In 2019, Sanchali Pal decided she’d had enough of spreadsheets.
For six years, the former consultant had been using Excel to manually track the carbon emissions of her purchases, a routine she says saved her about US$2,000 a year by encouraging more secondhand shopping, fewer flights and less meat consumption. But the DIY approach was getting tedious.
So in August of that year, Pal launched Commons, a smartphone app that tracks the carbon footprint of users’ spending, offers cash back for sustainable choices and sells carbon offsets.
Today, Commons has tens of thousands of users, whom it says are able to reduce their annual emissions by 19% on average using the app. If everyone in the US achieved that reduction, Pal says it would be the equivalent of taking 80% of cars in the US off the road.
Commons has plenty of company. There are now more than a dozen apps aimed at helping users keep tabs on their individual emissions.
Tracky uses GPS to target travel-related emissions. With Pawprint, employers can help their employees measure their carbon footprint and weigh in on sustainability initiatives in the workplace. Klarna pairs emissions-tracking with other financial services offerings. The Carbon Games gamifies carbon reduction by giving its users in-app green challenges and displaying competitive leaderboards.
Pal says her goal is to help consumers build a “carbon intuition”.
“The way I think of it is, if something saves you US$1 or US$2, you don’t have to worry about it,” she says. “But if something saves you US$300, you would.” Likewise, “if something is a 100-kilogram [of CO2] decision, you should probably think about it.”
Calculating emissions for…
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