Shizen Technologies

Climate change led to economic losses of over $250 billion in the US, followed by India at $210 billion in 2019. Subsequently, creating public health risks, inequity, and loss of access to opportunities. 

The world needs to get 50 Gt of annual GHG emissions to Zero by 2050. The current systems are broken and not enough to tackle the complex problem of decarbonization. Businesses face the toughest test they ever have – adapting to the changing economic paradigm caused by climate change.

Shizen is building a decarbonization performance platform to bring data, teams, zero-carbon actions, technology, and financial capital together. Shizen is on a mission to decarbonize the global economy to restore a healthy carbon cycle, necessary to mitigate risks and disasters from climate change. Ultimately, enabling a rich and healthy biodiversity, harmony between natural and urban ecosystems, and good quality of human life for everyone, everywhere.

The increase in GHG emissions is leading to more frequent and intense wildfires, flooding, extreme weather patterns, droughts, cyclones and hurricanes to name a few across geographies. 

Industry is one of the leading contributors of GHG emissions, making its decarbonization critical in averting the risks of climate change. The current systems of collecting, managing, analyzing data, and then deploying any useful insights for zero-carbon actions is highly manual, uses arcane methods, and is stuck in spreadsheets. This leads to high costs and at least 12-24 months for a zero carbon action to materialize. Time to decarbonize is now, without delay.

Over the past 6 months our team has interviewed business and sustainability leaders across industries, including fashion, retail, technology, industrials, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, finance, food, oil and gas, utilities. One question topped the list– how do we decarbonize without compromising profitability? Investors face the same dilemma – where do we deploy capital for decarbonization and ensure profitability of these investments?

From a systems perspective, we believe information flow is fundamental to deploying technology and financial capital to decarbonize the global economy. Today, this critical part of the system is broken. At Shizen, we are building the information infrastructure for decarbonization.

Shizen’s decarbonization performance platform has been built using systems design approach. It provides end-to-end automation of decarbonization by bringing data, teams, zero-carbon actions, and financial capital together. Shizen provides the infrastructure for the flow of information between different assets across the value chain and teams to take quick decisions and even faster zero-carbon actions. The platform reduces that time from over 12 months to a few days. 

Shizen gives sustainability teams the superpower to stay on top of decarbonization performance and minimize carbon-risks. It helps them answer the where, when, and HOW of decarbonization, economics of carbon-risks and net-zero transition, marshal financial capital, and deploy technology. The platform consists of three parts:

1. Carbon Management System: Mapping every asset and the associated GHG emissions data across the value chain, including Scope 1, 2, 3.

2. Decarbonization Analytics: Shizen’s proprietary system combines carbon, financial, and operations data at the granularity of an asset level to give multi-dimensional analyses of every potential zero-carbon action without compromising financial or operational performance.

3. Zero-carbon Optimization: We deploy sophisticated optimization models to predict and recommend potential optimal pathways for decarbonization for every single asset in the value chain.

Shizen is not a carbon footprinting software.

People across the world are the ultimate beneficiaries of a decarbonized economy that Shizen Technologies is enabling the transition to. Shizen’s platform is designed to ensure a seamless, robust, reliable, and fast flow of information necessary for decarbonization between different stakeholders in a business’s value chain and external partners. Today, the global supply chains are so well integrated that for a product consumed in the US, GHG emissions and its impacts are also felt in Asia. 

Risks of climate change have been widespread and not limited to any one particular geography. There have been increasing instances of wildfires in California and Australia. Increasing droughts and changes in the normal monsoon showers in the Indian sub-continent. Warmer temperatures in Europe and extreme weather events elsewhere. These also lead to public health risks.

It is the low and medium income countries that stand to bear the maximum burden of climate risks, further restrained by limited capacity to recover. Climate change is causing unequal damages in different parts of the world. The social cost of carbon (SCC) is different for different countries based on the stage of their economic development, geographic location, GINI co-efficient, and other parameters. For instance, in the US SCC is $48/ton of CO2e emission whereas India which has a GDP one-eighth that of the US has an SCC of $86/ton of CO2e emission. The burden of risks emanating from climate crisis also vary within the same country. The need to limit global warming to 1.5°C could halve human exposure to lethal temperatures in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Just these three countries are home to more than one-fifth of the global population.

