A New Lift Sharing App Makes Steps Towards Carbon Negativity

Newly launched lift-sharing startup SKOOT offsets carbon by planting a tree every three rides. Founders aim “to make the lift-sharing experience easier, safer and more affordable”, as well as carbon-negative, for Generation Y and Z.

The app, which raised over £1.6m in funding so far, has been designed to connect friends who drive with friends who need a lift. With over half of British people looking for an alternative to public transport due to the current pandemic, SKOOT can help tackle COVID-related issues of mobility.

SKOOT’s CEO and co-founder Greg Gormley came up with the idea as a solution for his young daughter who used Snapchat to offer lifts to friends from one party to another, meaning potentially without insurance and so a £2,500 fine.

On the contrary, SKOOT ensures safety by checking each driver’s car, ensuring that they have valid Tax and MOT via the DVLA. It asks drivers to scan their driving licence, checks it through its back end platform and ensures drivers don’t fall foul of “money for miles” laws, which can cause their car insurance to be null and void. Then, it identifies the CO2 rating of the vehicle, calculates the exact CO2 created every month and pays for the offset to the tune of 110% with each passenger contributing 5p per trip. Finally, it maps the best travel route, enables auto collection of payment for petrol and running costs, and then carbon offsets the whole journey.

A research undertaken by the company revealed that 77% of friends requested lifts from their network of friends, with 85% of those asking for lifts at least twice per week and a minimum of eight times per month. The broader mission is to build a global social network to fulfil friends’ mobility needs.

“We believe we’ve taken the best parts of a number of businesses that changed the market around ride-hailing and lift-sharing, like Uber and Blablacar, and merged them to create a compelling carpooling and lift-sharing App, based around the USP of friends and being carbon negative,” Gormley says. “No-one actually drives for SKOOT, it’s all about driving and helping your network of friends.”

SKOOT is one of thousands of businesses that applied to the Innovate UK fund and it has been selected to receive a £50,000 grant to help support their launch.

The field has a huge potential and it is just about time for businesses to switch their focus entirely. According to a Tech Nation’s report, UK “net-zero” companies raised £336 million in VC investment, 55% more than French companies of the same nature.

Back in 2017, a Transport & Environment report pointed out that car sharing needed more regulations. T&E’s clean vehicles director, Greg Archer, wrote: “Sharing is one of the four megatrends affecting our cars along with electrification, connectivity and autonomy. If we want more sustainable mobility we must push forward sharing vehicles.”

Car sharing can of course help the environment. This is the direction startups will go in the future.

“Going forward, we feel that the gig economy is going to grow in the UK because of COVID-19. It will be friends helping friends to do tasks and jobs. At the end of the day, all of these journeys will be carbon negative,” Gormley adds. “The more journeys taken using SKOOT, the better for the planet, as we plant a tree for every three rides.”

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