We recently posted a poll on LinkedIn about the one big question that our readers would like to ask a climate tech startup if they have the opportunity to. The result was clear: They would like to know how these companies measure the impact of the work that they are doing.
For startups working in the field, profits are not the only goal that they are after. Especially in a matter as urgent as the climate crisis, startups in this field need to have a parameter to understand the efficacy of their solutions. This will aid them not only in the matter of developing the next versions of their solutions but also in acquiring potential users.
To answer this big question, we reached out to climate tech companies in the Asia Pacific to understand how they do it. The following is an edited excerpt of the interview.
MVGX
In an email interview with e27, Michael Sheren, President and Chief Strategy Officer of MVGX, writes that impact measurement is central to what the team does at MVGX. As a startup in the climate sector, in addition to building solutions for its clients, the company also measures its own carbon footprint and has developed a roadmap that reduces its emissions by making modifications to its business model.
“For our clients, MVGX has developed software tools that allow companies to assess their carbon footprints and more importantly, provide granular directional data on which areas of their business can be improved. Built to encourage ongoing, regular use, our software allows clients to understand their positive impact on the environment based on their emission reductions on a quarterly basis. This makes sustainability reporting easier for our clients, encouraging accountability as they work toward reducing the impact of their carbon footprint to meet their carbon reduction goals,” Sheren explains.
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“Eventually, this ties into our ambitions as a green finance company — we expect to be able to measure the positive climate impact and ESG attributes of all the assets and projects we hope to finance in the future. Measurement, transparency and positive impact are fast becoming the key elements in finance. These elements ensure that financial institutions are not greenwashing and borrowers are gaining access to the lower cost of capital that less-risky green loans and bonds deserve.”
How do you come with it?
“That being said, we have an extraordinary tech team that has been critical to building out our suite of carbon-as-a-service solutions that all tie back to comprehensive matrix parameters that help us identify and measure the outcomes of our work. As with all product development projects, we went through multiple rounds of trial and error to build systems that best capture our impact and address the needs of our customers, especially when it comes to ease of use,” Sheren answers.
“Given the complex nature of the industry, good communication is critical to ensure seamless understanding across disparate parties — especially when building products and services across varying sectors and disciplines across the green, tech, finance, and business spaces. Additionally, the complexity of creating software for carbon measurement relying on automated functions built from scratch is, in itself, not an easy feat; however, creating new and innovative software is something we proudly develop together as a team.”
IVITECH
IVITECH aims to provide new electric bikes for ride-hailing drivers in Indonesia, a mission that aligns with the government’s policy to have 2.5 million electric vehicle users in the country by 2025. By providing eco-friendly electric bikes, it aims to reduce emissions and improve air quality in Jakarta, where pollution is a growing concern, explains Co-Founder & CEO Artem Moskalev in an email to e27.
There are several parameters that IVITECH uses to measure its impact:
1. It will monitor the number of electric bikes distributed to drivers, as well as the number of drivers who switch from gasoline bikes to electric bikes. “This will give us a clear indication of the adoption rate of our solution. We plan to provide 64,500 new electric bikes to drivers, and we will track the distribution of these bikes over time,” Moskalev explains.
2. It will measure the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the switch to electric bikes, as well as the cost savings for drivers who switch to electric bikes. “Based on our analysis, drivers can save up to 80 per cent on their driving costs by using electric bikes instead of gasoline bikes. We will track these savings over time to demonstrate the financial benefits of our solution.”
3. It will monitor public awareness and education about the benefits of electric bikes. This will involve conducting surveys and tracking media coverage to determine the level of awareness and education about its initiative.
“By tracking these parameters, we will be able to measure the success of our initiative and make any necessary adjustments to ensure its long-term impact.”
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“Coming up with our initiative to provide new electric bikes for ride-hailing drivers in Indonesia was driven by two key factors. First, the air quality in Jakarta has been a growing concern, and we wanted to provide a solution that could help reduce emissions and improve air quality. Second, we recognised that many drivers in Indonesia face significant challenges due to the outdated and unsafe bikes they use, which can be up to 10 years old and require frequent maintenance,” Moskalev explains.
“We conducted extensive research on the transportation landscape in Indonesia, including the challenges faced by ride-hailing drivers and the environmental impact of gasoline-powered vehicles. From there, we tested various business models. We continue to refine our approach based on feedback from drivers and our own ongoing analysis.”
In implementing this solution, IVITECH has to tackle two challenges: Educating key market players and raising awareness about the benefits of electric bikes and the lack of adequate infrastructure.
“While infrastructure is developing, it is not yet fast enough to support the widespread adoption of electric bikes. We need more charging stations and swap stations to ensure that electric bikes can be charged quickly and easily without causing any disruption to drivers’ operations. These challenges require collaboration between the private and public sectors to overcome, and we are actively working with both to find solutions,” Moskalev stresses.
GAIT Global
GAIT Global’s core is in the deployment of GHG measurement systems for the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of climate action projects. The organisation believes that nature-based climate action has a responsibility to deliver significant social impact beyond just carbon removals.
