Zero Carbon | Devpost

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from a simple yet profound act of kindness. I donated two acres of land last month to protect monkeys in Colombia but was unsure about the carbon footprint caused by my actions. This sparked a realization - there's a significant gap in understanding and managing our carbon emissions. We wanted to solve this problem not just for myself but for everyone who wishes to bring about real change.

What it does

ZeroCarbon is a platform that calculates your carbon emissions based on your bank statement, categorizing your spending into four areas: gasoline, electricity, groceries, and shopping. It then connects you with vetted, high-impact climate initiatives where you can offset your emissions. You can also share your climate actions with your community, creating a powerful network effect.

How we built it

We built ZeroCarbon using advanced algorithms to analyze bank statements and calculate carbon emissions. We classified the emissions into different categories - to calculate the overall carbon emission caused by individual human being. We integrated it with ChatGPT and developed a plugin to facilitate user interaction. The leaderboard allows different climate lovers to improve their climate profiles and make the world a better place to live

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges was accurately calculating carbon emissions based on spending data. We used some average values for the cost of gas in different locations, emissions caused by gas, average emissions cased by food per dollar etc.

We also faced challenges in integrating various climate initiatives into our platform and ensuring the security and privacy of user data. At this point we decided to facilitate offsets during a sample dataset

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We thought of this idea in the middle of the day yesterday. Multiple investors mentioned that this is the best idea they have heard of - so we decided to start building this.

We're proud to have developed a platform that not only calculates carbon emissions but also empowers users to offset them.

We're also proud of the community element that we are building, where users can share their climate actions and inspire others.

What we learned

We learned that in such a short amount of time, cutting down the project's scope becomes really important. We also learned that there is significant demand for platforms that help individuals understand and manage their carbon footprint.

We are happy that we are taking a community approach around climate action to create a really powerful impact

What's next for Zero Carbon

We're planning to offer multiple financing options for offsets, launch features for corporations to share carbon-neutral brands, and allow users to offset emissions for their friends and family. We're also exploring the inclusion of the quality of carbon credits sourced directly from the air.