Rewarding Sustainability with Tweak Founder Camille O'Sullivan
If you were intrigued by our focus on the R7.4bn carbon credits market the other day, then this week’s How Would You Build It podcast is for you. We spoke with Camille O'Sullivan, founder of carbon footprint and trading platform, Tweak.
And she has some seriously cool insights into what it actually takes to build a successful ESG company from SA.
Catch the highlights
1. ESG is a two-way game: change + awareness
While Tweak has a very cool approach – giving the average person access to the carbon trading space – Camille notes here that one of the early lessons they had is that, while ESG is all about changing behaviour, most people don’t want to change.
So, SA’s recent loadshedding and up-and-down economy was a bit of a blessing in disguise. It heightened people’s awareness, which allowed Tweak to come in with a cost-saving angle – lowering your footprint now gives you a cash incentive, driving accelerated adoption.
2. It pays to monetise behavioural change
A key concept, as Camille mentions here is putting real and visible rewards behind the programme. Tweak, for example, functions on the fact that carbon credits are tradeable.
Carbon offset projects actually sell carbon credits to companies, generating revenue. And by taking that mechanic and giving it to Joe Soap, everyone can now actually earn money for going solar, minimising their footprint, etc. Keep doing it, keep earning – driving retention.
3. No problem is too small to solve
One of the main criticisms against sort of “green” initiatives, is that Africa and South Africa have so many seemingly bigger problems to deal with.
But as the team notes here, that’s not always the case. If your product actually enables people to save money, that’s a big and valuable solution. It then becomes not so much about the core space your ESG is looking to impact (in Tweak’s case, it’s the environment), but from a user perspective, it’s about the reward – a powerful way to drive engagement.
You can also grab the Spotify and Apple Podcast links on our website here.