WAKEFIELD – In the third podcast of our new series, Mike Schragger speaks to Johan Pihl and Jacob Odqvist of Doconomy, who have developed a ‘mobile banking service for everyday climate action’ which they say makes it easier for consumers to join the fight against climate change by measuring the carbon footprint of their purchases.

Listen to the full podcast here.

If we knew the specific climate impacts of how we shop – such as the greenhouse gas emissions of our favourite dress, would we make more climate friendly purchases? And would apparel retailers knowing that we know the climate impacts of our clothing – offer more climate friendly options? Can consumption and effective climate action go hand-in-hand or are we really kidding ourselves?

Essentially Doconomy is a suite of tools that allows consumers to track their carbon footprint. The first of which is the new app, called ‘Do’ that was released in April 2019 and is essentially a credit card linked to an app to helps consumers to track their consumption. It also allows people to take responsible actions abased on their purchases such as compensating for their actions through the investment of equivalent amounts into ‘sustainable funds.’

“It’s basically the ability to measure the carbon impact of each transaction. It means that if you visit a restaurant, we will register that and calculate the money spent based on the (restaurant) sector’s overall environmental impact. This then gives you a number to work with,” he explained.

The two entrepreneurs explain how the idea originally emerged from work they did with Sweden’s Olandssbank, so do Pihl and Odqvist feel that a ‘big player’ in the banking industry needs to become involved with the initiative for it to be a success? “It’s sort of a double-edged sword, because in the greater good it would be fantastic, because then they would have even bigger traction than we might have at this point.

“On the other hand, we have the first-mover advantage, so down the road there’s a big possibility that we might be able to provide banks with this service because we’ve already started so we become almost a plug-in for them.”

Find out more by listening to the full podcast here.