Climax Community | achieving climate pledges through collaborative action

Founded in 2019, Climax Community operates a digital platform. This platform is designed to empower businesses and organisations, (and eventually individuals and households too), to track, analyse and lower their carbon footprints, as part of wider commitments to achieve net zero.

We spoke to Daniela Menzky, Executive Chairman at Climax Community, about the company's growth plans and how the UK's net zero ambitions are helping underpin that growth.

What does your company do?

The UK as a country has committed to be net zero by 2050. That is quite an ambitious target. In the wake of that, many local authorities have declared a climate emergency and committed to net zero targets by 2030 for themselves and by 2050 for regional businesses and residents’ emissions. The problem that we all have is that pledging such commitments is one thing. Achieving them is quite another.

We run a carbon management platform that helps different stakeholders, such as organisations with large supply chains or small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), embark on their net zero journeys in a very affordable and easy to understand way without belittling the science.

It’s a bit like training to run a marathon. Once you’ve settled on the distance, the hard journey begins. So, our platform creates tailor-made carbon reduction plans for individual businesses. In future, we will offer the same service for individuals and households.

Tell us about your UK and global operations.

We were incorporated in 2019 and, after extensive initial research, we began running pilot programmes early in 2021. We have an office and co-working space in central London and right now we are 7 people. There are lots of requests to work with us, so we are growing very nicely.

We definitely don't want to be a London centric organisation. There are six million SMEs and thousands of trade organisations across the UK. We want to harness the power of the community element of our solution and create regional offices in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and in other UK hubs, embedding ourselves within these communities and engaging with local people.”

There is a very friendly investor ecosystem here in the UK with Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Schemes. This helps organisations like us tremendously. It makes the growing and the scaling phase - when you don't have the organic lift – much easier

What are the main benefits to being based in the UK?

The UK has the potential to be an international leader when it comes to its net-zero targets and its political and financial commitments. The ambition is there and that is extremely important.

There is also a very friendly investor ecosystem here in the UK with Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes and Enterprise Investment Schemes [tax efficient investments designed to encourage investment in small, high-growth companies]. This helps organisations like us tremendously. It makes the growing and the scaling phase, when you don't have the organic lift much easier.

There are a lot of very talented people pouring into the green space and the net zero agenda in the UK from all directions.”

The UK has the potential to be an international leader when it comes to its net-zero targets and its political and financial commitments. The ambition is there and that is extremely important.

Tell us about your company's growth ambitions.

Given our current uptake rate and the momentum we’re already gaining in communities across the UK, in two or three years we expect to be a big data company. The more data we have, the more it will create deeper insights into regional and industry emissions, on the back of which we’ll be able to drive really great and impactful campaigns.

That is not just true here in the UK but also in other geographies. Europe, our neighbours, and the US are obvious targets. We also already have countries from across Asia knocking on our door. We want to prove our model in the UK first but then we will definitely expand internationally.