London startup YAYZY, has launched an app that tracks spending to calculate the carbon footprint of each user transaction. It allows people to see the impact of their purchases on climate change in real-time.
The aim of the app, which is named after the company, is to enable users to connect their spending to its impact on the planet, making it easier for them to reach net-zero carbon emissions.
Mankaran Ahluwalia, CEO and co-founder of YAYZY, said: “It is clear from a plethora of surveys that the majority of people want to address climate change before it is too late, but that a huge intention/action gap blocks much of it. Our solution with YAYZY is to make environmental impact up close and personal and the action to tackle it super easy, all via your phone.”
By making sustainability easy and accessible to everyone, YAYZY hopes to unleash the good intentions of people who want to play their part to tackle climate change. The app combines both financial technology and carbon tracking and offsetting, to show users how their actions impact the environment by simply looking at their phone.
“COVID lockdown gave us a rare glimpse of what a low carbon future could look like as NASA satellite images revealed massive drops in carbon pollution and beautiful clear skies. While emissions have gradually risen as lockdown eases, YAYZY wants to put us all in the driver’s seat to control our own environmental impact and collectively work together in a journey to keep carbon emissions below the 2-degree target,” said Ahluwalia.
The company was founded in London in 2019. It released its mobile app earlier this year for IOS and it will soon be coming to Android. As well as tracking purchases it encourages users to compensate for their emissions through carbon offsetting. This is done by either ad hoc methods or by signing up to a monthly subscription to either carbon offsetting projects or their own unique climate portfolio, which bundles multiple projects together.
In the app, users can also find tips to reduce their carbon footprint, eco-friendly retailers near them or insights into lifestyle choices that have the highest environmental impact.
To calculate users’ carbon footprint, YAYZY uses the same data source as the UK and US governments, and Microsoft and Google. The business is also advised by experts in carbon emissions measurement, including the award-winning Dr. Sangwon Suh.
Ahluwalia, concluded: “Our goal is to build a sustainability dashboard giving users a complete picture of their lifestyle choices and an easy route to how and where they spend and eventually save and invest to unlock positive environmental impact.”
