The Climate App promising behavioral change or “F**k it – let’s try and be an astronaut!”
An interview with Sam Naef, creator of The Climate App.
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
This quote is one of Sam Naef’s favorites and just like the entrepreneur himself, it makes you think twice. Sam is a NASA research scholar, improv comedian and serial entrepreneur. He is also creator of The Climate App.
The Climate App is the latest innovation joining the ranks of the clean-tech, carbon-cutting movement. But there are already a multitude of carbon-focused apps out there: Eco-buddy, Capture, Almond and North to name just a few. Will this be the one to catch on and spark behavioral change when it comes to individual carbon emissions? If so, how? Last month I spoke to Sam Naef to find out.
When I spoke to Sam on 21st October, he was sitting in a mission control centre in Munich, surrounded by screens and “babysitting a laser satellite for Airbus”. Entrepreneur Sam has been exploring a space career for the last few years. Unlike most of us though, he doesn’t limit himself to what he can achieve: “I thought fuck it, let’s try and be an astronaut!” So Sam attended The International Space University and also did a stint at NASA.
It makes sense that he loves Douglas Adams, as Sam likes to explore the weird and wonderful. At NASA he was working on a mission to look for life on Enceladus. This is one of Saturn’s moons and “covered in ice streaming fountains of water into space”. The idea was to send a spacecraft flying past these fountains, whilst shining a light into them to see if there were any visible signs of life
Surely there’s quite a contrast between propelling an object into space using an enormous amount of fossil fuel and the devising of an app to cut carbon emissions…
Here’s a good answer: “One of the great messages coming from the space community is that all missions in space benefit people on earth… the main principal of space exploration is to look after earth by developing new technologies.”
So where does The Climate App fit into his journey?
Well, Sam believes “entrepreneurship is more pressing [than space exploration] in the immediate term — we can really make a difference. My feeling was that I personally could do more for the climate if I put my personal ambition to get into space on hold for a bit.”
So how will The Climate App differ to other apps focused on reducing carbon emissions?
“There’s a lot out there — we’ve looked at 80 or 90 of them. They are generally all just carbon calculators or very niche. We’re focused on the social element — trying to make it easy, fun and social. The app is the tool but really we want to change society to one that’s taking action in reducing carbon. So we’re bringing together gamification, making cutting carbon bite-sized. We’re focused on making cutting carbon easy.”
How important is the social element of the app?
“The social element is super important, as it inspires other people. The number one reason anyone changes their behaviour is positive peer pressure. The app makes it very clear to people what others are doing around them. We also need to make cutting carbon fun, like duolingo makes learning a language fun. We’re taking a lot of inspiration from them. Think of it as a combo of duolingo, Strava [the running and cycling app] and Instagram.”
Who is the team behind The Climate App?
“We’re all volunteers — about 25 core — and then more extended helpers, making it up to 50. Then 400 people contributed to the campaign [on crowd-funding platform Indiegogo]. I’ve spent the past 10 years figuring out how to do a lot with a little. We’re a group of volunteers all putting our blood, sweat and tears into this. We’re all doing this together — no one’s going to do it alone.”
When will it launch?
“February 2021 hopefully. The world can’t wait! We’ve built the Alpha app already. Now we’re working on the Beta app. We’re now adding a lot more functionality, working on the design and adding fun challenges.”
What will your next project be?
“I can’t see myself leaving this. It’s a baby. I want it to be done in the right way and not to lose its soul. Of course it does need to be able to work without me too…”
We should be glad Sam has put his astronomical ambition on hold. If The Climate App does inspire millions and can help us to change our behaviour for the carbon-cutting better, it could be revolutionary. As Douglas Adams says:
“Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” — from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams (1987)
