Carbon Neutral Indiana

The largest group of scientists in history is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2018, they warned the world must be carbon neutral by 2050. It’s urgent.

If the U.S. Midwest was a country, it’d be the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet. Climate philanthropy is not flowing here. But that doesn’t mean Midwesterners don’t care. Researchers at Yale found that, even in Indiana, 54% of citizens are worried about climate. And researchers at U Chicago found 23% are willing to contribute $40/mo to the cause.

The climate movement is missing an enormous opportunity.

So I founded Carbon Neutral Indiana (CNI) — a nonprofit social enterprise that helps households become carbon neutral. First in Indiana. Then the Midwest. Then the entire country. We’ve already bought the URLs: CarbonNeutralMassachusetts.org, etc...

Complimenting climate action by governments and large corporations, CNI is building a movement that’s changing social norms. We’re making it normal to “clean up your carbon” trash.

We already sparked something and are fanning the flame. Winning the Elevate Prize will be transformative — it’ll bring attention to a forgotten part of the country, and enable us to scale this pilot nationally.

Entrepreneurship was in my DNA as a kid when I sold cans of pop from a wagon at small town parades. I discovered *social* entrepreneurship in college which led to being named a Young Innovator by the MacArthur Foundation.

After graduating with a philosophy degree, I used my twenties to explore widely:

+ Spoke about digital literacy at universities throughout North America like Stanford and Brown

+ Interviewed 50+ social entrepreneurs along a chain of referrals throughout the country

+ Worked as a software engineer

+ Converted to Orthodox Judaism and studied in Israel

+ Advised 100+ social entrepreneurs as an executive coach

In 2019, I discovered the climate crisis. It was the loss of coral reefs that got my attention.

So I dove in full-time. Living on savings, I took a year to interview 200+ people working in the field and create a systems map.

I discovered a powerful lever — teaching households that we can live the future now, and become carbon neutral.

We seek to be the most fun and effective way households can respond to the climate crisis, and we’re building a national non-profit as respected as Teach for America.

According to Cornell University research, the number of climate refugees could grow to 2 billion by 2100. That’s just one example of the suffering the climate crisis can cause. Everyone will be affected. To avoid the worst impacts, we need to be carbon neutral by 2050. That means being net-zero: individuals still have a carbon footprint, but they invest in projects that soak up the same amount they emit. For example, planting trees or capturing methane generated in landfills.

I want to help the U.S. achieve carbon neutrality, starting with Indiana. CNI moves the meter by helping households measure their carbon footprint, and reduce it over time. As a result, we engender hope and shift social norms toward a post-carbon society.

How? CNI measures carbon footprints over the phone for free. Then we invite people to clean up their “carbon trash” by paying a monthly subscription. We invest 60% of that fee in high quality, verified offset projects — exponentially increasing demand for them. 

In our first year, CNI helped over 166 households become carbon neutral, growing annual recurring revenue to over $100K. We did this in a conservative state, during the pandemic, with a volunteer team. This is only the beginning!

1) Carbon Neutral Indiana is a non-profit social enterprise that speaks the language of a start-up. We’re tech entrepreneurs, not traditional nonprofit executives. We generate 80% of our revenue, so philanthropy will accelerate what’s already growing. Promoting carbon neutrality advances the common good, and is therefore a cause worthy of philanthropy. At the same time, we designed CNI to be self-funded as it grows.

2) With a blog and Slack channel, we practice radical transparency with our learning and finances. Transparency accelerates trust.

3) We aspire to become a network of local/state brands--another way of building trust. Trust is critical for a concept as abstract as carbon markets.

4) We’re catalyzing a social movement, where true believers advance the cause more than paid employees or traditional volunteers ever would. Creating this kind of community unlocks immense volunteer human capital.

5) A large portion of climate work involves advocating for top-down policy change — a worthy and necessary goal. Another portion involves direct emissions reduction. CNI works from a third direction by shifting what’s considered normal. We complete the triangle by inspiring our members to reduce their direct emissions and/or engage in advocacy.

52% of Americans recycle. If 52% were carbon neutral, that would channel $30 billion a year into climate solutions.

We need that kind of scale to make up for the social cost of carbon. This measures how much damage a ton of carbon dioxide emissions cause, and Stanford researchers say it’s $220/ton.

