“Any kind of discovery and access to new consumers and our ability to tell our stories are really beneficial—especially for consumers who are already concerned about climate change and the environment,” said Kat Dey, co-founder and president of Ettitude. “It’s great to tap into that audience and do a bit of education.”

Commons also offers information on how people can start composting to reduce food waste, lower the impact of laundry habits and opt for greener travel alternatives. Each of those activities can mitigate a user’s overall footprint, which they can then offset each month through the app.

Cutting through the greenwash

Commons ran a study on people’s barriers to shopping more sustainably and how the app could help solve those problems. Respondents said their biggest challenges were lack of trust in brands due to greenwashing, difficulty in finding sustainable options and the cost of sustainable products.

Users also expressed an interest in brand-specific recommendations through the app, which they said could motivate them to shift up to 75% of their purchases to more sustainable products.

Mitigating consumption-related emissions

While extractive industries have the greatest overall impact on rising global temperatures, the United Nations’ climate research body highlighted the opportunities related to more sustainable consumption in a 2022 report on climate change mitigation. The group estimates that consumption-related changes, focused primarily in high-income countries, could rapidly reduce global emissions by 5% with even greater potential as economies transition away from fossil fuels.

“The reality is, so few companies are actually doing anything about the climate,” Austin Whitman, CEO and co-founder of Climate Neutral, told Adweek. “How do we get more consumer eyes on the companies who are at least doing something and talking about it?”

Marketers play a key role in fostering desire for more sustainable habits and consumption patterns, something that groups like Purpose Disruptors and Comms Declare have highlighted in recent years.

“Our tool is supposed to help people make spending choices that are better for them and the planet, and often that means not buying anything,” Pal said. “So we’re not trying to be a shopping app. We’re trying to be very curated about helping people [by recommending] specific alternatives to things they’re buying that are more sustainable.”