Interview: Harsh Singhal, Founder, The NetZero Labs

As sustainability narratives mature globally, where do you see the largest disconnect between corporate intent and measurable climate impact, particularly within fast-scaling D2C ecosystems?
As sustainability narratives mature globally, many brands have begun offsetting emissions, but there remains a clear disconnect between claimed impact and actual reduction. A large part of this comes from over-reliance on carbon offsetting without parallel investment in redesigning core systems such as materials, logistics, or packaging. In many cases, sustainability is still driven by marketing rather than product or operations teams. As a result, perception gets optimised more than the underlying footprint. The deeper issue is structural; most brands lack visibility into emissions at a granular, order level, which makes meaningful reduction difficult. Without measurement embedded into operations, sustainability remains declarative rather than actionable.

From an infrastructure and systems perspective, do you believe climate action needs to be embedded at the transaction layer, or should it remain a top-down corporate ESG mandate?
Climate action cannot remain a top-down ESG mandate; it needs to be embedded at the transaction layer, where emissions are actually generated. In D2C ecosystems, every order, shipment, and SKU carries a footprint. If climate considerations are not integrated into these decisions, sustainability becomes a reporting exercise rather than a driver of change. Embedding climate intelligence into transactions enables real-time awareness, influences operational choices, and creates a continuous feedback loop for reduction, shifting sustainability from periodic reporting to everyday decision-making.

Your solution integrates directly into checkout flows with minimal friction. What were the core design principles behind building a “zero-complexity” sustainability layer for e-commerce platforms?
The core principle was simple: sustainability cannot come at the cost of conversion. If it adds friction, it will not scale. So the system was designed as a zero-complexity layer that integrates directly into existing checkout flows without requiring operational changes from merchants. All backend complexity, including sourcing, verification, and reconciliation, is abstracted away, while the frontend remains simple and intuitive. Equally important was aligning sustainability with business outcomes. Instead of being a trade-off, it is positioned to enhance trust and strengthen the overall customer experience. The goal was to make adoption as seamless as enabling a payment system, effortless, invisible, and scalable.

 In practical terms, how does your platform ensure real-time measurement of impact such as trees planted and CO₂ offset and what verification frameworks underpin these claims?
The platform operates at the transaction level, linking every order to a defined climate-positive action such as tree planting. Rather than relying on abstract or inconsistent carbon estimates, the focus is on creating traceable, tangible contributions tied directly to user activity. Execution is carried out through partnerships with established afforestation organisations, with structured documentation on plantation sites, species, and timelines. Internally, all commitments are recorded and reconciled against partner reports, creating a clear audit trail. While impact is not instantaneous, it is designed to be verifiable, trackable, and directly attributable, prioritising transparency over approximation.

Given the rising scrutiny around greenwashing, how do you ensure that partnerships with reforestation agencies are credible, audited, and aligned with global carbon accounting standards?With increasing scrutiny around greenwashing, the focus has been on avoiding overstatement and ensuring traceability. Partnerships are limited to organisations with a demonstrated track record in executing on-ground projects and maintaining structured reporting practices. Instead of making broad or aggregated claims, the approach is to maintain a clear linkage between each transaction and its corresponding impact. This creates accountability and ensures that every commitment can be traced, verified, and reconciled over time. The emphasis is not on claiming scale, but on ensuring credibility at every step.

Early adoption trends suggest encouraging participation from consumers. What behavioural insights have emerged regarding willingness to contribute at checkout, and how does this vary across geographies or price segments?
Early adoption suggests that consumers are open to participating in climate-positive actions, but their behaviour is highly sensitive to friction and clarity. Tangible actions such as planting a tree resonate more strongly than abstract carbon metrics. There are also clear differences across markets. In more mature markets, participation tends to be more intuitive, while in price-sensitive markets, even small additions can impact conversion. Similarly, higher-value segments show stronger engagement compared to more price-conscious categories. The key insight is that simplicity and perceived authenticity play a far greater role than awareness alone.

For brands, the key concern often remains ROI. How do you balance climate impact with commercial outcomes such as conversion rates, customer loyalty, and brand equity?
The approach is to align climate action with business outcomes rather than treating it as a trade-off. By ensuring zero friction at checkout, there is no negative impact on conversion, while clearly communicated actions can strengthen trust and influence purchase decisions. Over time, this contributes to stronger brand differentiation and customer loyalty. Sustainability, in this sense, operates quietly within the transaction but delivers value at the brand level, both in perception and long-term equity.

If scaled across thousands of merchants, could such platforms collectively function as a distributed climate infrastructure layer? How do you envision this evolving over the next decade?
At scale, such systems can evolve into a form of distributed digital climate infrastructure. Each individual transaction may seem small, but when aggregated across merchants and geographies, it creates a network of continuous, embedded climate action. Over time, this can extend beyond contributions to influencing upstream decisions such as logistics, materials, and supplier choices. The long-term vision is for climate intelligence to become a built-in layer of commerce, much like payments or analytics, integrated, invisible, and always active.

What role should regulators and industry bodies play in standardising micro-contribution climate models to ensure transparency, interoperability, and trust?
Regulators and industry bodies have a critical role in bringing clarity and consistency to climate claims. Today, a lack of standard definitions and verification frameworks makes it difficult to compare or trust stated impact. Establishing common guidelines for how impact is defined, measured, and reported would create a shared language across the ecosystem. Equally important is setting clear boundaries on what can be claimed, ensuring that sustainability communication remains accurate and credible. This is essential for building long-term consumer trust and enabling responsible innovation.

Looking ahead, how do you see your organization evolving into a broader climate intelligence and action platform, particularly in integrating data, verification, and enterprise sustainability strategies?The long-term vision is to move beyond enabling simple actions to building a broader climate intelligence layer for businesses. This includes helping brands understand where their impact originates and enabling more informed decision-making across operations. As the ecosystem evolves, the focus will be on integrating data, improving traceability, and connecting transaction-level actions with broader sustainability strategies. The shift is from enabling participation to enabling understanding, so that sustainability becomes not just an action layer, but a decision-making framework embedded across the business.