StepChange: Helping entreprises go net-zero

Sidhant Pai (left), co-founder and CSO, with Ankit Jain, co-founder and CEO of StepChange Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
 
Ankit Jain and Sidhant Pai ran into each other at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the former was studying business and the latter environmental science.

Jain went on to pursue a corporate career that saw him work at organisations, including McKinsey, and later head the unit that became Ola Electric, while Pai earned a PhD, researching environmental decision-making tools.

They met again through a common friend, and in 2021, started StepChange when they saw an opportunity to build something that can help organisations with their carbon footprint reduction-related decisions.

StepChange has three solutions today offered like a SaaS (software as a service) product—an ESG (environmental, social and governance) management tool, a product lifecycle impact analysis tool across 18 different environmental parameters, and mobile app-based solutions that gamifies sustainability-oriented habits so that companies can use the app to encourage their employees to live more sustainably.

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“We’re working with some of the largest companies in India to help them measure and reduce their Scope 3 emissions,” says Jain. And the specific focus on Scope 3 is because that’s the hardest to measure as much of it goes outside the control of a company or any organization—for example, the carbon emissions that result from the upstream and downstream supply chain of a company.

Jain and Pai have raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-seed funding round from investors, including GFC, Beenext and Speciale Invest. “The biggest priority for us today is that we want to become the partner of choice for any large company in India on its net-zero journey,” Jain says.