Why We Are Building StepChange!

Like most things, our decision to found StepChange was born out of personal experience.?

When, in the middle of COVID, I (Ankit) took a break from my career to take care of my newborn son, I found myself thinking about the world from my child’s perspective. It struck me that simple activities that I took for granted growing up, like drinking water from a stream, or playing cricket on the road, were no longer options for my son. It was equally evident that this loss could be linked to the rapid pace of urban development, land-use decisions, regional pollution and global climate change.

As I started researching what I could do personally to make a difference, I realised that most solutions that targeted individual responsibility were either platitudes or prohibitively time-consuming and expensive. Most of all, I struggled to understand whether any of these lifestyle changes would have a meaningful impact on the world. It took weeks of using online calculators and reading scientific papers to just start understanding the points of leverage in my own life.?

As I was doing my research, I started talking to friends, family, and other people in my broader community. I found that many of the people I interacted with were already thinking about their impact on the environment and were actively interested in finding ways to live more sustainably. Unfortunately, the unrelenting cadence of a busy life, with careers to pursue and families to support, left very little time and mental bandwidth to allocate towards living more sustainably. Also, for many people I talked to, climate change was too big a problem, and it was just easier to not think about it in the absence of concrete guidance on specific decisions they could make as individuals.?

That’s where the idea for StepChange was born.

My cofounder (Sidhant) and I started to conceptualise an intuitive and easy-to-use mobile platform that would empower socially-conscious consumers with science-backed tools to develop more sustainable habits, make greener lifestyle decisions and engage in environmentally conscious shopping and consumption choices.

After a few months of focused work, we are ready to launch our Early Access Program on Earth Day, April 22, 2022.??

We invite you to join the movement by downloading our app and applying for our Early Access Program. In our app, you will find the ability to:

• Track and analyse your environmental impact, across carbon, air quality, water and plastics
• Compare your impact to local and national averages to see how you’re doing
• Reduce your impact through simple and personalised steps
• Set daily and weekly targets, and earn rewards in the form of real trees planted on your behalf
• Access expert sustainability coaches for one on one sessions
• Share your progress with friends and family

We’re excited for you to take this journey with us. It’s time to StepChange!

Ankit Jain and Sidhant Pai

Cofounders, StepChange