Man with a mission to erase carbon footprint, reverse climate change

Rajkumari Sharma Tankha

With a aim to calculate the human footprint and erase the carbon footprint to reverse climate change, Sachin Senger founded Lowsoot in April this year. “We envision a world where everyone, including individuals and organisations, are operating carbon neutrally,” says Senger, adding that an app will soon be launched that will integrate with Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Uber, etc. so as to track the fooprint on the go. In a detailed interview Sengar tells us more about his vision and mission:

How did you get into sustainability? What piqued your interest and your move towards it?
During my stint in the travel and hospitality sector, I realised that there is more than 40 per cent of the electricity that’s gets wasted in hotel properties. So started a company that designed a tech-enabled IoT solution to tackle energy wastage in properties. This became my gateway to understanding climate change as a problem, which eventually led to the formation of Lowsoot.

How exactly do you go about calculating the carbon footprint?
An over simplified way to explain this is as follows. We break down the activities of businesses and individuals in to broad activity buckets. Then we use our proprietary algorithm to understand the carbon footprint due to each of these activity buckets. All our calculations of carbon footprint follow GHG Protocol as the standard for doing carbon accounting.

What are the strategies involved in mitigating carbon footprint?
Here’s a framework that has convinced me the most and is applicable to all individuals and all types of businesses:

1. Track: Track your footprint to understand where you stand.
2. Reduce: Take affordable corrective measures to reduce your footprint in your day-to-day life/processes.
3. Erase: Erase your unavoidable carbon emissions by certified green initiatives

How can a layman calculate, and erase their carbon footprint on their own?
To calculate: Use Lowsoot online carbon footprint calculator to calculate their carbon footprint.
To Reduce: Get more sustainable alternatives of products and services you use in daily life. e.g. Buy EV, Buy BLDC Fan, Cut down on meat production, etc.
To Erase: Fund certified green initiatives that suck CO2 back out of the atmosphere.

How has been the journey so far, what all collaborations have you done and who all?
We have registered more than 56,000+ green NGOs in India. We have got 20,000+ carbon calculations on the website. We currently have 8.6k users. 10000+ app waitlist. Backed by eBikego (India’s biggest EV logistics player). We have verified projects under international standards like VERRA, Gold Standard, etc.

Tell us more about carbonalytics?
Carbonalytics is our new product for B2B which will help companies be on top of their sustainability performance. It will give businesses insights carbon-intensive business activities and move towards NET ZERO emissions with the help of rich data.

What are your future plans?
To calculate the footprint of more than 10 million Indians by 2022, as also calculate and erase footprint for 1000+ businesses.