Ashmita Roy

ashmita

Lo Carbon

Greenlighting corporate sustainability

Product in partnership with

BACKGROUND

In 2020 we launched a technological solution for tracking and monitoring a 72 year old shipping company's carbon emissions across its operations. Overtime the user base evolved to accommodate conglomerates in multiple industries like property, hotels, infrastructure, and department stores.

WHAT I DID

My role as Design Lead

Conducted research, design system setup and maintenance, stakeholder interviews, designing, analytics. Collaborated with a lean team of 3 designers, 1 product manager, 1 technical lead, 15+ engineers.

WHAT I DID

My role as Design Lead

IMPACT

600% better

For our primary client, ESG reporting and analysis grew over 6X in 2 years, working together with energy providers, operational and supply chain partners. Businesses were able to align their emission targets with recognized carbon accounting standards like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or ISO 14064.

IMPACT

600% better

Lo Carbon is a tool for large-scale enterprises to manage their environmental footprint.

PRODUCT DESIGN • SAAS • B2B

PROBLEM STATEMENT

How Might We

How might we empower enterprises to make their sustainability operations more efficient, comply with regulations, and improve their ESG performance to thrive in a green economy? Our challenge was to aggregate emission data generated by company-owned assets from multiple online and offline sources effectively.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

How Might We

Discovery

Our initial users included shipping officers, crew, corporate offices, facility teams, and partner maritime service providers. I carried out surveys, interviews and feedback sessions with ESG consultants, the executive and the strategy teams frequently, to flesh out primary pain points.

Discovery

Davo

Office Manager

I spend half my day wrestling with our gazillion spreadsheets and the other half helping others wrestle with them.

Davo

Office Manager

I spend half my day wrestling with our gazillion spreadsheets and the other half helping others wrestle with them.

Matthew

ESG Strategy Head

I'm expected to set decarbonisation targets, improve strategies and add new solutions every year.

Key learnings from research were business goals. It was essential to incorporate trends and analyses to inform reporting and strategic decision making. Automating and connecting data points would streamline processes, reduce costs related to tracking tools, and secure control for all stakeholders.

GOALS

Lo Carbon should adapt to variable information density levels across teams

We reviewed the current processes, and while we had come a long way from the days of ships having zero Internet, we still met with challenges in that area. Every day at 12 noon, the vessel would receive satellite Internet connection, to send the noon report. Creating an elaborate tracking system for this step did not work. as they had no way way for them to report the daily energy, fuel and voyage consumption metrics. Thus we had to work closely with the facility managers to convert the numerical noon reports into a consumable dashboard interface.

DESIGNS

Visual tone

As it was a large-scale product with unique design requirements, we opted to build our own design system, maintained on Figma and Storybook. It required more upfront investment but sped up design handovers and added flexibility.

DESIGNS

Visual tone

WINS

Results

A seamlessly user journey reduced the need for repeated training sessions.
Fleshing out distinct user funnels that led to the primary action for each stage of the management process ensured smoother task completion..
A panoramic as well as a granular view of sensor data collected drove improved corporate strategies to innovate in sustainability efforts.
Decreased task times, eg: average data input time, average emission insight generation time led to increased employee satisfaction.
Employee-hours spent on updating and managing multiple spreadsheets were saved and employee frustration was drastically reduced.
Setting decarbonisation targets and tracking goal progress was easier

Business impact

12 SDG goals met
Wah Kwong's ESG reporting up 600%
This also helped kickstart our vertical NFTs for conservation with the WWF

As attributed in Wah Kwong's Annual ESG Disclosure Report

CHALLENGES

Learnings

Lo Carbon was originally customised towards shipping industry standards. The experience started breaking when it was scaled to include cross-functional guidelines and historic performances.

CHALLENGES

Learnings

Lo Carbon was originally customised towards shipping industry standards. The experience started breaking when it was scaled to include cross-functional guidelines and historic performances.

Through this project, I learned the importance of interviewing different roles. Two perspectives can yield drastically different solutions. For instance, C-suite executives typically seek a straightforward method tailored to their preferences. In contrast, daily users are in need of versatility.

Recognising that the loudest or most senior voices can sometimes overshadow others was crucial. It's essential to facilitate a balance between goals and targets, ensuring that all user needs are addressed. Adopting a lean process, even when imperfect, is far better than no process at all, especially in designing for SaaS products.

CONCLUSION

Greener, better

Prior to this, the target clients had been using regional averages for supplies, waste and employee travel data. This tool especially sees potential in the shipping and building industry, where emission reporting is a significant part of regulations. It helped many Hong Kong companies reach environmental targets, refine forecasting, and orchestrate large scale operations.

CONCLUSION