Earth Day 2022 – Klima

Publish Date:  April 20th, 2022

 

Interviewee: Markus Gilles, CEO and Co-Founder of Klima

Q&A

What does your company do?

Klima is a climate app that helps individuals to take holistic climate action in their day-to-day live. Users can calculate their personal carbon footprint quickly and easily. They can then offset their emissions by funding certified climate projects with a customized subscription, and further reduce their footprint through personalized tips, climate education and detailed impact data that encourage lasting and high impact lifestyle changes. By focusing on both, offsetting and reduction, Klima combines immediate impact with sustainable transformation.

What are the most urgent challenges facing climate change in your opinion and on which/what kind of solutions do you/does your company work on in particular?

With insufficient action from governments to keep global warming at 1.5 degrees, and the fact that 72% of CO2 emissions are addressable by consumer behaviour, individual action has a massive untapped potential to help close the “emissions gap”. In order to use that potential, we need a cultural shift that makes climate-healthy lifestyle choices the new normal. Companies can play a huge role in this cultural shift. We are seeing a lot of companies who are embracing this and want to make personal climate action a part of their team culture. To support them on this path, we’re launching our B2B offer ‘Klima for Teams’ this Earth Day. It enables companies to embed climate personal action into the entire employee journey by sponsoring Klima memberships for their workforce, advancing climate literacy, promoting CO2 reduction, and offsetting employees’ personal emissions.

How does Berlin help you and your company to achieve your goals?

Berlin is a city change makers! People from all over the world come here to create new things rather than fitting the mould. The amount of tech talent that wants contribute to positive change in new and inventive ways is incredible. Being able to build a team in such an environment makes me grateful to this city.

It is Earth Day! Do you have private hints how to reduce our every-day carbon footprint? What do you do in this regard on a daily basis?

First, let’s take Earth Day as an opportunity to celebrate and be grateful for this beautiful blue marble that we have the privilege to inhabit during our lifetimes. Out of this appreciation, we must understand that earth needs our help. What you or I can do to help most effectively, differs based on our personal circumstances. The first step therefore is to get educated: What are the underlying principles behind our carbon emissions in different areas? What is high impact versus low impact actions that I can take in my life? Then decide: From the high impact actions, what is the easiest first step for me to take? Start there and then take one step at a time. We just released a carbon reduction assistant in Klima that guides users exactly along that personal journey, based on their individual data.

 

For more info on the work of Klima, please visit their website by clicking on: