Invert Inc. has added a slew of new features to its climate action app for consumers, integrating an enterprise focus via games and rewards specifically meant to appeal to Gen Z and millennial employees.

Ottawa-based Invert originally launched the app, named ‘Invert Climate Action Platform’ in September 2022 on iOS and Android. Outside of the app, the company works to finance carbon credit and carbon offset programs.

As Invert began launching its consumer-facing app, many of its corporate clients sent out inquiries.

(They would say) ‘Hey, is that something we can use? We have large sustainability programs, and they tend to result in ESG risk reports. But our employees aren't necessarily reading them. And given the density, we're having problems communicating our sustainability strategy across a large organization. And we have employee and customer demand to understand what we're doing,’ ” Rade Kovacevic, Invert’s co-CEO, explained to SustainableBiz. 

“So the more we talk to our business customers . . . I actually think there's significant traction we can get in the business community.”

The enterprise addition is on the same app, post-update, with a new database section for adding and managing employees.

Invert app's games and rewards

Kovacevic cited the recent Deloitte Gen Z and Millennial Survey, which shows climate action is a top-three decision maker for choice of employment in those demographics.

At the same time, there’s a leadership-to-employee understanding gap, with only 16 per cent of employees believing they can influence their employer to act on climate.

“As we were building out the app and starting to bring it to market, this narrative kept coming up and this question from corporate clients kept coming up,” he said. “We said to ourselves, we think we have an opportunity here where we can actually have a larger impact . . . we have a product that is easily adaptable for employees.”

Kovacevic says the AI advisor is an industry-first aspect, which utilizes language models to provide personalized recommendations for carbon footprint reductions. This is done with AI characters, like a professor or a pirate captain named Rook. 

“Secondly, what we plan to do with that is use that to contextualize corporate ESG programs to employees,” he explained. “So now you're able to talk to the artificial intelligence experience about, what's your company doing? What are the goals for my department? How does that relate to me?”

Climate action cards

Another addition is climate action cards, updating users on their progress – everything from how they commute to work and how much they’re recycling. Completion of the cards can result in a gift from your manager of say, 200 kilograms of carbon offsets to help you reach your goals.

These translate to actionable company-wide and departmental insights with real-time data and analytics.

All of this is undertaken via a centralized hub for employers, where they can onboard employees, set targets and offer rewards.

“Our view was people want to be feel empowered, and they want diversity of ways to take part. Particularly when you're looking at larger organizations, different things will appeal to different people,” he said. “So from that perspective, we want to really focus on climate action cohesively, it can really primarily drive reduction on our impact in the environment.”

Future of the app

Kovacevic explained that Invert’s goal is to have a material update to the app every three months.

“What you'll see is a mix of us improving the feature sets to continue to drive it forward. So the capabilities of the generative AI part of the app will continue to improve as that technology improves. The customization of the action cards and personalization of them will continue to improve as we drive the app forth,” he said. 

“What we're also able to do now that we have business clients using the (platform), we're able to get their feedback and really tailor it to what each client needs to get more traction within our customer set.”

Since its launch, the app’s list of corporate collaborators has grown. Its homepage includes CarbonCure, BC Biocarbon, Labatt, Glencore and Etihad among them.

Kovacevic was not specific about the number of additions but promised more company adoptions in the fall.