Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Republic Services First Quarter 2026 Investor Conference Call. Republic Services is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RSG [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Aaron Evans, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to Republic Services First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Jon Vander Ark, our CEO; and Brian DelGhiaccio, our CFO, are on the call today to discuss our performance. I'd like to remind everyone that some information discussed on today's call contains forward-looking statements, including forward-looking financial information, which involve risks and uncertainties and may be materially different from actual results.

Our SEC filings discuss factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The material that we discuss today is time sensitive. If in the future, you listen to a rebroadcast or recording of this conference call, you should be sensitive to the date of the original call, which is May 7, 2026. Please note that this call is the property of Republic Services, Inc. Any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Republic Services is strictly prohibited.

Our SEC filings, earnings press release, which includes GAAP reconciliation tables and a discussion of business activities, along with a recording of this call, are available on our website at republicservices.com. In addition, Republic's management team routinely participates in investor conferences. When events are scheduled, the dates, times and presentations are posted on our investor website. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jon.

Thanks, Aaron. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We are pleased with our first quarter results, which position us well to achieve the full year guidance that we provided in February. We delivered strong earnings growth and expanded margins, all overcoming lower commodity prices and the impact of higher fuel prices during the quarter.

Our results reflect our disciplined pricing execution, effective cost management and the value created from ongoing investments in the business. During the quarter, we achieved revenue growth of 2.6%, generated adjusted EBITDA growth of 4.3%, expanded adjusted EBITDA margin by 50 basis points, delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.70 and produced $984 million of adjusted free cash flow. We continue to secure new growth opportunities by leveraging our differentiating capabilities, customer zeal, digital and sustainability. With respect to customer zeal, our customer retention rate remained high at 94%.

Our Net Promoter Score remains strong, reflecting our team's commitment to delivering exceptional customer value. First quarter organic revenue growth was driven by solid pricing across the business. Average yields on related revenue was 4.1% and average yield on total revenue was 3.4%. Organic volume decreased related revenue by 1% or total revenue by 80 basis points.

Volume performance improved sequentially, most notably in the landfill, large container and small container verticals. Importantly, we delivered year-over-year revenue growth in the temporary large container business this quarter for the first time in over 2 years. Combined average yield and volume growth grew 1.2%. Organic revenue in the Environmental Solutions business decreased total revenue by 1.3% in the first quarter, which was in line with our expectations.

More than 1/3 of this decrease in the environmental solutions business related to an emergency response job in 2025 that did not repeat. Our environmental solutions sales pipeline continues to build with increased activity across multiple end markets. We expect year-over-year revenue growth in this business in the second half of the year. Turning to digital.

Our ongoing investments in technology and AI are strengthening how we operate and compete. Over time, these capabilities are expected to drive additional growth, expand margins and support continued operating leverage. We are actively deploying AI-based predictive technology that supports optimized pricing decisions across markets with varying customer and competitive dynamics. This approach is expected to reinforce price retention and reduce customer attrition over time.

Enhancements to our RISE digital platform are progressing with initial deployment focused on the large container business. The integration of AI and advanced routing algorithms is expected to improve safety outcomes, strengthen service execution and increased route efficiency. Activation of digital tools in our call centers are enhancing the customer experience and unlocking value in our business by optimizing the 11 million inbound calls we receive each year. We believe that these investments in digital will deliver at least $100 million of annual benefit by 2028. Within sustainability, we continue to believe that our sustainability innovation investments in the plastic circularity and decarbonization position us for growth and long-term value creation.

Production volume has increased across our polymer center network as we optimize processing operations. Customer demand for our domestic post-consumer plastic remains strong. We continue to advance renewable natural gas projects with our partners. We brought 9 projects online throughout 2025. We expect 4 additional RNG projects to begin operations in 2026 which would bring our total landfill gas-to-energy portfolio to 82 projects.

We continue to execute against our industry-leading commitment to fleet electrification. We had more than 200 electric collection vehicles in operation at the end of the first quarter. We expect to exit this year with more than 300 EV collection trucks in our fleet to support the continued growth of this differentiated service offering. We recently celebrated with the City of San Pablo who partnered with us to become the first city in California to operate an all-electric recycling and waste collection fleet.