Externalizing costs is what led to the climate crisis. And these costs are usually borne by the most vulnerable. Half of Bangladesh lives at sea level. Where will tens of millions of Bangaldeshis go?

If the average American emits 15 tons annually, then the average household shifts $8,800 in social costs onto those who can least afford it.

How can we make a dent in this? By shifting what people perceive as normal. Just fifty years ago teachers smoked cigarettes in the classroom. Soon, it will be expected that everyone be carbon neutral, to clean up their “carbon trash.”

When just 1% of the Midwest is carbon neutral, that represents $300M in revenue, 20M tons of CO2e, 4M cars off the road, and $4.4B in social costs averted!

Serving Directly

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We help about 25 households measure their carbon footprints each month by phone. This includes answering any climate related questions and directing them to educational resources.

About half of these become carbon neutral by cleaning up their “carbon trash.” So far, we’ve certified 178 households as carbon neutral. These include leaders throughout our state -- PhDs, MDs, scientists, entrepreneurs, community organizers. For a representative list: https://www.carbonneutralindia...

Then once they become carbon neutral, we are their point of contact for all things climate, help them reduce direct emissions, and measure their footprint again a year later. 

We have certified 178 carbon neutral households. We’ve also certified 10 small and medium businesses as carbon neutral.

About 60% of the carbon neutral households put up a yard sign proclaiming their carbon neutrality. About 200,000 drivers see these daily.

Serving In a Year

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We seek to grow 15% month over month. Within a year, we aim to help 130 households measure their footprints monthly and to have certified about 800 households total.

Long term, our goal is helping the United States become carbon neutral. We’re doing this with a network of state chapters. Each will be a learning network that convenes, facilitates, and educates. We’re starting with Indiana.

Short term, our goal is to make carbon neutrality normal among households and small-medium businesses.

We collect stories of impact: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/stories 

And we measure impact: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/impact

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1. Awareness

Media mentions

Yard sign impressions

Social media and website traffic

2. Measurement

Carbon inventories for households and businesses

3. Offsetting

Tons of carbon offset

4. Reduce

Tons of direct emissions reduced

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UN SDGs

SDG 3 - Good Health and Wellbeing

During carbon inventories we ask, “How do you feel about the climate crisis?” People tell us they feel overwhelmed, anxious, guilty, and despair. After, people say they feel lighter, a renewed sense of hope, a sense of traction, and connected to a community making a difference.

SDG 4 - Quality Education

We advance education through (1) awareness (2) measuring footprints (3) our climate change leadership program, which applies directly to SDG 4.4 & 4.7.

SDG 15 - Life on Land

As we generate more resources, we’ll create local carbon projects to advance SDG 15.a-15.c.

1. Access

Indiana receives about 5% of the national climate philanthropy it would if that support were distributed per capita. Resources flow to certain areas like Denver, the Bay Area, etc. Most US Ashoka fellows are in just a few cities for example.

2. Cultural

We champion a market based approach to climate which is anathema to many environmentalists. Economists like Greenstone (U Chicago) or Stock (Harvard) show that many popular programs like cash for clunkers or weatherization subsidies are very expensive on a per ton basis.

3. Financial

The world has a lot of infrastructure supporting startup companies if they are for-profit. There’s a dearth of support, however, for social entrepreneurs. A Managing Director at one of the most respected venture philanthropy firms said we’ll be an excellent candidate for their investment -- once we hit $500K in revenue. In our first year, we grew from 0 - $100K. We’ll get to $500K, but it’ll be a lot slower if we have to bootstrap.

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The real value of a prize like Elevate is the accelerated credibility. Once an institution as respected as MIT puts its name behind something, other institutional support follows quickly.

We would leverage this platform in three ways:

1. Encourage people to choose a local, social enterprise nonprofit when purchasing their carbon offsets. There’s nothing wrong with buying from for-profit startups, but if you can support Carbon Neutral Wisconsin why not?

2. Find climate social entrepreneurs in other states who want to build their state chapter. Show them the model we’ve discovered. Mentor them to create their own income, even if national philanthropy has been inaccessible to them.

3. Build more credibility with both venture and traditional philanthropies. Show the national players that we’ve discovered a model that works in Indiana.

