Did you know you can fight the climate crisis with your spare change? On the latest PolicyWise episode (S3, E10), hosts Ellinor Arzbaecher and Michael Wiafe welcome Will Wiseman, the CEO and co-founder of Climatize, a crowdfunding app that funds renewable projects using change from your daily purchases.
“If everybody pitched in their spare change, then collectively that would be a lot of money and it would move the public from being neutral bystanders in the climate fight to really be stakeholders in the overall development and deployment of clean energy.” explained Wiseman.
Climatize raises funds from an app that rounds up the user’s purchases to the nearest dollar and then it is invested in the renewable project of the user’s choice.
“What we’re doing is empowering the public to actually fund clean energy and act upon their moral desires,” said Wiseman. Climatize is funding pilot projects that range from a solar array in Kenya to a solar system on low-income homes in Hollister, California. “Ramping up each one of these projects is only $8,300. That takes less than 500 people investing their spare change for a month.”
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