As part of our commitment to sustainability, we strive to be the employer where the best people want to work. Our employee engagement score consistently exceeds national benchmarks, and we continue to experience record low turnover rates. Our comprehensive sustainability performance continues to be widely recognized as Republic services was named The Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list and Ethisphere's World's Most Ethical Companies list. Regarding capital allocation, we have invested more than $700 million in value-creating acquisitions to date, which includes $433 million of investment in the first quarter.

Our acquisition pipeline remains supportive of continued activity in both the recycling and waste and environmental solutions businesses. We expect to exceed $1 billion of acquisition investment this year. As part of our balanced approach to capital allocation, we returned $507 million to shareholders in the quarter, including $314 million of share repurchases. I will now turn the call over to Brian, who will provide additional details on the quarter.

Thanks, Jon. Core price on total revenue was 5.7%. Core price on related revenue was 6.8%, which included open market pricing of 8.4% and restricted pricing of 4.4%. The components of core price on related revenue included small container of 8.2%, large container of 7.1% and residential of 6.5%.

Average yield on total revenue was 3.4% and average yield on related revenue was 4.1%. First quarter volume decreased total revenue by 80 basis points and related revenue by 1%. Volume results on related revenue included a decrease in large container of 2.5%. This represents a sequential improvement of 130 basis points compared to our fourth quarter performance.

Volume results also included a decrease in residential of 5.2%. The sequential change in residential volume was primarily due to known contract losses, which was contemplated in our full year guidance. Landfill volumes improved during the quarter as MSW volumes increased 1.4% and special waste revenue increased 9.9%. We estimate severe weather negatively impacted volume performance by approximately $30 million during the quarter which was reflected in our full year revenue guidance provided in February.

Moving on to recycling. Commodity prices were $120 per ton during the first quarter. This compared to $155 per ton in the prior year. Recycling processing and commodity sales were flat compared to the prior year.

Increased volumes at our polymer centers offset the revenue impact of lower recycled commodity prices. Current commodity prices are approximately $125 per ton. Total company adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 50 basis points to 32.1%. Margin performance during the quarter included margin expansion in the underlying business up 90 basis points and a net benefit of 20 basis points from nonrecurring items, primarily due to a favorable legal settlement.

This was partially offset by a 20 basis point decrease from net fuel, a 20 basis point decrease from recycled commodity prices and a 20 basis point decrease from acquisitions. The sharp increase in diesel prices in March negatively impacted EBITDA performance by $8 million in the first quarter. Our fuel recovery fee tends to lag changes in fuel expense by approximately 1 month. We expect fuel recovery fees to offset higher fuel costs beginning in the second quarter.

With respect to environmental solutions, first quarter revenue decreased $44 million compared to the prior year. Approximately $15 million of this decrease related to an emergency response job in 2025 that did not repeat. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the environmental solutions business was 19.2%. Adjusted free cash flow of $984 million, an increase of more than 35% compared to the prior year.

This increase was driven by EBITDA growth in the business and the timing of working capital and capital expenditures. Year-to-date capital expenditures of $249 million represents 12% of our projected full year spent. Total debt was $14 billion, and total liquidity was $1.8 billion. Our leverage ratio at the end of the quarter was approximately 2.6x.

With respect to taxes, our combined tax rate and impact from equity investments in renewable energy resulted in an equivalent tax impact of 24.9% during the first quarter. With that, operator, I would like to open the call to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Noah Kaye.

Okay. Great. So AI and digital productivity, definitely a strong theme for the sector and for you this quarter. You called out you expect $100 million, I think, of annual benefits from investments by 2028. I guess first, can you sort of benchmark where that benefit might be penciling out for '26?

And how to think about it flowing in a couple of years? And then maybe just to unpack a little bit the buckets of benefit that you're getting here.

Yes. We mentioned on the latter part of your question, we mentioned 3 areas of the benefit, routing, the RISE pricing and then customer service. And I would list those in terms of the priority of the impact or the scale of the impact over time. Pricing will come first, and we'll see some benefit in 2026, and that will build over '27, '28. We're going to see very little, probably no benefit of that in 2026 on RISE just because we're doing all the work, and that will scale.

You'll start to see that benefit come in '27 and then that will really scale in '28 and that, again, will be the largest impact. And then on the customer service, I think you'll see ratable improvement across the 3 years. Right now, that's the smallest of the 3 categories I mentioned. And those aren't the only 3. I mean, we're looking at AI in every area of the business, back office, legal, HR, all kinds of places.

