On the Record with Lizzy Kolar, Scope Zero Co-Founder & CEO
Hometown: Morgantown, West Virginia
Hobbies: Central Park or Broadway shows
A few words to describe you: Curious, an Environmentalist
Let’s start at the beginning: what were you like as a child and how do you think that shaped who you are today?
The first thing that comes to mind is the influence of my mom and of my elementary school art teacher. Both of them did a fantastic job of putting other people first and always working towards social justice. I was very fortunate to have such kindhearted, hardworking, generous and intelligent women to serve as role models for me. They exposed me to different social justice issues, not just within Appalachia or the United States, but globally, which shaped my interest in impact work.
What would you say has been your biggest or most unexpected challenge?
The circumstances of my upbringing exposed me to common challenges that I knew I wanted to work to alleviate. For example, I grew up in West Virginia, whose main industry is coal and is consistently ranked in the top three poorest states in the country. Having those two realities present in my upbringing helped me start to understand human interaction with the environment and what we can do to help it.
Growing up in West Virginia, sustainability wasn’t always top of mind for folks. It’s not necessarily because they don’t care, but more so because we weren’t educated about sustainability. There’s also a gap in the financial means to live more sustainably. Being exposed to these financial and environmental challenges helped me want to dedicate my time to alleviate some of those burdens.
My upbringing and my work experience in my 20s ultimately sparked the idea for the Carbon Savings Account (CSA). The CSA is a simple solution that can drive financial and environmental wellness for anybody that is housed or uses transportation modes other than their feet to get around. I think the brilliance of the CSA lies in its ability to simultaneously address the financial and environmental piece. You don’t necessarily have to care about the health of the planet to want to participate in the CSA program. Aligning sustainable living with financial incentives creates a solution that is appealing and useful to anyone.
What excites you most about the work you’re doing?
The Carbon Savings Account is a simple framework that simultaneously provides so much depth of value to companies and individuals. A lot of that value exists because of how much potential there is to make our homes and transportation more efficient, even just within the United States. Just in the United States, if everybody that was offered a 401(k) were also offered a CSA, we can save over $300 billion a year in utility bills and fuel expenses. That’s the environmental equivalent of removing 125 million cars from the road.
So to answer your question, the level of impact that can be achieved is what excites me most about the CSA.
What does company culture mean to you?
Kaitlin (Scope Zero’s Co-Founder and COO) has spearheaded our recruiting and hiring process. She does a fantastic job of recruiting mission-aligned teammates who dedicate their mission to financial and environmental wellness. I value how effectively and respectfully we communicate with one another.
Our team members teach us something new every day with the unique expertise they bring to the table. Our team has told us they appreciate our approachability. We’ve created a workplace that’s collaborative and creative where everyone can all influence the impacts we’re having with Scope Zero.
Are there any books you ask your team to read?
Yes, there are two books that were pivotal to my understanding of sustainability. ‘The Conundrum’ and ‘The Green Metropolis’ both by David Owen. ‘The Conundrum’ is most relevant to Scope Zero, especially as it talks about the importance of wisely implementing energy efficiency measures. The book introduces a concept called Jevons paradox, which means that efficiency measures can cause increased consumption of a resource because lower costs generate increased demand. If you ultimately end up using more energy with a new efficient air conditioner than you did with your old inefficient air conditioner, your carbon footprint goes up.
We incorporate this concept into our product. We don’t just help you upgrade to a more efficient device, we also make sure to provide educational material to help you ensure your consumption is actually being reduced by wisely using your CSA upgrades. We address both technology and behavior change within sustainability.
‘The Great Metropolis’ is about New York City and why it’s the most sustainable place in the US. The key is population density.
What do you think is missing from the current discussion around sustainability and climate change at large
I think, for the most part, people want to contribute to a healthy planet. It’s difficult to know how to do this, especially when sustainability curriculum isn’t a standard core within K-12 education. This results in people not understanding their environmental impact in their daily life choices. For example, most people don’t realize that the average person uses 16 gallons of water per shower. Most don’t realize that the average person uses 50 gallons of water per day at home. I think as soon as people are exposed to the education of how to wisely consume resources, they can build that into their daily routine.
I think if we made sustainability education more commonplace, not only would that enable people to incorporate it into their daily lives, but it would also inspire more folks to incorporate sustainability into their jobs as well.
There's been a widespread debate around climate change. What is the role of fear in all this?
While I do think there is value in understanding the reality of the health of the climate, it is even more important to understand what you can do in your personal life, in your job, in your voting, and in your advocacy to move the needle forward towards a more sustainable future.
I don’t think that fear is the best play here. I think the way to actually move the needle is to equip everybody with a skill set that can be used to make their personal lives, workplaces, and government more in tune with sustainable practices. This provides a positive, proactive, actionable approach which people find motivating if done well. The way we’ve done this at Scope Zero is by making sustainability personal and tangible. Sustainable action starts at home with understanding how you are consuming resources on a daily basis. Once you have that personal understanding, it’s a lot easier to bring sustainability into other aspects of your life.
Okay, now that we’ve covered your inspirations around Scope Zero a good bit, let’s learn more about Lizzy as an individual. What do you think has been your biggest inspiration as an entrepreneur?
The first thing that comes to mind is the amount of impact potential that exists for the CSA. I also find great inspiration from our team and our entire network of investors, advisors, and customers. The mission and the people we’ve been able to bring together and learn from have always been the biggest source of inspiration.
What’s been the biggest learning experience since becoming an entrepreneur?
When you’re an entrepreneur, every single day is a learning experience. You have to wear so many hats at once, balancing countless tasks and action items. I think it’s hard to pinpoint just one learning experience, rather than the ability to keep the flexibility and endurance to improve everyday.
Are there any life lessons you live by?
When I was a freshman in college all of the incoming freshmen had to read ‘Justice’ by Michael Sandel. The premise of the book is to help you define what it means to live a just life. It introduces a simple rule of thumb for making decisions in your life. The way that you can decide if what you’re about to do is just or not is by asking yourself, “If everybody else did what I’m about to do, would it be okay?” My fascination with incorporating this question into my daily life strongly overlaps with my interest in personal sustainability. For example, there are over 8 billion people in the world. While it may be negligible environmental impact if I purchase a low-flow showerhead, if all 8 billion people in the world did, the impact would be massive. This mindset is important for contextualizing how my actions on a day-to-day basis can impact climate change more broadly. Because if the majority of us believe that our individual actions matter towards the overall health of the climate, that is more than enough to push the needle in the right direction.
Lastly, if you achieve the things you want to, how do you want to be remembered?
I would like to be remembered for the positive environmental impact that I've been able to bring to the world. I want to be remembered for the positive environmental impact that can be brought through educational reform, financial reform, and then potentially also political reform.
Lizzy Kolar is co-founder and CEO of Scope Zero. Scope Zero created the Carbon Savings Account® (CSA); think health savings account (HSA), but for home technology and personal transportation upgrades that reduce employees' cost of living and employers' scope 3 carbon emissions. Lizzy holds a master's degree in sustainable design engineering from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University. She previously worked at Ameresco, where she designed energy- and water-efficiency upgrades for military base housing across the US. Scope Zero's mission is to reduce annual utility bills and fuel expenses by $300 billion, the environmental equivalent of removing 125M cars from the road.
