👋 Hi Hunters, and thank you to @jmj for hunting us!
Andreas, Ari, and Ebby here - founders of Aerial.
Ready to take responsibility for your carbon footprint, but don't know where to start? After years of excessive travel, we felt the same, so together we created Aerial.
We’re excited to share the public beta of Aerial, an effortless way to manage and offset your carbon footprint. Aerial automatically finds your travel emissions from your inbox and tailors a path to carbon neutrality through verified carbon offsets.
Aerial makes climate action fun and social. We encourage you to compete with your friends and offer seamless ways to share your positive impact. We also have exclusive content from credible sources geared toward living sustainably and taking charge of your footprint.
Our public beta is available on iOS, with more platforms to come.
💡 How does it work?
→ Track Your Carbon Footprint
We accurately calculate how much carbon you emit from flights, rideshare, and rail. Support for more emissions sources coming soon.
→ Offset Your Emissions
By contributing to verified carbon offsetting projects, you help balance your emissions.
→ Make an Impact
Compete with friends to save trees and help the planet.
→ Get Informed
Gain actionable climate insights from our exclusive content.
🍃 What is carbon offsetting?
Carbon offsetting is achieved by balancing our emissions with actions that help the environment, such as reforestation and sustainable energy projects.
We recognize that carbon offsetting is not the ultimate solution to the climate crisis, but it is the easiest way for most people to do their part. That’s why Aerial also promotes responsible habits and offers guidance on living a more sustainable life.
🔐 Privacy
We respect your privacy. Aerial will only use travel-related emails to help you track your emissions, and has been verified to handle email in accordance with Google API Services. You can delete your account at any time.
Thanks again for the support, and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or reach out to us directly!
—Andreas, Ari, and Ebby
P.S. Be sure to connect your primary Gmail where you receive flight confirmations, rideshare receipts, and rail reservations.
@andreas_dre Congratulations on the launch!
Aerial could be solving this need gap - 'Calculating climate impact for everyday tasks' posted on my problem validation platform - https://needgap.com/problems/36-... .
You're welcomed to explain how Aerial solves their problem, So it could be found easily by those who want it.
Congrats on the launch. Slick graphics.
I can't remember the name of a similar app launched recently, but I'll ask the same question I asked them...
Given we know 'carbon footprint' was an idea invented by resource companies to invert the need for action from themselves to individuals, how do you grapple with that truth and the path you've chosen?
@samrye_enspiral Hi Sam, thanks for the kind words. We're using the term 'carbon footprint' here for clarity. As for the origins of the wording, we agree that collective climate action must be taken by large organisations and consumers to prevent further damage to our planet. Would you suggest different language?
@arisawyers hey Ari, thanks for the response. I guess I wonder partially why focus here, given what we know about the main needs around climate action? What's the theory of change for applying your skills and funding to this part of the problem?
So less about language and more about intent?
@arisawyers@samrye_enspiral the intent here is to get everyone involved in taking action and not leaving climate action solely up to corporations and governments. Today, carbon offsetting and sustainable habits are the most effective way to do so. In the future, we hope to offer more methods of climate action to our userbase. Similar to how the current pandemic comes down to individual action, we see Aerial as the mask when it comes to climate change.
@arisawyers@samrye_enspiral@ebby_amir Educating people about the consequences of not being consuming-conscious raises public awareness and can provoke public pressure to the said companies to reduce their eco impact.
@arisawyers@ebby_amir thanks for the clarifications.
To play with your metaphor a little more - by wearing your mask, are we waiting for a vaccine it hoping the virus will disappear?
Can you tell me a bit more about "Today, carbon offsetting and sustainable habits are the most effective way to do so."?
From where I sit, I see two problems with this:
- who's suggesting we *leave* climate action up to corporates? I'm suggesting maybe this moves the focus of the real action that's needed (unsustainable industry) from the companies back to the lone individual with a smartphone. This is exactly why the "carbon footprint" concept was invented by resource companies in the first place.
- Carbon offsetting has shown to increase unsustainable habits (e.g. flying) because people think it's possible to offset their behaviour with money. Much of the carbon offsetting outcomes arentt keeping up with the pace we're consuming the things that are being offset. Quick example - offset a flight now, and you'd need 15-30 years before the offset (say a tree planted) will have the ability to store the offset carbon. We don't have 15-30 years to curb the carbon, based on latest scientific models. So all we're creating by offsetting, is a culture of "it's ok to continue with those behaviours if I pay a premium", and a bigger problem to deal with down the track.
In essence - I worry this is well meaning and may be making the problem worse, and I'd love you to tell me that you've really done your research and I'm wrong.
Wow this looks awesome, incredible how big of a carbon footprint I've had, and who knew it'd be so easy to offset it! Big fan, definitely will be using this going forward.
Downloaded and would love to be able to use this, but it looks like scanning of travel receipts in Gmail is the only supported calculation method.
Is there a plan to support other email accounts besides just Google? (I’m using iCloud Mail + have other accounts elsewhere). Would it be possible to automatically detect certain types of travel via phone movement / GPS / even bank transactions etc?
@iamsebj Thanks for downloading the app Seb! Google is the only supported email account option at the moment; Outlook, iCloud, and IMAP are coming soon. Automatic detection is something we might explore in the future – stay tuned.
@iamsebj Appreciate the feedback, Seb! Out of curiosity, what types of travel are you most interested in tracking via phone movement / GPS — personal driving, public transit?
This is great, I love the design of everything too.
I do have an error: When I try to add a second email account, pressing "add email account" closes the window.
Glad this exists, as once we get the COVID vaccine, my wife and I will be burning a lot of jet fuel. Perhaps the founders can also figure out how to retrofit a 787 to run on solar and wind so that I don't feel so guilty about ruining the planet for my son? In the meantime, I'll pay for the carbon offsets and take baby steps in the right direction.
Great UI and easy to use. Looking forward to seeing how this thing evolves.
Thank you for building this. Climate action is something that I personally deeply care about. It's good to see so many companies rising in this space.
Stellar design and UX. One thing I'd have wanted was to skip the gmail link and maybe input my future trips manually to track. Also, I'm experiencing some performance issues especially on Discover page, probably because of resource heaviness of it on my iPhone 7+. Looking forward to a fix.
Regardless, great work team. It's good to see people working for the greater good.
@stopstopping thank you for the kind words. Right now we're focused on giving the most seamless experience to the most amount of people, therefore we only support Gmail. We'll have more onramps into the product and ways you can self document.
The app is built entirely in SwiftUI, which is better supported on newer iPhones. We don't have much control over performance on older iPhones.
Cool product. You should consider selling to enterprises using Gmail to help them offset their travel emissions. They're currently looking for ways to reduce emissions and this would be an easy way to do so.
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