These are the 3 where we see the most immediate benefit to scale, but it will have profound impact across the business.

That's very helpful, Jon. Maybe we could talk a little bit about the price/cost performance this quarter. To get 90 bps underlying margin expansion when you had the headwinds from fuel -- from a weather rather and some of the cost pressures it's impressive. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what you've seen so far on price retention.

Was that better than you expected? Did you maybe get a little bit better operating leverage off of cost savings initiatives. Just help us understand the quarter and how you see it trending as we look at margin profile for the next couple of quarters?

Yes. I lead with costs. Our cost performance has been really strong for a number of years now. Inflation has come down, but we've done a lot of self-help there.

The underlying rise benefits, you're seeing that through labor productivity. You're seeing MPower and our maintenance cost be very strong on that. And we're doing a good job of balancing pricing, again, primarily playing a long game. We want to understand even in a volume challenged environment to retain customers over time.

And so we've had to find our place in different markets, both to retain and to compete for new work just given the challenging macro and the team is doing a great job of finding that right mix to still get that underlying margin expansion.

Our next question comes from Bryan Burgmeier with Citi.

Brian, can you maybe just provide some details on how you're thinking about 2Q. I just want to be mindful of the wildfire comps, the fuel impacts, M&A integration, but then conversely, you'd have some seasonal step-up, recycled commodities doing a little better. I mean, we were thinking margins would still probably be down kind of slightly year-on-year, but any details you can add on that would be helpful.

Yes, that's still what we're expecting for the second quarter. I would say from -- starting with -- from a margin perspective, somewhat flat to slightly down on a year-over-year basis, largely due to some of the project-related landfill volumes that you mentioned. That's the biggest driver of that, ex that, we would have anticipated margin expansion. So margin expansion in the underlying business, excluding the impact of those volumes.

Overall, it's obviously going to have an impact on the top line as well, when you think that's going to have a negative impact on volume performance which is exactly what we thought when we entered the year negative in both Q2 and Q3, flipping to positive then in the fourth quarter. So largely the same as what we thought when we provided the guidance in February. And again, nothing's really changed based on our performance in the first quarter.

Got it. Got it. That's really helpful. One just quick follow-on for me, and I'll turn it over. Just a kind of point of clarification. So are you expecting or forecasting any impact to EBITDA in 2Q from fuel? And then can you just help us frame maybe the margin impact as you pursue the surcharges and pricing associated with that.

Yes. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we tend to lag from a fuel recovery fee perspective, the increased cost of fuel expense. So as prices have been rising, right, we've been chasing that month-on-month. Now we expect that fuel recovery fee to start kicking in, in the second quarter.

Our overall objective is to sit there and recover the cash impact, the full cash impact of those rising fuel prices. There's both direct impacts as well as indirect. So the sensitivity that we provide in our disclosures is more of a direct type concept. There are going to be other impacts like potentially increased transportation expenses.

There's increased CapEx as well that goes along with that. So again, if we achieve that recovery from a holistic or comprehensive cash perspective that is the overall objective.

Next question comes from Adam Bubes with Goldman Sachs.

I just had a -- first one on the volume line. I think you called out weather as a $30 million headwind in the quarter and then you were lapping maybe $12 million of event-related volumes. If I have it right, I think it implies volumes are tracking flattish year-over-year underlying volumes. How did that compare with your initial expectations?

And can you just talk about what you're seeing in volumes in March and April and expected cadence throughout the year?

I think we're starting to see some underlying momentum, and I wouldn't put a word of caution on that given the macro uncertainty we're facing around 2 wars and oil prices and all the other things that you guys see and read. But I'd say some green shoots are starting to emerge in terms of the underlying demand signal. Special waste has been particularly strong, and we're seeing some momentum month over month in the first quarter. And so we're going to look for that to build.

And again, at what rate that builds, we'll talk more about in the next quarter. But I'd say, versus the 3 months ago, I'd say we're slightly more positive on where the macro is looking.

And then I think the spread between core price and yield was a little wider this quarter at 2.7% versus I think 2% last year. Is that just a mix impact? Or what's driving that? And can you talk about how you think about that spread going forward as you continue to leverage AI to implement more surgical pricing tools?

Yes, it predominantly is mix. You're spot on there. And in part, I would say it's driven by the relatively better performance we're seeing in the temporary large container business, which is predominantly construction-related activity. So sequentially, the volume performance improved 500 basis points.

