SME Member of the Week: Climate Essentials
Climate Essentials is the first of November's SME Member of Week. This month, techUK are focusing on sustainability, with the COP27 summit due to take place throughout the month. We'll be showcasing SMEs who have made an impact on the transition to net zero, either through developing technology to combat the climate crisis or showcasing what they've done to reduce their own carbon emissions.
Climate Essentials is a purpose-driven organisation whose carbon analytics and reduction strategy platform brings together different stakeholders to achieve climate pledges.
How did your company start?
My co-founder (Steve Berry) and I (Daniela Menzky) have over 60 years of combined experience in creating and scaling successful start-ups. Our mission when launching Climate Essentials was to harness our expertise in order to help tackle the greatest issue facing our planet (and humanity) - the climate emergency. The trigger for Steve was during a trip to Iceland, seeing the remembrance plaque of the Okjokull glacier. For me, the idea of living in barren lands beset by water shortages, has been a fear since I was very young. Regardless of technological developments, we won’t be able to turn the clock back on global warming. I know that ‘climate guilt’ is not uncommon among people of my generation – we need to transform those emotions into action. That’s why Climate Essentials plans to become a global community of change-makers, bringing together all stakeholders to work collectively to reduce climate change.
How does your company contribute to this month's theme?
Climate Essentials facilitates climate action through data-driven technology for SMEs, local authorities, and business ecosystems by removing barriers to reaching net zero. With our carbon management platform users can measure and understand their carbon emissions according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Organisations then have access to a tailored carbon reduction strategy which includes a quantitative view of each carbon reduction action. This allows businesses to confidently communicate their plans and progress, demonstrating actions taken in line with their climate pledges.
Specifically tailored for public bodies and complex organisations, we are also the only provider of carbon analytics data for entire ecosystems. Local authorities are using Climate Essentials Analytics to better understand their regional and industry footprint from an aggregated top-down and bottom-up perspective; organisations can use these data insights to inform policy and create climate initiatives.
Who's behind your company?
We are a small but fast-growing team of driven professionals who are passionate about solving today’s most pressing issue. We are proudly female-led and eight out of our team of ten are women. Martina Colman is our Head of Climate Science and Engineering. This is one of her favourite quotes (taken from Twitter!): “We don't need one perfect environmentalist, we need billions of imperfect environmentalists, taking climate action every single day”. Our Client Delivery Manager, Laura Mitchell, takes inspiration from the words of David Attenborough: “The final chapter is ours to write. We know what we need to do. What happens next is up to us.”
What’s your perspective on the present and the future of this month's theme?
According to the IPCC the world has until 2030 to implement lasting action to avert devastating climate breakdown. Having declared a climate emergency, the UK Government has committed to be net zero by 2050, which legally binds local authorities to net-zero targets. Around 75% of local authorities in the UK have recognised the severity of the challenge that we face, by declaring a climate emergency. Businesses in the UK are also finding it increasingly important to take climate action, with mandated financial disclosure for over 1300 of the UK's largest registered companies.
As the climate emergency deepens, and net zero deadlines approach, both businesses and local authorities will find climate action an increasingly urgent priority. At Climate Essentials, we are directly responding to the critical need for collaboration and consistency in order to achieve net-zero commitments, by bringing multiple stakeholders under one roof. Local authorities are estimated to have significant scope to influence around a third of local area emissions. By using Climate Essentials, local authorities can gain insights into their ecosystem’s emissions (broken down by categories including supplier, industry, and location), and strategically target reduction campaigns and drive progress.
One of the ways that techUK has supported this month’s theme is by taking action to reduce their own emissions, through using Climate Essentials. Speaking about their experience using Climate Essentials: “It has helped us to understand the areas which have the greatest impact on our carbon emissions and has therefore helped us target our strategy on those areas.”
Recent Success
We have won several contracts with business networks and local authorities across the UK, with clients including West London Business, London & Partners, Digital Catapult, techUK, and Buckinghamshire Business First, as well as being the Greater London Authority’s tool of choice for all 32 London Boroughs. This has allowed us to reach 2,000 businesses so far this year, who together have pledged to reduce over 6 million kgCO2e. This is equivalent to removing 1,119 petrol cars from the road for one year or the total carbon sequestered by 85,867 tree seedlings grown for 10 years! We have been shortlisted for the Digital Leaders GreenTech Innovation of the Year Award; finalists for the West London Business Awards; selected participants for PUBLIC’s GovStart Accelerator Programme; and invited to exhibit at the GovTech Summit in The Hague, sponsored by the Dutch government. Two of our users were even nominated for the Net Zero Hero award at COP26, with one of them winning. This is a proud stand-out achievement for our company and shows how our platform facilitates and accelerates real climate action.
What does the future look like for your company?
Considering the momentum we’ve already gained in regions across the UK, we will grow into a big data company over the next few years. The more data we have, the more it will create deeper insights into regional and industry emissions, on the back of which we’ll be able to drive really great and impactful campaigns. Beyond the UK, Europe and the US are obvious expansion targets and we are already in talks with selected Asian countries for market entry. International growth will be a key objective over the coming years and we will have an extensive network of offices in five years time, taking our approach and collaboration over data to the global community to accelerate impact.
Asks for other members
Collaboration is absolutely critical for tackling the climate emergency. We are always learning, and we continue to make improvements to Climate Essentials. Therefore, we are keen to share knowledge with other techUK members about machine learning and data science.
Our mission at Climate Essentials is to directly respond to the need for cross-organisational collaboration and consistency in approach, to achieve net-zero commitments. By creating networks of climate-conscious people and organisations, we want to facilitate industry- and region-specific sharing of knowledge and best-practice. We would love to hear from techUK members about other companies providing climate solutions so that we can recommend them to our clients.
At Climate Essentials we bring multiple stakeholders under one roof, which enables the collective creation of aggregated bottom-up carbon data analytics. The larger our community and consequent pool of anonymised data, the better we can help to target strategic emissions reduction campaigns. Our call to techUK members is therefore, if you think what Climate Essentials does sounds valuable, please join us!
More information
LinkedIn: @Climate Essentials
Twitter: @ClimateEssentls
Instagram: @climateessentials
Website: https://climateessentials.com/
SME Member of the Week: December, Social Impact
For December's SME Member of the Week, we’ll be focusing Tech SMEs that create positive value for the economy, communities, and society. With Christmas coming up, we want to showcase how our SME members are creating social impact through their business, such as through charitable or humanitarian causes, staff volunteering opportunities for employees, or community intiatives.. Submit your case study here.
techUK – Committed to Climate Action
By 2030, digital technology can cut global emissions by 15%. Cloud computing, 5G, AI and IoT have the potential to support dramatic reductions in carbon emissions in sectors such as transport, agriculture, and manufacturing. techUK is working to foster the right policy framework and leadership so we can all play our part. For more information on how techUK can support you, please visit our Climate Action Hub and click ‘contact us’.
