What if every action you take to reduce your carbon footprint not only helps the planet, but also puts money back in your pocket? From biking to work, to choosing more sustainable products, individuals and businesses alike are increasingly looking for ways to participate in the fight against climate change. But despite widespread awareness, the systems in place to incentivize real change often fall short.
Tim Beentjes, one of the visionary founders of Carbon Cred, recognized this gap and set out to create a platform that combines carbon reduction with tangible financial rewards. Drawing on his diverse background in humanitarian work, engineering, technology, and environmental solutions, Tim’s goal was to build a market-driven approach that empowers individuals to take ownership of their emissions and get paid for it. With Carbon Cred, users can generate and sell emissions reductions in real time, transforming personal actions into valuable assets.
In this interview, Tim shares how his unique background led him to develop Carbon Cred, the challenges of traditional carbon offset models, and how his platform is shifting the paradigm by incentivizing real-time climate action.
| 🔎 ATP Science Spotlight: The Technology Behind Carbon Cred
At the heart of Carbon Cred’s innovation is a patented software algorithm that tracks multimodal transportation. Much like how Step Count tracks walking, Carbon Cred’s technology recognizes and maps every mode of travel in real time—whether you’re walking, biking, taking public transit, ridesharing, or driving. The app intelligently detects how you’re moving and stitches together this data to calculate emissions reductions, enabling the creation of carbon credits. This unique algorithm, powered by computer science and sensor tracking in mobile devices, is the secret sauce behind Carbon Cred’s platform—setting them apart as the only company with the ability to offer comprehensive, multimodal tracking for carbon offset creation. Importantly, the tracking feature is an opt-in service, backed by best in class privacy protections and external auditing to ensure users’ data is handled securely and responsibly. |
Can you share the origin story of Carbon Cred and what inspired you to create this platform that combines carbon reduction with financial incentives?
TB: I spent many years working in humanitarian efforts, building schools, hospitals, and orphanages around the world. It was deeply rewarding, and I always believed in the power of altruism. However, my journey took a turn when I began working in engineering and technology. While working in oil and gas, I developed a technology that could reduce millions of tons of CO2 while generating substantial profits. But I realized that, no matter how impressive these numbers were, it wasn’t enough in the grand scheme of climate change.
That’s when I started thinking about how to create an economic system that could drive large-scale change. I synthesized my experience with technology and business, and I came up with the idea for Carbon Cred—a platform that incentivizes individuals and companies to reduce their emissions through free-market economics. It was a transformative idea developed one Saturday morning that was the spark which led to what we’re building today.
▶️Listen to Tim on the Champions of Sustainability Podcast: Employee Powered Carbon Credits
What do you see as the biggest challenges or limitations with traditional approaches to carbon offsetting?
TB: Traditional approaches to carbon offsetting are too often qualitative and removed from daily life, which makes it difficult for people to see real, tangible results. The main issue is that people get paid in their personal jobs but when it comes to globally important climate action they are not personally compensated for their actions to reduce emissions. It’s the “tragedy of the commons”—we expect everyone to act selflessly for the greater good, but the current system doesn’t provide any financial incentive for individuals to make those sacrifices.
At Carbon Cred, we’re changing that. For the first time, individuals and employees can be financially rewarded in real time for reducing their emissions. And, the money comes from private enterprises, not your tax dollars. We see this as a paradigm shift. Instead of relying solely on companies or governments to drive change, we’re tapping into a new resource—employees themselves. Imagine if employees could generate and sell emissions reductions just like they sell their time and skills to companies. Companies buy these personal emissions reductions credits off their employees, customers and prospective customers, not just to meet regulation or fulfill their public emissions reduction commitments but because it makes good business sense. Other carbon credits don’t have buying power – people have buying power so companies buy emissions reductions off prospective customers to loop them into their profit generating ecosystem. That’s the model we’re working toward.
Can you share a success story of an individual or company that’s seen a meaningful impact from using the app?
TB: One of the most inspiring stories comes from an individual who downloaded our app and began biking to work while still dropping her son at school. Over the course of several months, she reduced her emissions by over 1,000 pounds. We’ve seen similar success among employees at companies who are using the platform. There’s also very interesting data resulting from our approach: one person previously driving a pickup managed to reduce 3,000 pounds of CO2, while another employee in the same company, who drives a Tesla, only reduced 300 pounds, despite taking the same number of trips. It’s exciting to see how our system measures and rewards emissions reductions in real time, allowing individuals to see the immediate impact of their actions.
How does Carbon Cred’s model influence urban planning and sustainability at a city level?
TB: We’re in early conversations with cities like Austin to explore creating local carbon markets. The goal is to incentivize residents and businesses to cut their emissions because it makes financial sense. This is an exciting prospect for urban planning because it would allow cities to directly measure and promote emissions reductions based on real world data. This means a city can focus their investment into the types of networks that cut the most emissions, lowering the participation threshold for residents and thereby improving the local economy because those residents can sell more of their emissions reductions.
Our work with transportation management teams like Movability is key to this vision. We’re helping them quantify emissions reductions from commuter behavior, and this data will help guide future policy decisions in cities across the U.S.
As a newer addition to ATP Fund’s portfolio, what does this partnership mean for your growth and vision?
TB: ATP has deep local knowledge, especially in markets where we’re looking to expand. Their connections and understanding of the U.S. market have been instrumental as we move toward our first significant U.S. customer. Their support in helping us scale within local markets has been crucial.
Looking ahead, what excites you most about Carbon Cred’s impact or innovations in the climate tech space?
TB: We’re excited about expanding into new markets, particularly in Taiwan, where we’ve already signed an MOU with a partner that could bring 100,000 users onto our platform. There’s huge potential for scaling up our impact globally.
What excites me most, though, is the way we’re the first to merge strong engineering with software, regulation, and the free-market to create a system that allows individuals to monetize their emissions reductions. It’s a new way of thinking about sustainability—one that’s driven by real market forces, not just altruism or tax incentives. As we grow, I believe Carbon Cred could revolutionize how people approach climate action, making it a tangible, profitable endeavor.
Learn more about Carbon Cred’s employee-powered emission reductions at carboncred.com.