And so that's where you tend to see that impact because we don't capture price on a temporary unit. You'll see it in that churn mix and other, which is the difference between the core price and the average yield. The good news is that as those units return, right, you're getting that incremental volume, but it's what it ultimately leads to. It's that permanent unit of service.

It's the temporary units leading to that household formation, which ultimately leads to that small business formation, which is extraordinarily important to us.

Our next question comes from Kevin Chiang with CIBC. Kevin?

Kevin, you may be on mute.

You are right. I am on mute. Thanks for that. I apologize if I missed this.

You called out the $12 million or $15 million headwind in ES in terms of the year-over-year comp. But did weather impact ES as well? And maybe if I think of sequential margin performance, if it did, would we expect to see a more outsized margin cadence from Q1 into Q2 within ES, just given if it dipped below 20% in the first quarter here?

Yes. I'd say weather was a factor. I wouldn't say it was the dominant factor, more of the year-over-year comp we talked about, but weather was certainly a factor. And I think we talked about this last quarter.

I think the first couple of quarters here, we're in finding the bottom, which we have, and we're building off of that. We have a tough comp in Q2 as well. You'll see in the back half kind of momentum both in the top line and margin expansion into the business. But we feel really good about what momentum that team has.

I think we talked about probably missing the market a bit as volume declined, right? We were still pretty aggressive on price. And I think we found our footing there on a price volume standpoint. And that can be a little longer sales cycle.

So a lot of the great activities we see won't show up into the P&L until the second half.

That's great color. And just my second question, just wondering, just given where virgin plastic pricing is, just does that impact the economics of the polymer centers or the Blue Polymer JV?

Yes, a lot of moving pieces right now on plastics. We've had some pre-Iran war certainly some global challenges with a glut of virgin PET out of Asia, flooding the U.S. market, some of which is coming in as rPET and working with our industry stakeholders and the government to address that issue. The war itself has been helpful in that because we're starting to see those -- that production go down as they've had to rationalize supply and get it to primary use versus secondary use like plastics. And so the net impact is we're seeing our spreads increase, both in the polymer centers and Blue Polymer JV and feel really good about the demand profile there and the momentum we have in that business.

Our next question comes from Jerry Revich with Wells Fargo.

I'm wondering if we could talk about the electric collection vehicles as you folks are ramping up towards 300. Can you just talk about where you're deploying them, what the unit profitability looks like compared to conventional trucks on an all-in basis? And as we look at what proportion of your footprint could you ultimately see EVs operating in? How meaningful part of the fleet could it be in terms of where there's actual availability of power and economics?

Yes. We feel good about the deployment and the rollout. We've had really good partners in that space. And it's concentrated in markets that you would expect that have local and state environments that are supportive, right?

Places, municipalities that are willing to pay, states that might have incentives to support that because it is a different OpEx, CapEx trade-off. The truck is going to be more expensive, but then cheaper to operate. We're beating our assumptions in the pro forma on that so far. Again, still, we'll learn more every year that we drive those trucks, but feel good about the operational performance.

And you're going to see us deploy. Now we did lose a little bit in terms of federal incentive with the administration change. And so that's probably slowed the rollout modestly. But in residential, this is continuing to be where we're focused on buying the trucks, and we're moving to small container next.

I don't think large containers in the cards in the short term, but this will end up being a meaningful portion of our buy here as we approach the end of the decade.

Super. And then can I ask on RNG, thank you for the update on the facility counts? Can you talk about the operating performance on the facilities? Are you expecting an equity income contribution this year? What's the profitability cadence as they ramp up? And if you could comment on expected royalty contributions this year versus planned, I would appreciate it.

Yes, Jerry, the total contribution that we're expecting from the RNG portfolio is $10 million of incremental revenue, $10 million of EBITDA this year, which is consistent with what we thought in the beginning of the year as well. That is going to ramp up as we move forward. It kind of is $10 million in '27, $15 million in '28, $15 million in '29 and ultimately $20 million by 2030. So that's how that ramps up to that $100 million of incremental revenue by the end of the decade.

Our next question comes from Trevor Romeo with William Blair.

