Issue #4. Because there is no Plan B
Explore the valuable insights from Lubomila Jordanova, co-founder and CEO of Plan A, a company using the latest science to deliver accurate carbon accounting and reduction plans to corporates
Last week, we had the pleasure of interviewing a champion in the Carbon accounting world, a leader in the Green Tech space. Lubomila Jordanova (please listen to our podcast here) is the co-founder and CEO of Plan A but also she co-founded the Green Tech Alliance.
She has an impressive list of awards and recognitions that you can see below:
Atos Partner Startup, as part of Scaler, 2021
Top 100 Women in Germany for 2020, FOCUS Magazin, Dec 2020
80 Top Founders shaping the post-pandemic world, Sifted.eu, July 2020
Marshall Memorial Fellow 2021/2022
Forbes 30 under 30 2020
DT50 Sustainability Award 2019 from McKinsey, Google and ROCKET INTERNET
BCG Social Impact Award 2020
Winner of TECHBBQ Pitch Competition 2019
Winner of PIRATE SUMMIT Pitch Competition 2019
Winner of Women Startup Competition 2019
Top 100 Meaningful Business 2019
Slush Top 15 2019
So she’s a ⭐. But most importantly, she’s a star in the Climate Tech space where she’s putting her heart and soul to enable businesses of all sizes to account, mitigate and reduce their carbon emissions.
Please enjoy our conversation with Lubomila where we discuss wide-ranging topics from her aha! moment when she decided to dedicate her career to the Climate issue (after a successful stint in Finance), to her nuggets of wisdom in product development, in anchoring compelling storytelling with facts and personal stories, and the importance of the new $3m raise (by Softbank, Demeter and Coparion) in inspiring a new wave of Bulgarian and immigrant leaders around the world.
(This interview has been edited for clarity and length purposes).
Explorationists (Es): Lubomila, welcome to the pod. It’s great to have you here. You come from Bulgaria, with Fintech, VC and Investment Banking experience, but then you are also one of those crazy founders that let everything go to start from scratch. Can you describe quickly your journey from your finance background to your aha moment to create a climate focused company?
Lubomila (LJ): My journey has been one blessed with a lot of opportunities to learn and take different perspectives. Before Plan A, I was working in the Finance sector in different forms and shapes, but it made sense after finishing my degree in Business & Finance. I had the opportunity to study in some of the best universities out there which allowed me to explore a lot of the corporate wolrd. My last stint was in a Fintech company where I learnt a lot from the co-founders (James and Chris).
But something happened the year before I left, that made me decide to change course. I went to Morocco and that gave me a lot of evidence that Climate Change exists and that we, unfortunately, are not doing enough to address it. This realisation let me spend close to a year experimenting, educating myself, doing a lot of surveys and questioning people. Within a short amount of time, I was quite convinced that there was no better use of my time than to use the business skills I have gained to allocate it elsewhere (to the Climate). That was in 2016 when sustainability was not on top of the agenda, and society was not talking about Climate Change that often, which made it a bit difficult at the beginning since I needed to convince a lot of people about the importance of the issue.
(Es): One of the first products you brought to live in Plan A was a software that allows companies to look at the potential impact of climate change in particular areas/regions/countries. Was your trip something that struck you in terms of the realisation of where Climate Change will hit (places like Latin America, Africa, SE Asia)?
(LJ): I don't like to go with assumptions into exploratory journeys, and in the topic of sustainability especially if you are at the beginning of your journey, this means that you should go without predefined statements and vision of what should be the outcome. To give context, what you are referring to as a product: it’s an algorithm that predicts where Climate Change will hit the hardest. Essentially, it is a climate risk tool that we (Plan A) will bring live again in another shape in the coming year. What it does, it looks into the different data points of a country related to waste management, oceans, wildlife, sustainable living, sustainable energy, etc; and based on these it tells which climate-related topics a company or a country should look first to address climate change, and come up with a to-do list, that policy-makers and business leaders can use to make more sustainable decisions.
(Es): In some of your previous interviews there were three key themes that were quite salient: one is elevating science, the other is data (300k data points to build and feed the algorithm) and the last is storytelling: can you walk us through each of them?
