A job in the City is usually associated with power lunches, food fads, fast cars and excess — or in other words, a nightmare for anyone who thinks less is more for the environment.
But it was a near 20-year investment career in London’s financial centre that encouraged James Hand to create an app, alongside co-founder and wife Jo, that uses big numbers and data to help save the planet.
‘As I got more concerned about the climate crisis and my own carbon footprint, the one area that really got to me was flying,’ recalls James. ‘It has all changed now but back then so many flights were taken just to be “present” even if they were not really needed.
Every time I took off to go and see a client I’d be totting up in my head how much damage I was doing. Giving up flying was one of the first things I did to live more sustainably when I left.’
Jo had been working with a global climate change charity called CDP which, combined with James’s experience in big data, research and analysis, meant they were well positioned to set about building a detailed carbon footprint tool.
The couple, who are based in London, had been measuring their own carbon footprint since 2011 and had a very simple spreadsheet that was growing in complexity. Using this, they worked with a developer to turn it into ethical start-up Giki and its free tool, Giki Zero.
‘The spreadsheet got larger and larger and larger, until it was ready to be a prototype for Giki Zero,’ says Jo. ‘It also kept raising more and more questions as we tried to think about the carbon impact of every decision we made. And then we started testing.
‘We kept on testing with lots of different groups of people, from my previous work colleagues at CDP, to local mum friends, until we had a product we were ready to launch nine months later. We asked them to fill in their footprints and then talk about both the information it gave them, but also how it made them feel. It made it really clear that we needed Giki Zero to provide lots of information but that it also needed to be friendly, positive and personal.’
The app gives users an initial estimate of their carbon footprint, based on everything from home, food and travel, to pets, financial services and clothes, which can be tracked on the Progress page. Every month there are new challenges with selected steps at the top to help lighten the individual’s carbon footprint.
‘We were really struck by how many more people were becoming concerned about the climate crisis but didn’t know what to do about it,’ says Jo. ‘We wanted to help people connect daily decisions to their environmental impacts so everyone can make more informed, more sustainable choices. This decade is crucial in turning things around and slashing global emissions.
How bad is the problem?
Three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions come from people, so working to cut individual carbon footprints can make a huge difference.
Even though some 790million people in the world still have no access to electricity, says the United Nations, the energy supply sector — electricity, heat and other energy — is the largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for about 35% of the total.
Households consume 29% of global energy and contribute to 21 per cent of resultant CO2 emissions.
‘We wanted to help people be part of this crucial transformation.’
Giki also launched Giki Zero Pro last year, between lockdowns, an employee sustainability programme that encourages companies and employees to consider their carbon footprint by creating collective action with teams, leaderboards and information on the carbon, water, land and single-use plastic that colleagues have saved together.
Giki now employs ten people remotely and walks the walk, with a net carbon footprint of minus two tons. There are a number of policies designed to make it easier for Giki colleagues to reduce their footprint, including paid leave for climate action days, additional holidays where travel by train takes longer than plane, no food on expenses unless it’s vegan or vegetarian, and incentives to join renewable energy providers.
It turns out you can take the boy out of the City — and the City out of the boy, too. Rather than being a cut-throat businessman, James welcomes competition… as long as it helps to save the environment. ‘There need to be more products like this on the market,’ he says.
‘It’s amazing how few there are given the scale of the challenge. The key things people tell us that make us different, though, are the detailed nature of the carbon footprint tool, the ability for companies to come together with teams and leaderboards to work on reducing carbon together, and the fact we’re mission led — which means we can provide independent advice and stay focused on getting to Net Zero.’
In the face of climate change, James believes everyone needs to do things differently but policy makers, companies and the public aren’t all ready yet. To stop the climate crisis getting any worse he calls for a world of electric heating and transport powered by renewables, diets that are much more plant-based, no food waste, sustainable finance, limited air travel and more carbon-neutral products. ‘It’s a world to aspire to,’ he says. ‘Not just great for the planet, but for our health and happiness, too.’
Jo adds: ‘Climate change is the single biggest issue facing humanity. All the other issues we face, social, political or economic will all be exacerbated by climate change. If we don’t get on top of it, the legacy of inaction is terrifying. I cannot sit back and do nothing. I have to try to avoid that terrifying legacy. It is as simple as that.’
Find out more at giki.earth
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