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Partner Spotlight: Carbon Offsetting and its Role in Every Brand’s Sustainability with Michael Wroblewski from EcoCart

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Hey, thanks for tuning in to another Partner Interview at EcomBalance. At EcomBalance, we’re all about creating win-win partnerships where we are able to grow with other companies in the eCommerce space. 

 

In this exclusive interview, we interview Michael Wroblewski from EcoCart, an e-commerce solution that encourages checkout by allowing customers to shop carbon neutral online.

 

Mike Wroblewski is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at EcoCart, a sustainability technology that enables businesses to calculate and offset the carbon emissions of their operations and then encourages consumers to engage with them through transparent and authentic front-end experiences. EcoCart started with the mission to make the fight against climate change easy, affordable, and accessible for everyone, working to leverage the immense power of digital commerce as a force for good.

 

We hope that you enjoy the interview and that it brings value to you as an eCommerce business owner.

 

Connor: Hey Michael, thanks for taking the time to chat with us here. We love getting to know our partners better so that our community can benefit from what our partners are offering and doing in the industry. To get started, can you give us a high level overview of EcoCart and how it got started? 

 

Mike: EcoCart is a sustainability technology that enables businesses to calculate and offset the carbon emissions of their operations and then encourages consumers to engage with them through transparent and authentic front-end experiences. By vetting and partnering with various projects and organizations, such as forest protection and building clean energy sources, EcoCart determines the amount of each carbon offsetting activity needed to counteract specific amounts of carbon emissions and then matches the cost of doing so with each order’s amount of emissions. EcoCart then empowers brands to leverage their offsetting initiatives into their customer experience through cart, landing page, banner, and other on and off-site experiences. Sustainability is now a driving factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions. 

 

Connor: That’s awesome! Can you dive a bit more into the products and services that you offer to support sustainable shopping and improve conversion? I’m sure our audience would love to know exactly what problems you could solve for them. 

 

Mike:  We cater to brands that are just starting on their sustainability journey or ones that have well-established sustainability initiatives. No matter what stage you’re at, EcoCart can help. We have two products, EcoCart and EcoCart Plus, but even within each of those, there is great flexibility for brands to decide what they need and want. For example, with EcoCart a merchant has the option to pay for offsetting each order on behalf of their customers. We even have merchants who use EcoCart as a way to make their orders carbon positive, the way this works is the brand makes each order carbon neutral already, but at checkout, the customer has the option to match the donation effectively offsetting double the amount of carbon generated by their order, resulting in double the impact.

 

Connor: Jumping off of that…if there was one problem you’d say that EcoCart solves best for your clients, what would it be? Why? 

 

Mike:  We firmly believe that carbon offsetting has a role in every brand’s sustainability journey, and we’re great at figuring that role out. The entire industry of carbon offsetting can be super overwhelming and difficult to navigate, especially for a brand that has way more urgent priorities. On top of just navigating the industry, it can be super difficult to measure and quantify a product’s carbon footprint. EcoCart makes what has historically been a laborious process of analyzing carbon footprints and buying carbon offsets, into a very easy one for our clients. 

 

Connor: As the company continues to grow over the next year, what are your plans for expansion? Any new products or offerings or enhancements to your current products? 

 

Mike:  As the company continues to grow over the next year, the team plans to continue iterating on our calculations to improve the depth and detail of each product lifecycle that we’re able to analyze. The team also plans to continue improving the onsite experience by doubling down on data-driven best practices and will launch net-new analytics within our dashboard. Other infrastructure updates will be made, as well, which will result in new machine-learning and scalability capabilities.

 

Connor: And how specifically would you say that EcoCart and your team is different from other similar businesses in the industry?

 

Mike:  A major differentiating factor between EcoCart and other solutions out there is our calculation capability, while most other solutions only focus on calculating and offsetting the shipping of an item, we have the ability to take a more holistic approach and measure the carbon footprint of everything from manufacturing and packaging, not just shipping.

 

Connor: What made you decide to get involved in the space? What’s your starting eCommerce story? From what we’ve found, a lot of business owners in the space have fun stories of how they first started…

 

Mike:  I actually started my career in finance, then spent 5+ years in SaaS partnerships before I came to EcoCart.  I met our founders as we raising our seed round and loved the concept.  Sustainability is important to me personally, so it seemed like a fantastic opportunity to work for a company with a mission and value proposition like EcoCart. 

 

Connor: Love it! Talking more about the eCommerce industry, where do you see it going in the next 1-2 years? Any unique predictions that you could share? 

 

Mike:  I think we’ll begin to see more and more businesses, especially in the ecommerce industry, start to prioritize sustainability in their business operations and community messaging.  

 

For example, this past March, the SEC passed rules that are now requiring businesses of certain sizes to begin publicly reporting on their carbon footprint.  A solution like EcoCart not only helps you understand and reduce your carbon emissions, but it’s preparing your business for the future as well when it comes to reporting.   

 

Connor: Giving you an open mic for a minute, what is something you’d want the EcomBalance audience to hear?

 

Mike:  EcoCart’s value is centered around providing brands with an understanding of their carbon footprint and means that they can reduce their carbon emissions, but it can go much further for ecommerce merchants.  Our product also allows you to segment your customers to see who checks out carbon neutral, giving a new type of eco-conscious customer persona to market to where we see significant increases in loyalty and retention from those shoppers.  

 

Connor: Changing gears a little bit…When it comes to bookkeeping and accounting, what do you think the biggest pain points for business owners are? Feel free to speak from personal experience as well. 

 

Mike:  I think one of the biggest pain points is creating a repeatable process for bookkeeping, especially when you’re starting out.  Things are always changing with a new business, and there’s so many different factors that need to be accounted for (no pun intended).  That’s why we’re excited to work with a partner like EcomBalance who can help our new and established merchants throughout that process.

 

Connor: As we close this out, I just have one more question. Where is the best place to find and follow you and the company online? Also, if you have one, is there any special offer that you’ll be offering to the community today? 

 

Mike:  You can find me on LinkedIn and you can follow EcoCart on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.  

If anyone is interested in learning more about EcoCart, shoot a note to mike at ecocart.io and we’ll cover the cost of making all your orders carbon neutral for a day just for taking the time to learn more!

 

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Connor Gillivan

Connor Gillivan

CMO and Founder of EcomBalance. Founded FreeUp (acquired in 2019). Founder of Outsource School. Published Author. Investor.

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