Our tagline is: “Fun and effective climate action.” We’ve found that we attract a diverse community of friends to the extent we embody this. Everyone wants to have fun and many gravitate towards a results based approach. This includes gender, ethnicity, age, educational attainment, occupation.

For example, we identified climate activists on college campuses in Indiana. We mentored them and provided technical support (NationBuilder). We helped them circulate petitions asking their institutions to go carbon neutral. About 5,000 people signed these petitions. Then we asked those who signed if they’d like a summer internship.

In the summer of 2020, we hosted 15 college students in a summer leadership internship program. Twelve are women, and five are people of color. We did not seek people out based on anything than if they resonated with our tagline. We tried to be color blind in fact. Many of these students had internships with large institutions -- academic, corporate -- but were canceled because of the pandemic. We provided them an opportunity when large institutions did not.

See a video of the results: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/leadership-development

We have many stories from people of all walks of life like the following: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/households-case-study-michael-grady

One of my favorites: https://www.carbonneutralindia...

Skills

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I was a web developer from 1999 to about 2015. This analytic training taught me to distill and improve processes.

I studied philosophy and religion in university. This taught me to zoom out of situations and see the context.

I converted to Orthodox Judaism and studied in Israel for six months. This lifted me out of my particular upbringing and helped me see human beings as an anthropologist.

Then, I was an executive coach to about 100 social entrepreneurs. 50 case studies and testimonials: https://www.appliedideals.com/results This taught me I have a gift for listening, facilitating, and empowering individuals.

Representation

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In 2019, I took a sabbatical for a year to interview a few hundred people working on the environment throughout the Midwest. I wanted to discover who was doing what, and how I could add as much value as possible. When I discovered the carbon markets, I created a Messenger group with 50 friends. I shared everything I learned and engaged them to deepen that learning. Full story: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/blog-cni-origin-story

Since founding CNI, I’ve interviewed 200+ more people during our carbon inventories. This listening stance enables our team to distill what our community really wants and needs.

There’s one foundation in Indiana that supports climate. They said, “Why create another non-profit? There’s only so much money to go around."

I went ahead and created another non-profit because Indiana is one of ten states producing half of US emissions. We need all hands on deck.

But I wanted partnership. After six months, three of those other nonprofits said no to a fiscal sponsorship arrangement. Finally, after nine months of discussion, my fourth choice said yes.

One former Y Combinator partner wrote, “If you hit $10K annual recurring revenue (ARR) in 60 days, call me. I’ll fly you out to San Francisco. No promises, but I’ll probably fund you.”

We launched during the pandemic with no funding, and we hit $10K ARR on day 59. :)

We kept chugging. With no support from angels or incubators, with an all volunteer team, and in a conservative state… we achieved over $100K ARR within a year, most of that with a 40% gross margin.

And we’re just getting started. When 1% of Indiana is carbon neutral, that’ll be $20M ARR, about 20X bigger than our biggest environmental nonprofit Hoosier Environmental Council. That capacity will transform the state.

Bloomberg Midwest Climate Summit:

https://www.carbonneutralindia...

All NPR stations in Indiana:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9epZOBS1vvI

Testifying before our state legislature (2020):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MyKmiU1lOM

Testifying before our state legislature (2021):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfs19oa5JjE

One of 20+ universities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSMMepZEi_w

Right now, our growth is limited by being bootstrapped. We can acquire customers with a payback of about six months. In the SaaS field this is gold. Since we don't have growth capital, we still need to invest in acquiring customers very slowly even though our payback is awesome.

Any additional funding will add fuel to the existing fire. For example, instead of using most of our 40% margin to pay for subscription costs and my $23/hour income, we could invest it into perfecting automated marketing like most SaaS companies. Once we perfect automated marketing, then I'll train other salespeople. With both of those pieces ready to scale, then we can really go big. I'm guided by David Skok: https://www.youtube.com/result...

Indiana Forest Alliance is our fiscal sponsor. They provide bookkeeping, credibility, and technical expertise with forest carbon.

Bohlsen Group is Indiana's first B Corp. They provide free PR support.

Will Ditzler is the Chair of the Board of The Nature Conservancy (Indiana's chapter). He donates executive coaching to me. His day job is coaching CEOs with $10M+ revenues scale.