Gokijany

A web application software that helps track, measure, reduce and offset carbon emissions across a business’s value chain.

In 2022, Kenya was hit by a biting drought that According to the National Disaster Management Authority,  640,000 children under age 5 and 111,600 pregnant and lactating women got acutely malnourished. These dry weather conditions and reduced rainfall are now becoming a usual scenario in the horn of Africa putting millions of people in vulnerable and remote communities at risk of hunger and disease.

Climate change is exacerbating the problem of malnutrition affecting food production by altering the distribution and productivity of different crops increasing food prices which is putting more than 2 million Kenyans at risk of malnutrition each year and the implemented solutions are mainly feeding programmes and fundraisers helping the most vulnerable in the communities. This is a temporary solution that only addresses the result of the problem rather than the cause of the problem who’s best solution is to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is studied that the greatest share of the greenhouse gas emissions comes from Scope 3 sources, but because of  the sheer number of partners in an organisation's value chain,  it takes a lot of effort and workforce for a company to track its scope 3 emission. This is where GoKijany steps in.

Gokijany’s easy to use software leverages spend-based methods automatically extracting information from the already existing financial statements to track a company’s emissions across its value chain, then measures the emissions in all of the scope 3’s 15 categories, generating easy and readable graphs that comprehensively visualises the business’s emissions,  sets reduction targets  and demonstrates GHG reductions over time communicating progress as well as showing environmental impact.

Tracking and measuring the carbon footprint of these businesses shows how much biocapacity is needed to take care of the untreated carbon waste and avoid a carbon build-up in the atmosphere enabling us to address the climate change challenge in a holistic way that does not simply shift the burden from one natural system to another.

After the software provides a detailed understanding of all possible effective corporate GHG emission reduction strategies and carbon offset activities that focus on reforestation, agroforestry, and soil conservation which will also help to protect biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as improve soil moisture, increase the resilience of crops to drought and protect against erosion. This will help improve food security, as well as provide other ecosystem services such as water regulation, carbon sequestration, and recreation. Carbon offset projects that invest in renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, can also help to reduce dependence on fossil fuels as well as reduce air pollution.

Our innovation is relevant to communities in low- and middle-income countries in Africa who are not served by current approaches, particularly those who are vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change.

Africa is responsible for less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions but a staggering 65% of Africa's population is directly impacted by climate change and will continue to have a significant impact on ecosystems, affecting human health and wellbeing in Africa.

Gokijany’s approach will be relevant to these communities by enabling business to know their carbon footprint then getting companies to invest in carbon offset projects, will create jobs in areas such as reforestation, agroforestry, renewable energy and will also  build economic opportunities in adaptation of the indigenous practices which are eco-friendly. As a result, offsetting carbon emissions will  help restore degraded lands, improve soil health and water retention, and protect biodiversity and ecosystems in these communities.

We are made up of 11 youths, (6 female & 5 male), aged between 22 to 24 with a well distributed set of skills ranging from tech, designing, environmental, financial and accounting which plays a vital role in the development of this project since we are incorporating an environmental tech solution that feeds on the financial reports of a business to give them descriptive information on its emission. 

We also take into account the different needs, perspectives, and priorities of women and men. Gokijany ensures that benefits, such as jobs and training opportunities, are distributed equitably among men and women. We also address power imbalances between men and women and ensure that women's voices and needs are heard and addressed as we also establish a system of monitoring and evaluation that includes gender-sensitive indicators, to track progress and measure the impact of the project on men and women. 

The 6 core team leads are:

Emmanuel Mulengwa -> a 23 years old entrepreneur and a self-taught software developer with 5 years experience in all tech fields ranging from robotics to machine learning softwares. He is the Founder and CEO of Gokijany.

Vivian Wanjiru -> A 24 years old environmental enthusiast with a degree in tourism and travel. She is the Operations Manager for Gokijany.

Melissa Njenga -> A computer science graduate. She is the Tech lead in the Gokijany.

Paige Wanjira-> is a 23 years Certified Public Accountant. She plays a big role in all aspects of financial statements mapping where and how to trace the carbon footprint of a business. 

Davis Mwangi -> A 23 years old 4th year IT student with 3 years experience in User Interface and User Designing.

Sungu Dudi ->  A 24 years old masters student in Media and  Mass communication graduate. He is the Marketing and Communication manager in Gokijany.

Fiona Oyugi -> She is our finance Lady aged 24 years with 4 years experience in the financial sector.

We are in the process of completing User research with 100 potential businesses and brands. The research goals are to better understand our potential targeted customers and their businesses and validate that what we are offering will help better their day to day operations and take them to net zero.

Gokijany is currently in talks with key stakeholders in the climate and environment space in Kenya such as the National Environmental Management Authority, the Ministry of Environment and forestry, the Kenya wildlife Service.