(LJ): On data and science: any discussion that I have, since day one at Plan A has been focused on connecting science and technology to allow business to make better decisions. At a practical level, this means that we have a full fledged scientific team inhouse working together with support partners like Yale, MIT or TA Zurich, where essentially we are able to use all the knowledge, frameworks and methodologies that are out there to translate this into a product that is at the standards of Big Banks and Big Corporates and enabling them to make better decisions for the future. A future that is highly dependent on a company’s sustainability, on climate change and also of their level of responsibility towards the environment and society at large.
On storytelling: one of the things that is particularly important when we talk about sustainability is that the guilt, that it’s been imposed on all of us, is not fair. It’s not that one stakeholder is solely responsible, but all of us. This means that we all need to start thinking as a team. This means that the actions that a business takes actually impact the users, the consumers of a particular product; also the policies that governments make have an impact on business, individuals and other stakeholders. Today we face a moment of realisation where all of us need to do something about it. We see how every single effort makes sense only if it’s done in combination with the efforts of others.
With this in mind, Plan A has always been respectful in understanding the differences of what sustainability means to different companies. Some are really good at it while others are just at the beginning of their journey. By understanding that, we make sure that every single time we speak to someone we adjust the story, always presenting the facts without overcomplicating at the beginning.
“Storytelling is really important because people that are not engaged in sustainability or climate change need a hook”
So storytelling is really important because people that are not engaged in sustainability or climate change need a hook. A hook could be: you giving examples of your own life, or you connecting at a deeper level with an issue and the impact of you being inactive on the topic and its implications. Storytelling is at the core of what Plan A does, not because we tell fairy tales but because we tell facts, we use the data, we are a scientifically driven company but we’re just making sure that everyone is at the same level of engagement.
(Es): Congratulations on the close this week (early march). The recent $3m raise from Coparion, Demeter and Softbank. What sort of fuel and direction this gives to Plan A? What new geographies are you contemplating to expand to?
(LJ): Thanks for mentioning this, it’s a fantastic question. It’s been quite an exciting week. We’re still dealing with all the messages from friends, clients and partners. We are really happy to have the support of Softbank, Coparion and Demeter, three fantastic VC funds that will secure our growth not only across Europe but in the US and also will allow us to scale at speed with respect to our mission which is being impactful to the Climate and our clients.
(Es): We’re interested in the early traction that you had, your early adopters (clients) and how that has evolved? What sort of industries were interested first and which ones came after?
(LJ): We really quickly started getting an understanding of the main challenges of our clients. Historically the consulting services industry will allow you to calculate your emissions and will give the client an agenda on how to reduce your emissions within a CSR engagement and communications plan. But understanding the real core problem, which is how to embed sustainability into your operations, not wanting to outsource it, you want to understand it as a KPI that is driving your bottom line, this is where we kicked off our product development and our conversations with different entities.
At the moment we have a strong focus on financial institutions, on fashion companies, construction and tech companies. These are the four verticals where our product is well developed. But we quickly shifted our strategy of having smaller companies to larger sets of clients because this, in our opinion, gives us the capacity to have a greater impact.
(Es): On the competitive landscape in the US, are there other companies that are offering similar services within the carbon accounting space? How does Plan A and your technology compare?
(LJ): There are a multitude of players out there, especially in the last six months multiple companies that popped up. They calculate emissions and help companies report and offset their GHG emissions. The reality is that the market has been quite dynamic in the last 9 months. A lot of money has been poured out and a lot of different companies that don’t know what to do with the topic of sustainability or professionals that don’t have the experience in it are starting to work in the topic, which means that the market is ripe for this kind of solutions.
In terms of the way Plan A operates, we have a different angle defined by our historical capabilities. Plan A focuses on actionable and tangible results. It’s not only about the analysis but it’s actually about taking steps on reducing emissions but also about understanding your ESG performance as part of your traditional KPIs on a monthly basis within your process. We use science and machine learning to be able to predict values of data that are missing, or using the scientific methodologies that are out there to have an accurate perspective on the data that a company should look into account for their carbon footprint. Our platform is ISO certified and it’s also peer reviewed by multiple scientists that gives us the confidence to serve clients like big banks and tech companies.
