Dusseldorf Plant trees, build solar systems, finance efficient cooking stoves: With the “Klima” app, users should be able to fight against climate change. One download, a few clicks, a little money and consumers are already supporting tree planting in Tanzania, which aims to protect the planet.
“There is no one in the world who is not personally affected by the climate crisis,” says Klima CEO and co-founder Markus Gilles. “We want to make personal action measurable and effective.” The app has now collected ten million euros in growth capital. That is one of the highest totals for climate protection apps on smartphones.
A new app just launched on the market, Emyze, which allows users to track their emissions. In addition, the Berlin non-profit organization Leaders for Climate Action launched an online tool for reducing emissions. With this, people should be able to contact politicians or switch to an eco-supplier when purchasing electricity.
The economic database Crunchbase recently compiled a list of 27 climate software companies that shows: The companies collected a total of 1.3 billion dollars, 640 million of them – more than half – in the last year alone.
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Apps like Klima or Emyze hope to attract young people and the climate-conscious in particular as customers. At Klima, after registering, they can answer questions about their behavior in everyday life, such as how often they book flights or what they eat.
The app calculates the average annual CO2 value, and customers can offset this with a monthly amount of money that goes to climate protection projects. Newly planted trees that bind CO2, solar systems for green electricity or modern stoves so that people in some parts of the world do not cook with open fires.
Offset 100 percent of your own emissions with just a few euros
With around six to twelve euros, users can offset 100 percent of their emissions. Of this, Klima uses 30 percent for its own growth: ten percent for administration costs and return, 20 percent for marketing. “We’re a commercial start-up because we can generate the most impact for the climate with this model,” says Gilles. To date, according to its own statements, Klima has saved more than 70,000 tons of CO2, around 300 million kilometers driven in a petrol engine.
Jonas Brandau, Andreas Pursian and Markus Gilles (from left) support climate protection projects with their app.
(Photo: Climate)
Compensation projects in particular are highly controversial. For example, because of the case of the organization Plant for the Planet, which promised tree planting projects in Mexico. Research of the “Time” and the “stars” showed that the projects were not implemented or the trees were flooded.
The start-up Tomorrow was also criticized by consumer protection. It promises to fund sustainable projects through sustainable bank accounts. Their actual sustainability cannot be verified – the start-up rejected the criticism.
Projects supported by Klima are not comparable to Plant for the Planet, says Gilles. “For us, we offer the bound amount of CO2 in a tree,” says the founder. “When the tree has reached a certain size, the TÜV drives to the project and measures how much CO2 is actually bound in the tree.” In addition, only projects that meet international certification standards are financed.
“Good for the conscience, but not the right start”
Jan Steckel from the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin sees a problem in handing over responsibility for the climate to individuals. “It’s good for our conscience, but not the right entry point for politics.” The professor of climate and development economics says that it would be important to end fuel subsidies or increase CO2 taxes. “It’s not about supporting climate protection projects with a few euros, but about changing something structurally in society.”
The newly launched Emyze app wants to distance itself from project financing, says its founder and CEO Benjamin Gaertig. The app was previously called “Mother Nature” and offered emissions management and offsetting.
Now there would only be a calculator for the personal annual budget of CO2 in the app and the possibility for users to enter their emissions and compare them with their own CO2 budget. “First and foremost, it should be about reducing emissions,” explains Gaertig. The founder no longer wants to offer any options in the new app to finance projects that compensate for CO2 emissions with trees or solar systems.
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“It’s good that these apps create awareness, people start to think about their actions,” says climate economist plugs Especially if they would pass on their findings to their networks or decision-makers.
Klima is now starting with a software offer for companies and their employees. “Companies, which often already measure and reduce their operational emissions, can now also address the personal emissions of the workforce with climate by using the app,” says Gilles.
The former sustainability officer at Zalando is now CEO of the decarbonization software Vaayu.
(Photo: Vaayu)
Software applications that calculate CO2 emissions for companies are already growing faster. The French decarbonization software Sweep collected 73 million dollars in April, the Berlin emissions software Plan A ten million euros in December.
The Berlin start-up Vaayu has just received almost eleven million dollars from investors in a seed financing round. The founder is the former head of sustainability at Zalando, Namrata Sandhu. She founded Vaayu specifically to decarbonize retail.
Her software focuses specifically on large companies in the textile industry or e-commerce, says Sandhu: “We focus on accurate calculation of emissions in this industry,” she says. “Companies automatically receive current CO2 values from us every day.”
As an investment, business software that offers concrete solutions for reducing emissions is more exciting, says Daria Saharova, co-founder and investor of the climate technology fund World Fund. “These are just bigger problems that need a more complex solution.”
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