ClimateClever Founder Dr Vanessa Rauland
After 10 years at the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute as a lecturer and researcher, Dr Vanessa Rauland founded ClimateClever and has made it her life’s work to protect the intricate ecosystems she has been in awe of since she was a young child.
Decades before climate change was at the forefront of our collective consciousness, Dr Vanessa Rauland was already on a career trajectory to help save the planet.
The ClimateClever Founder had an affinity for nature in her early childhood when the threat to its delicate balance was yet to be fully appreciated on a global scale.
Vanessa fondly recalls camping in remote Victorian locations with her family as a young child where she developed an innate urge to protect her awe-inspiring surroundings.
“I remember spending ages trying to catch lizards on rocks and swimming in freezing rivers,” she said.
Camping in the bush with no showers, only pit toilets and very few mod cons, provided a total immersion in nature helping her to develop a visceral connection to the intricate ecosystems and their fragility – something that the world’s brightest minds, including her own, are now trying to salvage.
“I think that connection does make you want to protect it. When you see nature being destroyed, it does fire you up,” she said.
Knowing she wanted to follow a career centred on her love of the outdoors, Vanessa completed a Bachelor of Arts with a focus on environmental studies.
“Climate change wasn’t really a thing back then, it wasn’t talked about in the media as much, but sustainability and the environment were certainly important for me, largely instilled from my parents and my upbringing,” she said.
My mum, although I probably didn’t realise it at the time, was quite an environmentalist. She would always conserve energy and water at home, never wrap anything in plastic and didn’t buy a lot of packaged things, donate to environmental charities – there were a lot of little things that she instilled in me,” she added.
By the time climate change became an urgent threat that commanded international headlines, there was no question Vanessa would join the quest to save the planet.
Taking Action
She completed her PhD at Curtin University, which focused broadly on decarbonising cities and specifically on mainstreaming low carbon urban development.
From there, she delved into many areas of research, teaching and supervision of students including carbon forestry, low carbon schools, decarbonising the grid, low carbon and regenerative urban development and climate policy.
But perhaps her biggest contribution to date was founding ClimateClever, a data-driven online program that enables schools, homes, and businesses to measure and reduce their carbon footprint.
“I had been working in the climate change space at Curtin University for over 10 years and was extremely passionate about addressing this issue. I wanted to see more action happen and was trying to do everything I could to spur that action,” Vanessa said.
“Launching ClimateClever felt like my next step. I’d amassed all this knowledge and information from the research, and I was keen to turn that knowledge into practice”.
“The inspiration for ClimateClever came to me while I was doing my PhD, and my colleague Dr Samantha Hall and I helped to certify the first carbon neutral school in Australia in 2012,” she said.
“There was such an amazing and positive outcome from that school’s achievement. They saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on their utility bills, dramatically reduced their carbon footprint and they really engaged the students and their community in the process.”
Since its inception in 2018, ClimateClever has managed to save schools across Australia more than $2 million on utility bills.
“In 2021, we launched a business version of our platform particularly to help SMEs decarbonise. Late last year we announced a fantastic partnership with Industry Capability Network – a procurement platform focused largely on infrastructure and the built environment, and mining and resources – so that’s the sector that we’re delving into now to really try and help tackle those large-scale emissions,” Vanessa said.
“While we remain passionate about schools and the educational piece, I guess at the end of the day, the emissions profile of some of these businesses is significant and helping them to decarbonise will create a huge amount of impact.”
Knowledge is Power
Crediting Curtin for fostering her entrepreneurial spirit, Vanessa embraced the University’s Ignition and Accelerate programs on her path to starting her own company. She also won two Curtinnovation awards and a 2022 Business News 40Under40 Award.
“It was really great how supportive Curtin has been of that transition from research into entrepreneurship and it’s been super helpful having that connection to Curtin,” she said.
“I feel like it’s added so much credibility to my start-up to say, ‘I’ve got this PhD and academic background,’ especially in this era with greenwashing becoming more prevalent. I think a lot of people are dubious of all the companies that are popping up and they’re questioning whether they are really doing something legit.”
She also applauds the university’s move to introduce a new undergraduate certificate or course specialisation specifically designed to combat the environment and climate emergency as part of the new Planet Positive Program.
The program includes options for an entry-point and stand-alone qualification, a supplementary qualification or complimentary coursework as part of a student’s degree.
“I think that’s definitely where we need to get to; it should be a fundamental part of formal education because everyone needs to know about it,” Vanessa said.
“It’s a really exciting move. We clearly need so many more people working in this space. The challenge is enormous, and it needs loads of different industries tackling it, so while you are learning to be an architect or an engineer, you can put an environmental bent on that career, it’s really encouraging.”
“If we can just change the next generation’s thinking, so this becomes second nature to them, it would make a huge impact.”
Small Steps
Vanessa believes ones of the main obstacles in spurring action is overcoming the sense of helplessness that drives most to do nothing at all.
“The biggest challenge is to just get started. We need to not let perfect get in the way of good or beginning the journey,” she said.
“We all need to do something to get going and we can improve along the way, but I just feel like there’s this constant, ‘maybe tomorrow’ mentality, which is just really dangerous.”
In addition to a need for more policies and regulations, Vanessa believes small changes at an individual level can have a big impact.
“If people start to retrofit homes to take out gas, electrify everything and purchase solar, that’s going to have a huge effect on reducing energy-based emissions, which is where most of our emissions come from,” she said.
If that wasn’t financially possible, she suggested purchasing green power from an electricity provider that was a slightly more expensive than normal electricity, but meant the provider had to purchase renewable energy for you on your behalf.
“If you can afford it, opt for an electric vehicle and outside of that, just choosing where you can take public transport or walk or ride and leave the car at home.”
She said eating less meat, holidaying more locally and being smarter and more efficient with appliances at home were all small changes that could collectively have a big impact.
“WA is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world, and this is sadly what we stand to lose if we don’t take more urgent action on climate change.”
Written by Raquel de Brito.