(Es): One of the reasons we built this platform (the ClimateTech Talks podcast and the Explorationists substack) was to learn more about the entrepreneurial journey of immigrants. You are Bulgarian, what do you think that the news of the recent raise and your own career trajectory can do to other Bulgarians and what message you want to communicate to other immigrant entrepreneurs?
(LJ): I’m really proud to be from Bulgaria even though I left the country when I was 17. I had the opportunities to live in 6 countries. I lived in Spain, London, Asia, in different parts of the UK and Germany. Although these experiences have enriched me a lot and built me into the person I am today, I still have in my roots a strong and deep understanding of what it means to be Bulgarian, and I am deeply connected to that particular geography. I have the utmost respect for the beauty that the country offers but also the intellect that is there, in big chunks actually outside of Bulgaria. We are close to 2m immigrants of a country that has 7m! Definitely a huge population. Just in Germany there are 400k Bulgarians, and Berlin is definitely a hub for them.
I really hope that my example is one of many going forward, this is a small nation but there are so many smart people. I think that there are many examples of successful people outside of Bulgaria and I hope that they get their fair success.
“Hopefully I am paving the way for many others to announce big episodes and changes of their companies and themselves, that positively impact the brand identity of Bulgarians.”
I'm so lucky to have my best friend from Bulgaria living in Berlin, she is like having a piece of home with me. I hope that this event (the raise) brings joy and happiness, because there should be more of those and hopefully I am paving the way for many others to announce big episodes and changes of their companies and themselves, that positively impact the brand identity of Bulgarians.
(Es): This is so important, especially to young women that can see themselves in you, and understand that it’s possible to create a company with impact.
(Es) We also wanted to know how do you inspire your team?
(LJ): We have built a company that has a meaningful goal, a true reason to be and that contributes to addressing the biggest challenge we have faced yet. We have always strived to give people within and around the organization the means by which they can influence their own surroundings and create change. I believe that people are inspired by positivity, empowerment and agency to make a difference.
(Es) How did you find Nathan (your co-founder)? How complementary are your skill sets?
(LJ): We met at a moment when we both had the desire to start and increase our respective impacts using the experience we had developed. Having worked together for 4 years now, we have developed a deep understanding of each other's skill sets and strong suits, allowing us to balance each other out and go much beyond what each of us could do.
(Es) How important are Carbon offsets in your view?
(LJ): Carbon offsets are a part of the cycle of business sustainability. Due to the recent advent of net-zero emissions goal, as opposed to decarbonized targets, offsets are getting negative reputation. However, it is structurally impossible to reduce all emissions in a single stroke of hand, and even more so if you are an organization ranging multiple countries and activity. In this regard, carbon offsets are an essential mechanism to speed up sustainable development whilst pushing companies towards a model in which carbon has a price and is a finite resource.
(Es) How can we balance as society the different paths to net-zero if we take into account the developing world vs the developed world?
(LJ): Given the disparity of resources and climate change-related consequences between the developing and the developed world, sustainability must also serve as a redistribution mechanism that involves both mitigation and adaptation. Carbon offsets are one of such mechanisms that allow the private sector to take part in the necessary transfer of technology and resources from the developed to the developing world. However, this road to net-zero will not be sufficient on the developed world's side to balance out the past, current and future levels of emissions (and pollution in general). Thus Plan A advocates for decarbonization pathways that ensures this transfer whilst pushing for actual reduction of carbon emissions to reach a true form of sustainability that works for the world.
(Es): Thank you so much Lubomila for your candour and great insights.
Hope you liked this issue, have you subscribed?
And why not sharing it with a friend or your climate-obsessed neighbour?
Our recommended reading for this week:
Larry Fink’s (Blackrock CEO) Letter to shareholders just released. Priceless.
Great report and awesome graphs on the state-of-affairs in the CleanTech sector in Europe. Produced by the Cleantech Group and with the support of Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
Thought provoking peace on the Energy Transition and its geopolitical consequences by Helen Thompson at the Engelsberg Ideas Newsletter.
What we’ve been listening:
A bit of nostalgia with the GOAT of Latin American music. Enjoy!
If you want to send us an idea or a tip, a #ClimateTech company that we should have a look at, or if you have any questions, please reach us at: davidcongeof@gmail.com or arraiz.p.daniel@gmail.com.