In an email interview with e27, Alfie Robertson, Head of Strategy at GAIT Global, explains that these nature-based projects include conservation, restoration, and land-management actions that increase carbon storage and avoid greenhouse gas emissions.
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“We ensure that every carbon reduction project is aligned to sustainable development goals that not only uplift but educate and benefit the local community and Indigenous Peoples within a project’s area and the wider region. At GAIT, we call this the triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic impact, allowing us to meet our commitment of building a world where ethical, sustainable and financial decision-making upholds one another,” he says.
The GAIT System itself fuses machine learning, flux sensors, and spatial data to deliver a method to quantify greenhouse gasses and carbon project metrics. Its proprietary technology catalyses academic research and equipment to improve carbon metrics and advance digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV) for nature-based carbon projects.
“Our technology and approach is an iterative process, we are continuously learning and refining our models to the latest geospatial satellites and technological advances. We believe dMRV is still in its infancy and look forward to continuing to pioneer the space for greater transparency, scalability, and consistency in carbon markets,” Robertson says.
The most difficult challenge for the organisation, as with any technology-led design, is the initial validation of emerging technology.
“Fortunately for GAIT, our scientific foundation and technical principles are well-documented and researched, underpinned by the Eddy Covariance principle and flux sensor technology. Eddy Covariance was first published in 1951 and has undergone extensive research to validate its defensibility and accuracy in directly observing the exchanges of gas, energy, and momentum between ecosystems and the atmosphere,” Robertson says.
“GAIT has enabled Eddy Covariance and flux technologies to be commercially viable through proprietary IoT, Cloud, and AI/ML technologies. The validation journey was expedited via extensive testing and commercial pilots alongside market leaders.”
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Kita
Malaysia-based Kita is a social commerce platform for sustainable fashion that aims to make circular fashion more accessible. In an email interview with e27, a Kita spokesperson expresses the company’s belief that secondhand fashion should be as accessible as fast fashion.
The startup recently made it to the top 10 list of 1337 Ventures’ Alpha Startups Pre-Accelerator, a pre-accelerator programme for early-stage startups.
In measuring the impact of their work, there are two points that Kita is looking at: The number of clothing saved from the landfills on Kita and the number of thrifters at Kita.
“Being sustainable means lengthening the lifespan of an item for as long as it can, and this means saving perfectly reusable pieces from ending up in the landfill. Extending the life of a piece of clothing by an extra nine months reduces its carbon, waste and water footprint by 20-30 per cent. At Kita, we measure the number of clothing we were able to keep in the circular fashion loop, which would have ended up as waste,” the spokesperson says.
“Making the shift to shopping sustainably is a paradigm change of the mindset. We hope that Kita can impact more people to be part of the circular fashion movement, to bring us into a more sustainable future, where fashion does not have to come at the expense of our planet.”
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In developing their solutions, Kita faces several challenges.
“Secondhand is a spontaneous and untamed market; our vision to make it as convenient as fast fashion would require a lot of deliberate designing to make this happen. Besides, educating and bringing awareness about circular fashion to the public is a result that will take effort and time to cultivate,” the spokesperson says.
“Above all, our biggest challenge comes in uncertainties. Uncertainty in our market, in our decisions, uncertainty in uncertainties.”
The company also points out that Malaysia happens to be “extremely deprived” of the data on thrifted product market conditions.
“There are only a sparse amount of credible publications covering informative thrifting scenes around here, let alone statistical surveys. We can only observe empirically by ourselves. Without the luxury of solid statistical information, this makes decision-making processes be based a lot on benchmarked oversea model case studies, assumptions of future projections, and yes, unfortunately, gut feelings,” they say.
Archireef
Hong Kong-based Archireef utilises 3D printing and proprietary algorithms to print reef tiles made from natural materials with the purpose of restoring degraded marine ecosystems. It creates artificial habitats that aim to help the endangered marine ecosystem to recover from the effects of pollution and other threats.
The company has an ongoing project in Hong Kong’s Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park and has recently expanded to Abu Dhabi.
In the Elevator Pitch Competition (EPiC) by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), e27 sits down with Archireef Co-Founder & CEO Vriko Yu to understand more about their work.
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“When it comes to environmental tech and climate tech specifically, most of the standards right now … is to achieve net zero and carbon neutrality. But we are seeing a stronger trend in achieving nature positivity,” Yu explains.
“This means that in addition to reducing the negative impacts, reducing our carbon emission, we are also enhancing our [positive] impacts on the environment. This one, in particular, focuses on biodiversity. That is one area that we are actively focused on.”
In measuring its impact to biodiversity, Archireef is doing it by tracking the environmental DNA of organisms that have lived in an area for some time. In the case of marine ecosystems, the company tracks the environmental DNA by taking water or sediment samples.
“Then we can amplify the DNA trace and footprint in the environmental sample to track what animals live in it fully. That really captured the full spectrum of the biodiversity, and they quantified and standardised way,” Yu says.
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