Emitwise is a carbon accounting platform that helps companies with complex supply chains to understand and reduce their emissions.
I joined the Emitwise team in May 2022 to design the user experience around their ML-powered carbon calculation engine, and help develop design practices within their growing team.
Due to the nature of Emitwise’s business, I’m unable to share specific details or visuals for the projects I’ve worked on publicly. 😔 Instead I’ll share some of the key initiatives in broad terms and examples of how I’ve helped promote design within the company.
Enabling visibility and control over Emitwise’s machine learning engine
At the core of the Emitwise platform is a machine learning-powered classification engine that can identify which products a company has purchased and accurately calculate the associated carbon emissions.
I was responsible for designing the experience for reviewing classifications made by the ML model, as well as a series of complimentary features required to undertake a comprehensive assessment of a customer’s carbon emissions.
This project involved working with stakeholders across the business to validate new concepts that would help to reduce the human effort involved in calculating a customer’s emissions. The result was a paradigm-shift in the way Emitwise services it’s customers.
Helping customers evaluate their supply chain emissions
During a competitive pilot for a Fortune 500 company, I led the design of a new service for engaging the customer’s suppliers. This enabled the collection of emissions data which is now being used to make procurement decisions that are aligned with the customer’s long-term target to reach net zero.
As a result of the pilot project, Emitwise won a lucrative multi-year contract.
Rapidly prototyping new ideas
Working with the Carbon Accountants at Emitwise, I developed a prototype tool that allows customers to model the potential impact of different sustainability initiatives on their carbon emissions. We quickly started testing the prototype with customers to gather feedback and validate demand.
Spreading design skills within Emitwise
A key part of my role at Emitwise has been to promote a customer-focussed approach within the team, and to share design skills that enable everyone to take responsibility for the customer experience. Here are some ways I’ve done this:
- Demystifying design sessions – Aimed at sharing design skills with people from all parts of the business, these sessions cover topics like principles of visual perception and the design thinking process.
- Design thinking workshops – Facilitating workshops with teams throughout Emitwise to clearly define problems, ideate, prototype, and test solutions.
- Design challenges – Quick, informal ideation sessions that focus on clearly defined problem areas within the product. These sessions have been a great way of getting people outside of the product organisation involved in shaping the customer experience.