Who is molecu?
If you have ever had an idea, you would find a home among the molecu team. And not the cliche, “it all started as an idea..,” but we know ideas — many ideas — are how missions are successful.
Our mission is to bring accessible and impactful carbon offsetting to companies of every size. To us, sustainability is not a binary political choice, but rather something we all need to recognize we are actively working on and encourage each other along the path. No business endeavors to waste or emitted needless carbon emissions. Even outside the scope of climate change, that could only be considered an idiotic approach to shaving the top off your own margins! The point is, while we trust that the world will move to renewable and sustainable solutions, we would like to accelerate the pace of change and social impact we can all have in the process. We choose not to sound the alarm bells into guilted action but rather to more robustly ready the cavalry for which the only opposition is time — not each other.
There are unavoidable emissions in operating a business today — your fleets have to deliver your products, machines have to build those products, and lights have to be kept on. To pull on an example from computing, until the world builds a carbon-neutral operating system, we will have to run more tactical carbon neutral programs.
So how did we start?
There is no end to the solicitation of ideas within corporate environments, but all too often, notions are tabled before testing or left in circles of approvals to gradually die out before barely getting code committed.
At bp, things are changing.
Wait, bp as in BP? As in British Petroleum? Yes, that one. Myself, Amr, and Rob all work for bp.
At the end of 2019, bp hosted an internal initiative to solicit ideas around new business models. Amr proposed the idea for molecu, persevered through the power points and presentations to ultimately allow for the idea to move to the Incubation program in bp. You may have heard of the Launchpad program — built for scaling and throttling new businesses within bp. Conversely, the Incubation program is about validating those ideas and business models to scale within Launchpad.
In building his team, Amr spoke with an array of colleagues in our Lower Carbon divisions, many having too full of schedules with which to accommodate the dedicated build-out of a “start-up.” Well into quarantine, Amr was resigned to connecting online with candidates. Perchance, Amr connected with Rob — a bp trader, who has spent the last 10 years in commodities trading and recently returned from a six-month sabbatical working on climate action projects. There could not be a more perfect fit.
As for myself, I work in bp’s digital innovation group, and in discussion with Amr around potential future technologies to use for Molecu, it was all but impossible not to share my career goals around building a business as well. The ability to build a product to further the social good with the resources from bp seemed an opportunity too good to pass up.
Ready, Set, Go
Thus, in August, we set out on building the molecu site to serve our customers. Using Webflow, we dove into the product ourselves, working through several iterations and revisions — we have come a long way since learning how to animate a button.
We received help across the board. bp designers and developers assisted when they could in this initial product build. bp legal helped to ensure we were respecting online privacy rights, and bp digital security helped us ensure compliance to standards.
Most importantly, our internal bp carbon offset sourcing team lent us access to premier carbon offset projects. Their portfolio of projects spans the globe, encompassing carbon reduction, carbon removal, and emissions avoidance, with the inclusion of a myriad of Sustainable Development Goals. These projects have been rigorously validated by bp teams, ensuring that the most credible standards and continuing metrics are tracked, verified, and recorded.
Now, after having launched our MVP, we continue to iterate and adjust our approach. Each day, we look at what we could do better, asking ourselves, what do our customers really want? How can we make the process easier? How can we bring new customers to the space that have not bought carbon offsets before? What else can we do to help the world on its journey to sustainability?
Generating new ideas through the input of our customers, suppliers, and colleagues, one thing we know is that we will not remain is static. Consistent action and earning the trust of our customers remains paramount. Throughout it all, our mission remains the same: to bring accessible and impactful carbon offsetting to companies of every size.
If you’d like to get in touch, please reach out to us at support@molecu.io or visit our site at https://www.molecu.io/.
