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Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

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Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

#1

Post by landon32 »

Hi HN,

We're Mimi, Ben, and Landon, founders of Wren (https://projectwren.com). Wren lets you offset your carbon footprint by funding projects that prevent or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. It works by calculating your carbon footprint and then funding a project of your choice through a monthly subscription. Some of the projects we have right now involve planting forests in East Africa, providing more efficient cookstoves to Ugandan refugees, and preventing deforestation in the Amazon.

We met in college, and worked together on numerous side projects and class projects. After a while we decided to try finding a meaningful project that we could work on after graduation. At the time, we didn't know much about the science or emerging technologies for mitigating climate change, but we saw carbon offsets and asked ourselves "why isn't everyone doing this?" Then we got to work on Wren.

Carbon offsets have been around for a while, and with some googling, research, and phone calls anyone can find reliable and transparent projects. Our goal is to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible to offset your footprint. We only work with projects that have good evidence suggesting they're long lasting and reliable. We also only work with projects that wouldn't happen without support from Wren users. In addition to climate benefits, we prefer projects with strong social impact. Projects listed on Wren reduce lung cancer risk for refugees, provide millions of dollars of economic benefit to subsistence farmers, and protect biodiversity.

We see climate change as the most important problem we can work on. Despite growing evidence of the damage it will cause, governments are not taking necessary action. Wren is a way for an individual to have impact today.

Most in this space are nonprofits but we are a business. We take a 20% fee on each subscription. This allows us to hire talented engineers, invest in marketing, and raise capital. This way we can build tools that make our projects more transparent and reliable—daily satellite images of forest projects, data visualizations of tree trunk diameters, and other ways we can build more trust for these projects.

I've seen a lot of posts on HN recently about climate change and potential solutions so I'm looking forward to a good discussion :)

Re: Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

#5

Post by landon32 »

gringoDan wrote: post #4

Do you have any plans to expand to B2B? I'd imagine it might be a larger impact, along with the positive psychological effect of it not being an individual's money on the line.

Great idea! We're actually piloting that right now. I think it would be promising especially since companies ask employees to travel and have otherwise larger footprints from work.

Re: Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

#6

Post by jatsign »

landon32 wrote: post #3
jatsign wrote: post #2

Why do I have to give you my email address before you'll let me figure out my carbon footprint, and how much this will cost?

We use the email to save your progress, but if you'd like you can just use any fake email

But at the end you don't just show the footprint online, you only have the option to get it emailed to me.

Re: Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

#8

Post by landon32 »

jatsign wrote: post #6
landon32 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use the email to save your progress, but if you'd like you can just use any fake email

But at the end you don't just show the footprint online, you only have the option to get it emailed to me.

Your footprint should be available on that page—you should be able to see your annual total, your breakdowns by category, and how that compares to global averages. The "Email me my footprint" button just sends you a link so you can save it. I could see how you may want to change the email you entered once you get there though. We should add that!

Thanks for pointing that out

Re: Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

#9

Post by landon32 »

whoisjuan wrote: post #7

Does this compete with Pachama? I don't understand this space well so I'm not entirely sure, but if I remember well Pachama is also trying to sell, carbon offsets by quantifying forest projects.

We love Pachama! They have been helpful in shaping our understanding of the space and some of the big challenges with forest carbon projects. They are not a competitor though, they mostly work with bigger companies where as we focus on individuals.
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