Elsa Chai (E16): ‘Our Platform Provides Transparency on Companies’ Climate Action’

Elsa Chai (E16) co-founded OpenClimat, a platform which enables companies to communicate their climate impact and environmental data. The aim is to create a ripple effect throughout their ecosystem.  

ESSEC Alumni: What services do you offer with OpenClimat? 

Elsa Chai: Our platform enables companies to communicate all their climate impact and environmental data in one place. The aim is to rally their ecosystem around these issues, by making transparency a lever for collaboration and collective action. 

EA: How did this idea come to you? 

E. Chai: It began with the realisation that climate and environmental matters were subjects reserved to experts. To accelerate transition, however, we need to bring all policy-makers on board, and well beyond CSR teams: buyers, talents, media and consumers. Hence the necessity to make information on these themes more accessible, first by centralising and harmonising it and ensuring its reliability; then by reproducing the data in a readable and informative way, and lastly by connecting it to all concerted audiences.

EA: What method do you use? 

E. Chai: We base ourselves on recognised market standards (science-based targets), we ask companies to communicate both what they do and what remains to be done, and we monitor not only their commitments but also their effective achievement (decarbonisation pathways in particular).

EA: Which companies have come on board to date?

E. Chai: We do a lot of work with mass distribution players (Auchan, E.Leclerc, Casino, etc.) and industry (Bel, Labeyrie, Jacquet Brossard, Beiersdorf, Henkel, Sodebo, etc.), as well as SMEs (Vestiaire Collective, Selency, Accenta, Foodles, and others).

EA: How do you ensure these companies play an honest hand? 

E. Chai: We structure the information to make it exhaustive and comparable, and we call on a team of experts to check sources and ensure emission changes have been reported on the basis of consistent assumptions and methodologies. 

EA: Who looks at the information published via OpenClimat?

E. Chai: Numerous companies consult us to assess their scope 3, i.e. the emissions linked to their value chain. Distributors, for example, turn to us to collect information on their suppliers, who can represent up to 90% of their carbon footprint. Our platform is also connected to media sources and employment platforms, etc.  

EA: What impact do you have on companies? 

E. Chai: We have observed that many buyers and sales people in particular use our data as a lever in negotiation and business collaboration. We’re also seeing companies draw inspiration from the information shared by their more mature peers on our platform to implement their own action plan, without reinventing the wheel.

EA: What are your medium-term aims?

E. Chai: We’re hoping to go international, beginning with Europe, and become the reference platform for climate and environmental action. 

Interview by Louis Armengaud Wurmser (E10), Content Manager at ESSEC Alumni

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