A couple of quick ones here. First one, I wanted to ask on your organics processing business. I think there was some press lately around a couple of new facilities you opened up in California and Colorado recently. So maybe I would love if you could speak to kind of how you're thinking about investing in the organics business, what you're seeing from a regulatory perspective and maybe the overall growth opportunity there?

That ends up being very regional or state specific. So where there's support either from a state regulation or a community willingness to pay, we are investors and operators, both on the collection side and then the processing on the back end. The price of that technology needs to come down on the processing side overall to make that more scalable. But longer term, it's going to be a growth driver. 25% of what goes through our landfill is organic and some capacity that ultimately could come out and be processed in a different way.

So continue to pursue opportunities. And again, as the regulatory environment evolves, you'll see that business scale.

Okay. And then maybe just going back to ES, I think you talked about the sales pipeline building. So I was just wondering if you could give maybe an update on your cross-selling initiatives there. It's something maybe you talked about more a few years ago.

But just what are you seeing in terms of customer demand for kind of the broader set of solutions across your 2 segments and how you're executing on that opportunity?

Yes. Our most profitable customers want an integrated offering, and we're uniquely positioned given that we can offer them broad suite of services, recycling, waste, special waste and then all the various services that are underneath environmental solutions. To unlock the opportunity further, we're really working on some of the IT and sales opportunities to get the information in the right hands of the sellers so that in local customers, we can unlock exactly what we offer, including things as tactical as a single contract, a single bill, ways to make it really easy for our customers to do business with us, and we're making great progress on that, but you'll see that build over the next 18 to 24 months as some of those initiatives get fully deployed.

Our next question comes from Seth Weber with BNP Paribas.

Wondering if you could just give us your updated thoughts on the cadence for the shedding into the residential contracts. Just how we should think about that potentially moderating through the balance of the year?

I think you'll see it pretty consistent across the year. The big driver there in residential was 3 larger contracts that we lost. And regrettable in the sense that we'd love to have those contracts and serve those communities at the right price and cost, but we're going to be very returns focused as we deploy capital and have our people do work in communities, we need to get a fair price for the work that we do. And still seeing more challenges in that vertical than we are in the other verticals in the market of people willing to do work for very, very low returns.

So you'll see those numbers pretty consistent across the year, slight improvement in the second half. And then I think a different outlook in 2027.

Got it. Okay. And then just on your comments around M&A, it sounds like you're now talking about $1 billion plus, which I think is a little bit stronger than what you mentioned last quarter. Is that a function of do you feel better about your free cash flow outlook or just more deals kind of presenting themselves to you?

Or just any nuances there as to why you're taking that number up at this point?

Yes. It's just the opportunities of both what we've already closed and what we have in the pipeline. We're rarely financially constrained. It's always opportunity constrained.

A deal has got to meet 2 screens for us. One, it has to have the right financial returns. And then it's got to be the right strategic fit. We've got to be the owner for it and be able to take that asset and do something more productive with it.

And we just had a really positive year in terms of what we've already locked up and closed and then what we see coming forward in the next 6 to 9 months.

Our next question comes from Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to start out on free cash flow. Really strong quarter. It sounded like maybe it was because of CapEx timing. You talked about it being roughly 12% of the full year CapEx spend in the first quarter. So I was wondering if there was sort of a reason like why CapEx was lower this quarter and what you -- what was lower and what you're planning to spend it on for the rest of the year?

Yes. Actually, most of it from a timing perspective is really within working capital, right? And you can see that -- and much of it has to do with just the number of AP payments that were made as well as payroll payments. So that's something that will flip over the balance of the year.

So we called out that timing piece. The CapEx, that's not abnormal for us to sit there and spend below 25% of our full year spend in the first quarter. You can go back over several years and that's the case. But we do expect to spend that full year CapEx that we guided to in the beginning of the year.

Yes. Okay. Got it. And then one other question on M&A.

I just wanted to tackle it a little bit differently. I guess, are there -- and it was sort of a $700 million to date, I believe. And so were you trying to strengthen current markets that you're already in, entering new ones? Just trying to understand what opportunities you're able to find and how you're thinking about sort of what targets you're approaching?

Yes and yes. So we look in recycling and waste, both the markets that we're already in to strengthen those, and that's the bread and butter, I'd say, what we do acquisition-wise. And then expanding geographies is also an opportunity for us, and those become great platforms for further tuck-in acquisitions over time. And then as well as environmental solutions, right, same opportunities there, strengthening markets we're already in and expanding into new markets.

