Pollen saves unsold goods from the dump

Using data and Al, the startup helps companies clear excess inventory before it is sent to landfills.

- By Benjamin Liu

Goods that companies cannot sell in time often end up as waste in landfills, inflicting lasting damage on soil, water and the atmosphere.

Through its platform, Singapore-based startup Pollen Tech is helping firms clear such products before it is too late.

Between 2021 and 2024, Pollen helped more than a hundred sellers - including L'Oreal and Procter & Gamble - save up to 1.5 million kg of product waste by clearing inventory. It estimates that the impact of the waste averted in 2024 is equivalent to avoiding 4 million kg of carbon dioxide emissions.

Pollen's contributions earned it an Impact Enterprise Excellence Award in the small and medium-sized enterprise category at the 2025 Sustainability Impact Awards, jointly organised by The Business Times and UOB.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Excess inventory is stock that goes beyond what customers are likely to buy. It can arise from deliberate overproduction to avoid stock-outs, customers returning goods, or operations that damage products.

Liyana Sulaiman, Pollen's co-founder and chief product and technology officer, noted that a manufacturer or retailer that accumulates too much excess inventory will have no warehouse space for its next batch of goods, so it must pay to dispose of these products.

The disposed inventory often ends up in landfills, where decomposition generates liquids that seep into the ground and irrigation channels, affecting soil quality and water supplies, she said. "We're talking about environmental damage for generations."

Pollen's chief of staff, Tan Yang En, added that excess inventory is sometimes incinerated before its ashes are sent to landfills, a process that generates carbon emissions.