BEZERO CARBON
Design Lead . UX . UI
Bringing to market a carbon intelligence platform that truly paves the way for a more sustainable future
Founded by Tommy Ricketts and Sebastian Cross, BeZero Carbon aims to disrupt the voluntary carbon market with a clear mission: to bring rigor and clarity to the industry. Their goal is to ensure that every carbon credit purchased truly makes a positive impact and contributes to reducing carbon emissions. By building confidence in the market, they are driving the transition to a more sustainable future.
The environmental startup has secured $50 million in Series B funding and I’m proud to have contributed to their success having been their founding designer who worked with them from the ground up to build the product and bring it to market.
CHALLENGE
Burning ever more fossilised carbon has permanent and irrevocable consequences and avoiding these consequences is a global imperative.
The carbon credit market has long been criticised for its lack of transparency and accountability, making it difficult for buyers to trust that their investments are genuinely contributing to carbon reduction.
There are carbon projects worldwide designed to mitigate carbon emissions. After receiving certification from accreditation bodies such as Verra, these projects issue credits based on diverse methodologies. While each carbon credit is intended to represent one tonne of carbon avoided or removed, the reality is more complex. Not all tonnes of CO2 removed are equal, and many projects struggle to achieve their promised outcomes.
The challenge was to design a platform that would bring clarity and confidence to this complex market.
BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE
The founders quietly revolutionised the industry by building the platform’s infrastructure on Google spreadsheets. With their team of researchers, analysts, and data scientists, they synthesised data from hundreds of global projects using a six-factor model to assess key risk factors.
This radical approach allows people to compare projects and assess risks in a truly fungible way, captivating their audience. Eager to deliver the data in a highly usable and useful manner, they set out to build the platform to meet the demands of their intrigued users.
MY ROLE
As the Design Lead, I played a pivotal role in establishing and managing the design system, laying the foundation for a consistent and cohesive user experience. I ensured that every design element aligned with the brand’s identity and objectives, focusing on pattern recognition, affordance, ease of use, and accessibility.
Using Figma, I led the end-to-end design and prototyping process for the platform and its features. From conceptualisation to execution, I collaborated closely with the product team and engineers to validate and bring our ideas to life.
I also took charge of establishing and leading a customer-centric design process. I worked closely with the founders and the product team, extending my knowledge around the possibilities unlocked through a user-centric design process via weekly playbacks to share the approach, insights, and outcomes.
By tackling this challenge, I was able to contribute to the broader success of the business, facilitating rapid growth and development.
APPROACH
Establishing a collaborative relationship with the founders, brand, product, and engineering team was crucial in implementing the user-centric approach from the start, laying the foundation for long-term success.
By running weekly design sprints, I created the space to identify and understand the value of various product opportunities using qualitative and quantitative data to help us form hypotheses for testing. I hosted ideation sessions, helped prioritise ideas, and rapidly prototyped solutions to take forward to customer feedback sessions. This insight empowered us to iterate and deliver new product features and enhancements on a weekly basis, making continuous improvements, and adding value to the platform iteratively.
To ensure we remained focused on our desired outcomes, we developed an opportunity tree, mapping and planning our path forward based on the valuable feedback gathered from customers and stakeholders. This approach allowed us to stay on track and align our efforts with the most impactful areas for improvement.
Using Figma, we developed highly realistic prototypes, enabling customers to interact with features such as aerial observation of projects, allowing them to explore project geographies in detail.
Key features like portfolio creation, historical ratings, advanced search tools, and project comparison were investigated and delivered on a weekly basis.
An early ‘beta’ version of the platform was launched to over 100 customers, who provided valuable feedback that informed future design sprints.
As the product reached a critical mass of features, ratings, and data, it was officially launched to paying customers in the spring of 2022.
DESIGN SOLUTION
We designed an intuitive and informative platform that brings clarity and confidence to the complex carbon credit market, offering comprehensive insights into various carbon credit projects.
Some of the most notable features include comprehensive project information such as goals, location, size, sector, and methodology. This ensures users have a clear understanding of what each project aims to achieve. Each project includes details about the accreditor and the type of credit (e.g., removal, avoidance), providing further transparency and information on the start date and historical performance of the projects is available, giving users a sense of the project’s timeline and longevity.
Clearly categorised Risk factors with visual indicators that denote levels of significance (insignificant, little, some, notable, significant). This helps users quickly assess the risk profile of each project.
Projects are evaluated using a rating system (AAA, AA, A) based on various criteria such as additionality, over-crediting, leakage, permanence, and policy risks. This system simplifies the comparison of different projects.
The platform includes advanced filtering options, allowing users to narrow down projects based on sector groups, sectors, sub-sectors, and locations. This functionality makes it easier to find projects that match specific criteria.
CONCLUSION
Since its launch to paying customers in April 2022, BeZero Carbon has rapidly gained momentum. The evidence of the success lies in the platform’s captivated user base, who have embraced the BeZero Carbon experience, leveraging its powerful features such as portfolio creation, historical ratings, advanced search tools, and project comparison. At the time I left the project in July 2022, subscribed users on the platform had been increasing steadily by 26% month over month.
As a Design Lead, my pivotal role in establishing a customer-centric design process is evidenced by the platform’s seamless alignment with the brand’s identity and objectives. Through collaborative efforts and iterative design sprints, we crafted a highly usable and valuable platform that has resonated with users, driving increased engagement and positive feedback.
This growth supports BeZero Carbon’s ambition of making a meaningful impact in the industry, accelerating climate action, and paving the way to a more sustainable future.