The balance of the spend so far this year of what's already closed and what's signed and going to close has really been 90% plus recycling and waste. That balance will probably rotate just a little throughout the rest of the year, but pretty strong on both ends.

Our next question comes from Tami Zakaria with JPMorgan.

So a question on CPI. The March reading accelerated sequentially. Just wondering if you could remind us how much of your portfolio is indexed to the CPI? Should it continue to go higher? And what's the typical lag?

Yes. So the -- of our portfolio of contracts that we call restricted, which have some sort of pricing restriction embedded in the contract itself, just shy of 20% are directly linked to headline CPI, 35% are linked to some sort of alternative index, water sewer trash, garbage trash, with the balance about 45% some sort of fixed rate that's embedded in the contract itself or a rate review. The lag tends to be 12 months, call it, on average, there's a look-back period. And then the implementation period tends to be about 12 months after the fact.

That's very helpful. And I wanted to double click on residential volumes. I know you're not speaking to 2027 specifically, but are we -- do you expect residential volumes to turn positive at some point next year?

No, I think the rate of decrease will certainly improve, whether that is flat next year or not probably still declines just given some of the rollover effect of those larger contracts that we lost, some of which started on January 1 and some of which are midyear conventions on that front. And listen, we're going to continue to put upward pressure on price and be returns focused and get paid for the work we do. And to the extent that customers are not willing to pay, then we'll put our resources into other verticals and other opportunities.

Our next question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotia Capital.

Just following up on the residential business. I understand the volumes are declining and why. But if you can talk about the underlying business, how is it performing from a profitability and return standpoint?

Yes. No, profitability in that business is improving. And again, I think for a couple of reasons. One, when you have a contract that's underperforming and you look to get it to an acceptable level of return and if you don't retain that because someone is willing to take that at that relatively lower price, you're going to improve your overall performance.

Coupled with the fact that you look at the remainder of the portfolio and you look at the level of price that we've had in the residential system itself, very strong and well in excess of our cost inflation. So the combination of the 2 have driven margin expansion in that business.

And when we bid these residential contracts, we never bid them to lose money. We bid them with the assumptions of profitability, but then things change over the course of a 5-year term of the contract, which is maybe we didn't have a good pricing escalator on the contract and our cost inflated faster. Maybe our assumptions in terms of number of trucks we needed to cover the community wasn't quite right. It turned out to be a little more expensive to deliver or operate that truck.

So we're being very disciplined across each one of those contracts to make sure that we are returns driven and pricing that accordingly when the contract comes up.

And if I can follow up on the employee turnover side of things. Are you seeing any implications whatsoever direct or indirect from the CDL regulations that are going through in the U.S. right now? I mean I understand your drivers may not be CDL necessarily, but some of them, but do you see any impact of the shortage of drivers that's going on in the industry?

Yes. Our drivers do have CDLs, and I'd say the impact has been de minimis. There's been a few individual cases. But overall, we set the turnover record 2 years in a row, and we may break it again for a third year.

The team is doing a great job of finding talented technicians and drivers and customer service agents and all of our other frontline colleagues and retaining those colleagues at an increasingly high rate.

Our next question comes from Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel.

You mentioned that you're starting to see some green shoots in the solid waste business. And I was wondering if you're seeing similar type of green shoots in the ES business as well. Are you seeing maybe some of the turnarounds happen a little bit faster? What signs are you seeing over there in that business?

Yes. I'd certainly say it's improving, maybe not improving quite as quickly as we're seeing on the special waste side of the business in the recycling and waste business. And you've got some moving pieces. So listen, as oil price is spiking and people are kind of trying to blow out demand, right, that's delaying some of the underlying project work, which can't be delayed forever, but can be suspended for 3 to 6 months.

So there's puts and takes there, but the trend line is definitely up, and we'll see what kind of momentum we build here in the second quarter.

Okay. And then what was driving the volumes down in the C&D business? Was there a tough comp issue over there with some of the stuff that you were talking about? Or it just kind of stood out over there?

Yes. It was more of a comp issue. So in the prior year, we had some hurricane cleanup efforts in the Southeast.

Our next question comes from Tobey Sommer with Truist.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay. Great. I just wanted to ask a question about volume in Environmental Services. How do you expect the cadence of that to change throughout the balance of the year?