An effective corporate climate change strategy requires a detailed understanding of a business’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Footprinting provides the baseline needed to implement an effective sustainability and carbon reduction strategy. It can help you identify waste, reduce costs, boost sales and enhance your brand. 

Currently, it takes a lot of effort and workforce for a company to track its emission across its value chain. Gokijany is fundamentally transforming how this problem is approached by tactfully feeding on a company’s financial statement, and then our software instantly generates easy and readable graphs that comprehensively show the company’s emission in all of the scope 3’s 15 categories. In addition we have a mobile application that interactively involves individuals in all possible ways for carbon offsetting.

Tracking the carbon footprint from cradle to cradle of a business’s operations can be complex since it involves a lot of dynamics. As Gokijany, we discovered that these scope 3 emission categories are linked to money. We combined an accountant’s brain, environmentalist, data analyst and a computer programmer’s skill to build a tech software that only takes a financial statement as input and outputs graphs that categorically demonstrates the amount of emission emitted on each category and autonomously generates reports and provides reduction options.

Gokijany’s Carbon offset projects will ensure that crops have access to water even during times of drought. This can help improve crop yields and increase food security addressing malnutrition in vulnerable communities. By reducing the overall amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we will slow the rate of global warming, reduce the frequency and severity of droughts and other extreme weather events while creating economic incentives for reducing emissions.

We are in the business of tracking reporting scope 3 emissions which make up to 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions for companies. Generally tracking scope 3 emissions is difficult and tedious. Our software lets businesses first know how much carbon they are releasing into the atmosphere, second not worry about coming up with a tracking and measuring framework themselves and lastly they get to actually take on the fight against climate change and invest in conservation efforts. 

Our solution is one of its kind in sub saharan Africa and seeks to help businesses actually take up the fight against climate change. To achieve global goals on how much carbon is being released into their atmosphere, businesses must be involved in getting to net zero emissions.

As Gokijany we have set out to 

1. Have more than 100 businesses registered with us and actively using our software.

2. Help all our customers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and reach Net Zero.

3. Engage local communities in Kenya in conservation projects like afforestation of bare land.

4. Build multiple revenue streams to make our business sustainable over the course of our initial operating years.

5. Raise awareness about the need to reduce how much carbon we individually reduce into the atmosphere.

We are building a decentralised web application that runs on a network in a distributed fashion with the participants' information securely protected and operations executed in a network of nodes.

We are currently in partnership with environmental parastals 
number for current clients = 1

number for clients in 1 year =100

A major challenge to accomplish our goals is a lack of policies and laws in place in a majority of African Countries on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and other toxic pollutants. With strict enforced laws, it's easier to make businesses use our software in managing how much a year they emit.

A lack of awareness and necessary involvement by key stakeholders at national and county government levels in Kenya is also a major challenge.

The private sector, though better informed is also not yet fully aligned to pushing businesses to net zero

Lastly, Access to essential and much needed operating funds to ensure our software product is scalable at high bandwidth for our customers. The money we need will also be  used to pay staff and start offsetting projects in Kenya.

We are prone to face Financial risk as a result of budget overruns. To mitigate this, we have set up a predictive method to capture the probability of our business to ever experience unplanned or inadmissible events by identifying and aggregating the risks.

As a software company, we might face identity theft of client data, payment fraud and greater opportunities for hacking. We are managing this risk by strategically implementing the nature and phases of software security right from the beginning, and working to perform them throughout the process. thus, resulting in a quality and reliable service. 

Since we have a fairly low number of competitors here in Kenya and Africa as a whole, high chances we might become too comfortable with the status quo. To mitigate this, we are continually reassessing our performance, refining our strategy, and planning to maintain strong, interactive relationships with our customers. As we still keep an eye on any competition by regularly researching.

Kenya wildlife Servie

Gokijany is set up as a B2C and offers our software as a service. Companies will pay yearly premiums to use the emissions tracking software. The company also provides our customers with an opportunity to offset their emissions by further investing in our conservation efforts with vulnerable  communities in Kenya.

Our customers are primarily businesses large and small that have promised to get to Net Zero. Our services help our customers easily track and measure emissions along their supply chains. We will also be in a position to advise on measures to be taken to actually reduce their carbon emissions.

We are building towards having multiple revenue streams.

First companies will pay to use and access our world class software as they track their Greenhouse gas emissions on a yearly basis.

We are also offering companies an opportunity to pay to offset their emissions through our conservation projects like tree planting and reafforestation in the kenyan Coast and highlands.

We are also proposing to sell branded eco friendly merchandise in a bid to make money to support our operations. The merchandise will be in form of company T Shirts, hoodies, caps among others

We are also launching a programme to help more than 10,000 farmers sequester carbon in their farms by having them adopt modern eco friendly farming practices.

We intend to sell carbon credits generated in this project to international companies like Shell, BP, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Google, Amazon to make money.