIDIC contracts as fluently as he discusses blockchain incentives and waste stream segregation. He applies earned value management to environmental outcomes. He uses Primavera P6 to schedule circular economy transitions with the same precision he once used for power plant commissioning.
This fusion of skillsets creates credibility in both worlds. Corporate clients trust someone who has delivered billion-dollar infrastructure projects. Environmental advocates respect someone willing to leave corporate security for mission-driven entrepreneurship.
The result is an operation that functions less like a typical NGO and more like a high-performance consultancy with a conscience. 3R ZeroWaste offers Net Zero consulting, ESG advisory, e-waste recycling systems, and waste management solutions. It provides training in both Primavera P6 and sustainability practices. It develops technological innovations like the Karma Coins rewards app while conducting policy awareness campaigns.
The Long Game
Twenty-five years into a career that has evolved from building infrastructure to reimagining it, Challa operates with the patience of someone who understands that meaningful change is measured in decades, not quarters.
The circular economy isn’t a side project or a trend, it’s the necessary evolution of industrial civilization. Linear economies worked when resources seemed infinite and sinks for waste appeared bottomless. Neither assumption holds anymore.
What’s required now is exactly the kind of systematic, data-driven, technologically sophisticated infrastructure that Challa spent his first career building. The same project management discipline that delivers power plants on schedule and within budget can deliver waste-to-value systems that actually close material loops.
From a flat abroad during a pandemic to partnerships with councils, universities, and international development organizations, the trajectory reflects something essential: expertise applied to the right problem at the right time.
India generates 1.8 billion tons of waste annually. The UK pursues Net Zero by 2050. Both goals require the kind of rigorous, scalable, systematized solutions that only someone fluent in both infrastructure delivery and environmental science can provide.
Challa isn’t just managing projects anymore. He’s managing the transition from an extractive economy to a regenerative one, one waste stream, one community, one blockchain transaction at a time.
