By Andreas Slettvoll, CHOOOSE CEO and founder

Just a few years ago, the process of calculating and compensating for carbon emissions was manual, cumbersome, and expensive. Climate tech company CHOOOSE was born from this gap between carbon solutions and the people and companies that should be accessing them. Since CHOOOSE was formed in 2017, the entire landscape of carbon offsetting—and the urgency around taking climate action—has changed immensely.

Increasingly, companies are expected to take serious steps toward sustainability, and then be able to report on those steps. Organisations that don’t act can easily become less attractive to investors, partners, employees, and customers. Businesses around the world are being questioned on their role in global carbon emissions.

For every company that travels, addressing travel-related carbon emissions is an important part of the decarbonisation journey. In fact, SAP Concur research found that 37% of businesses have carbon compensation as a key objective for their 2022 sustainability agenda. However, sometimes, a lack of access to climate solutions and seamless technology makes the path to net-zero emissions more difficult—and less appealing. This is where the role of climate tech comes in: in order to bring more companies on board, we must remove barriers between climate-positive actions and the people that need to take those actions.

With travel continuing to rebound post-pandemic, and even surpass ‘normal’ levels, carbon management programs have become a higher more of priority for many companies, and by giving businesses more sustainable opportunities, green tech is forever changing the way that businesses operate and the footprint they leave behind.

Addressing carbon emissions with seamless climate tech

CHOOOSE™ is a venture-backed leader in technology-based climate action, building digital tools so that everyone, anywhere, can easily integrate climate action into everyday life and business. On a mission to close the gigaton gap between climate intention and action, CHOOOSE provides practical software tools to our partners and their customers, empowering them to understand and address emissions by supporting the highest quality climate projects, as well as to advance emerging solutions like Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

Through flexible integrations, customer-friendly interfaces, automated carbon measurement, and a connected marketplace of carbon management and climate solutions, CHOOOSE delivers a complete platform that enables our partners to build and manage integrated climate programs.

"You can’t manage what you can’t measure"

We understand that sustainability is a journey that many businesses find overwhelming and complicated. The CHOOOSE platform offers high-precision emissions calculations—because you can’t manage what you can’t measure—allowing businesses to track and adjust their emissions over time in the most seamless ways possible. Then comes the important part: we connect our partners with the highest level climate solutions to help them compensate for their unavoidable emissions on their journey toward their sustainability goals.

Accelerating climate solutions in Latin America

As one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, Latin America plays a massive role in global climate stability. Around 60 per cent of all land and water life can be found in Latin America and the Caribbean, which impacts natural global systems in many ways. But despite only contributing less than 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the region faces massive challenges due to global climate change, from melting glaciers in the Andes to intense droughts in Amazonia, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and more. The World Meteorological Organization recorded the year 2020 as one of the three warmest years on record for the Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean region, and the second warmest for South America.

Over the last few years, in response to these climate threats, governments, businesses, and individuals across the Latin American region have made ambitious commitments to protecting the natural environment and slowing climate change.

Brazil has committed to not only eliminating illegal deforestation by 2023, but restoring and reforesting 18 million hectares by 2030. Colombia has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% and protecting 30% of all marine and terrestrial areas by 2030. Mexico has signed a declaration advancing the transition to 100% zero-emission cars and vans by 2040.

Along with these state-level policy changes and commitments, a wide range of innovative adaptation and mitigation solutions are required across all sectors and must include the private sector.

Climate tech at work with LATAM

One of the biggest regional partners CHOOOSE has worked with is the LATAM Group. In just 2015, LATAM, the largest airline in South America, announced their sustainability agenda, aptly titled A Necessary Destination. The goals are ambitious, including eliminating single-use plastics by 2023, offsetting 50% of domestic emissions by 2030, and establishing a plan to be carbon neutral by 2050.

But on the road to sustainability, how does a leading global airline measure, reduce, and manage their carbon emissions? LATAM’s sustainability teams knew that it would take in-depth carbon emissions data analysis, transparency with stakeholders, access to carbon emission offsetting projects at internationally recognised standards, and investing in the future with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to reach their goals. That’s where CHOOOSE's climate solutions come in.

Now, through the partnership with CHOOOSE, LATAM supports regional carbon mitigation projects, from solar panels in Chile to rainforest management in Peru.

By partnering with CHOOOSE, LATAM was able to further develop their Let’s Fly Neutral programme to accelerate their progress. Let’s Fly Neutral allows corporate and cargo customers to track and offset their company’s travel-related emissions, expanding the possibility to carbon offset for hundreds of additional companies. Corporate and cargo customers can offset with trusted, LATAM-curated projects that are based in South America and have a direct impact on the local communities as well as a global impact on carbon emissions.

As an added bonus for corporate customers, LATAM matches every offset made by corporate partners at 100%. Further, the airline covers 50% of all cargo offsets. These types of incentives help to amplify the positive impact each customer makes.

This is just one of many examples of how climate tech works for businesses to achieve their business objectives while also working toward global climate goals.

Driving positive impact with climate tech

There is an increasing demand from consumers worldwide to understand the CO2 emissions from their everyday activities—especially with travel—and to have the ability to address these emissions through high-impact climate solutions. In order to make meaningful contributions to global climate goals, businesses should be embracing innovative climate tech that helps them succeed in their own sustainability goals while addressing stakeholders’ concerns.

​​The transition to carbon neutrality is a journey. Addressing climate change requires the participation of everyone, including businesses at every level in every sector. Together, we can make great strides toward sustainability.

Recommended reading:

• What do these climate buzzwords really mean?
• How you can support the sustainable aviation fuel revolution
• Choosing the right carbon offset projects for your company