Cula Technologies: Making CO₂ offsetting easy to understand

“Design accessible and trustworthy mechanisms for consumers to enhance understanding and confidence in carbon credits.” With this challenge, the Potsdam-based technology company Cula approached a team of students from the HPI d-school.
Cula develops innovative software that helps companies measure, reduce, and offset their emissions along the value chain. A key challenge, however, is building trust in the complex topic of CO₂ offset measures. Therefore, they sought an approach that conveys knowledge in an understandable way while simultaneously sparking interest in sustainable behavior.

For effective climate protection, companies must drastically reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions that cannot be avoided can be offset using so-called CO₂ credits. Initiatives that remove emissions from the atmosphere and store them permanently – for example, through reforestation – sell these credits. CO₂ credits are crucial for the transition to a climate-neutral economy, as they offer companies a way to offset their emissions.

The problem: So far, there is no widespread awareness of how CO₂ credits work, and there is also general public skepticism about the actual impact of such offset mechanisms. Since the regulations are complex and there are currently no uniform standards for emissions trading, there is a lack of transparency. At the same time, many companies lack simple ways to inform their employees about sustainability issues or actively involve them.

Furthermore, in the day-to-day work routine, there is usually little time to delve deeply into topics such as emissions measurement or climate protection strategies. For Cula, this raised the question of how information on CO₂ offsetting could be communicated in a way that is understandable, trustworthy, and easily accessible.

As part of the Design Thinking project, students at the HPI d-school conducted interviews with potential users. Their findings revealed that while many people are interested in sustainability, they feel overwhelmed by the complexity of CO₂ offset mechanisms. They want clear information, transparent processes, and simple ways to take action themselves.

The students discovered that transparent information and honest communication from companies foster people’s trust in CO₂ offsetting. Through multimedia approaches such as augmented reality (AR) and gamified formats, new information becomes accessible, especially for people who have little time in their daily work lives.

Based on these valuable insights, the students developed a prototype for an augmented reality application called “CO₂ Coffee Hunt”: In a playful office setting, employees learn how greenhouse gas emissions arise and how CO₂ credits work. In addition, informational posters and workshop formats were developed to clearly explain sustainability topics. Initial tests showed that the playful AR format in particular quickly sparked interest and made complex content easier to understand.

With their prototypes, the students demonstrate how sustainability can be brought to life in a corporate context. Playful learning formats like the AR application help employees better understand CO₂ emissions in their daily work and identify more strongly with their company’s climate strategies.

In the long term, such approaches can help integrate sustainable practices more deeply into corporate culture. When employees understand how emissions arise and how they can be reduced or offset, they can make more sustainable decisions in their personal and professional lives and support their employers in their efforts to advance a climate-neutral economy.