Well, there, we don't report on a specific volume metric just because there's so many different product and service lines there that it'd be really, really tough from a mix standpoint. But as I mentioned earlier, we see momentum really building in the second half of the year, I think you'll see incremental progress quarter-to-quarter, right? The year-over-year comp is tougher in the second quarter, but the second half, you'll definitely see the volume picture build.

And with respect to your acquisition program, are you seeing opportunities on the ES side as readily as you are on the municipal solid waste side?

Plenty of opportunities. I'd say there's a little more momentum right now in recycling and waste, not because of activity on our side, but just timing of market. We know that these things ebb and flow, lots of opportunities we have in the recycling and waste side. We've had discussions with the sellers for over a decade.

And it's really timing and event-driven on their side that drives the sale. Environmental solutions, obviously, we don't have the relationship profile that long, but still some of the same things. We maintain a significant dialogue for every acquisition we close that we probably had 7 fall out of the system at some point in the pipeline. So we're very discriminating in terms of what we actually buy, but the activity level there is very strong as well.

Our next question comes from Stephanie Moore with Jefferies.

I wanted to circle back on some of the commentary that you provided on your RISE digital platform. I think some of your peers have talked about leveraging technology for more dynamic pricing discussions. And I wanted to see if that's an area that you guys have tackled as of late. And at the same time, I think you've talked in the past about some opportunity with AI and algo-based routing.

So I wanted to get an update there as well.

Yes, on both sides. So pricing today, we're using dozens of variables through AI to build bespoke prices to existing customers when we send them our annual price increase. And so we're trying to get that as surgical as possible to give them a price that maximizes both what they'll pay and incent them to stay over a long period of time. And that is a game of inches in terms of dialing that in, but small basis points across individual customers adds up quickly across the system and feel really encouraged.

And that will just continue to get better and better over time. It kind of builds in a more linear fashion. Where the routing, there's a lot of upfront work, particularly around data and data accuracy and data management that you need to have in place so that when you start routing dynamic -- building dynamic routes through AI and then routing dynamically through the day, you get it right. And what we won't do is sacrifice customer service to pursue short-term gains.

We're going to get it right with the customer first and then drive all of the operational efficiency through the system while improving customer service. And that's why you'll start to see some of that benefit in the second half of next year, but that's really 2028 where we think we scale.

Our next question comes from David Manthey with Baird.

How much of the environmental solutions weakness is that self-inflicted pricing that you mentioned as opposed to end market softness? And if some of it is market related, what exposures by service or customer type leads you to your view of an improvement in the second half of '26, just so we can sort of track that.

Yes. To answer the last part of your question, we see the sales pipeline and just understand the activities, both on our side and then work that is contracted and slated to begin. Some of those are longer-term things that happen over the course of many months and some of those could be shorter, but we know the start date happens later in the second quarter or into the third quarter on that front. The split between what is market, what is our own activity is hard to identify.

I'd say, certainly, it was more self-inflicted in the second half of last year. And I'd say as we increase and go forward, it's more market-driven, which is we think we got market pricing very dialed in here. We're not going to get it perfect every time, but much improved on that dimension. And some of this is things like ER, which is hard to predict, right?

We just had a soft kind of 18 to 24 months on emergency response other than a single job. And going forward, we would expect that to resume to normal levels, but we'll see where that progresses. And then there's -- it's a mixed picture on the underlying verticals. I mentioned petrochemical and that being a little slower or we're seeing some of the biotech being a little slower where some of the other verticals are moving a little quicker.

And given that you have visibility on these projects as they're coming down, we should assume these are what, turnarounds, remediation, hazardous C&D. How should we think about what types of work that is?

Yes, it's a full mix. It can be both recurring things where we've won the opportunity to take all of the integrated waste out of a plant, a plant produces recycling, solid waste, special waste and hazardous liquids, hazardous water, we can handle all of that or it could be events where we know we're projected to do a big remediation opportunity. And again, that could produce special waste and hazardous waste solids, and that event could be as short as 2 weeks or could last as long as 8 or 9 months.

At this time, there appear to be no further questions. Mr. Vander Ark, I'll turn the call back over to you for closing remarks.

Thank you, Kim. I want to thank the Republic Services team for the great start to the year. Their continued focus on safety, sustainability and exceeding customer expectations positions us for success and another year of strong results. Have a good evening and be safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.