Decarbonization is key to ensuring the survival of millions of species, natural and urban ecosystems, quality of lives, and the economy. Shizen analytics is helping businesses get to zero-carbon, investors to deploy capital for decarbonization, and cities to become safe, resilient, and more livable. We envision a future where climate risks are eliminated and there is harmony between people, natural environment, and the economy.

Disasters and risks of climate change further lead to the destruction of natural ecosystems and biodiversity. It also leads to economic losses to urban ecosystems which themselves lie at the fragile intersection of human population, infrastructure, cultures, biodiversity, and nature. 

Anthropogenic emissions disturb the natural carbon cycle of the earth. In order to protect and preserve the nature so that these ecosystems flourish we must reduce annual GHG emissions to zero by 2050. Shizen is enabling that transition to a decarbonized economy by building the underlying information infrastructure for businesses, investors, and cities to take targeted and fast zero-carbon actions.

This is our third iteration of the MVP that we built on top of the first prototype. Throughout the process we continue to work very closely with sustainability teams at companies as well as ESG research teams at asset management firms.

As an example, one of our customers is a world leader in HVAC solutions. This is also a great leverage point for us to start testing our solution as buildings contribute nearly 40% of the global GHG emissions having a direct impact on the lives of almost every human on the planet.

Full-time: 1

Interns: 2

Total Employees: 3

Aadish is the founder and CEO (full-time). The diversity and depth of experiences in technology products, fundamental equity research, and sustainable development give him a unique advantage to build Shizen. As an equity research analyst on Wall Street he analyzed troves of financial data of Fortune 500 companies and how market valuations were impacted by operations, macroeconomic, competitive, market supply-demand factors, and other externalities. Later, as a Product Manager at tech startup, he led a B2B SaaS product from scratch to ~$1 mil in ARR. Most recently, he founded a sanitation and energy infrastructure company, a spin-off of MIT D-Lab, for low-medium income countries; tackling UN SDG 6 and 11 head-on.

He was a fellow in entrepreneurship and technology at MIT and healthcare innovation at Harvard Medical School. He studied Electrical Engineering at Panjab University, India.

We are building Shizen Technologies on three core principles of 1.) Innovation in technology and business; 2.) Design; and 3.) Harmony.

The same applies to building the team that will ultimately build Shizen Technologies as a company. We want these core values to be integral to the  products we make and in our partnerships with customers to help them get to zero-carbon. To accomplish that ambitious goal, it is a no brainer that we hire a team at all levels that reflects these values in their approach and every action they take. The complexity of the problem we are solving requires us to build an interdisciplinary team that also brings diverse perspectives and backgrounds.

We do recognize that during the course of building the team we will encounter challenges. This is where we will leverage partnership with Solve. We are working to take measured steps as building the founding team is fundamental to scale the company and product in line with the above mentioned core principles. We strive for these to become our strengths and never a burden.

After all, the problem of decarbonizing the global economy is not limited to reducing emissions. We are tackling this problem because it directly affects access to opportunities, equality, and quality of life for everyone, everywhere.

Shizen Technologies is solving one of the biggest challenges that we have ever faced in human history. It affects the lives of every single human being, natural and urban ecosystems, and millions of species of flora and fauna. We are building Shizen Technologies from the ground up with a clear goal of creating a profitable company that also creates high quality impact at scale for billions of people around the world.

Through MIT Solve we are looking to expand our support base by partnering the world’s best organizations, advisors, experts, scientists, researchers, and economists who are committed to decarbonizing the global economy for better quality of life for everyone. We will leverage the Solve network to recruit a world class inter-disciplinary team and also work with policy-makers towards a decarbonized but inclusive economy for all. Solve will be pivotal for Shizen to scale globally as we target these audacious goals with innovation in technology and business model. Finally, the prize money will provide fuel for us to attack the decarbonization problem with all force.

The team at Shizen Technologies believes that fighting climate change requires all hands on the deck. Shizen is fighting just one part of the war against climate change. We will work with other Solve teams to create the level of impact they envision. Because when more problems are solved, we all win!