There is inspiring work being done using the traditional non-profit models of education (Climate Reality), lobbying for policy change (POW, 1% for the Planet), and many more. While we support their efforts, we wanted to try a different model.
We are entrepreneurs.
LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™ was created to develop a family of products (some of which will become stand-alone companies) implementing different solutions, with a single goal of fighting climate change by reducing and removing carbon emissions.
We are starting with a consumer-centric approach. Consumer spending is 2x the carbon emission of home energy and personal travel. It not only affects carbon emissions domestically, but also throughout the global supply chain – all the way back to the suppliers and manufacturers of the products we purchase.
The appetite with consumers is strong. Reports state that the U.S. consumer is willing to spend $178 per year to fight climate change. Our own tests show that 18% of ecommerce customers opted to pay an additional $1 for carbon neutral shipping. Other studies show that 68% of Uber riders are willing to pay to offset their ride.
Each product will works with LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™ and has rights to use the <2°™ brand, as that is already recognized by consumers as the way to quickly identify climate-friendly choices. Then create simple solutions for different industries to implement more climate-friendly offerings. For example our first product of Carbon Neutral Shipping for eCommerce Retailers.
LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™ has products in development for the ecommerce, retail, restaurant, air travel, ride-sharing, event management, and financial services sectors.
Each product will be built out of the <2°™ Foundation, who is the majority shareholder and receives the majority of profits from each product/company. The Foundation will then use the profits to reinvest in more product/companies, the awareness of LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™ and the <2°™ brand, and the direct reduction and removal of carbon from our planet.
Climate-friendly solutions need to be profitable and easy to implement. If they are, our corporate partners will scale them - it will simply be good business for them to do so.
We believe Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter describes it best in his TED Talk:
LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™ is providing grants and investment services in the field of environmental awareness, green initiatives and climate change research. If you are interested in learning more, sharing your ideas, or participating with <2°™, we would love to hear from you.
You can reach us at hello@lessthan2.com
Let's keep the planet cool together.
Matt & Matt
LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™
VOX: Americans are willing to pay $177 a year to avoid climate change https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/13/16468318/americans-willing-to-pay-climate-change
PNAS: Online purchasing creates opportunities to lower the life cycle carbon footprints of consumer products http://www.pnas.org/content/113/35/9780.full
<2°™ Foundation Carbon Neutral Shipping Launch on TheFeed.com. Started October 2017.
We set out on a personal journey to become more climate-friendly in our daily lives, hoping we could eventually make the footprint we leave behind carbon neutral.
We discovered it wasn’t as easy as it should be for consumers like us to make climate-friendly choices.
Simple questions like, “What is our own carbon footprint?” were almost impossible to answer, let alone determining the carbon footprint of the products we bought or services we used.
We asked ourselves how we could make it simpler.
Could we create a brand that makes it easier for us to be more climate-friendly every day? A brand that could guide us to climate-friendly choices.
That is what we have set out to do with LESS THAN 2 DEGREES™
Matt & Matt
