Dear friends,

Two years ago, we set out to find a solution to the climate crisis. A solution that deploys the startup mindset and technology to bring about rapid systemic change. Sadly, we haven’t found it. Here’s why:

1. Long-term-oriented behavior fluctuates

Climate-related engagement is based on media coverage, currently prevailing narratives, headspace, and many more factors. These can be captured with a certain probability by individual campaigns, but we haven’t managed to build a community of action that’s consistently growing at an accelerating pace. And that’s what would’ve been needed to scale Imagine Zero globally.

2. Building strong institutions is exceptionally hard

In many countries, institutions are eroding under constant pressure from populism, trolldom, and neo-fascism. Tackling long-term threats such as the climate crisis requires a sober, rational assessment of what the biggest threats to our survival are. The climate crisis had its discursive moment when we started Imagine Zero, but sadly, that moment has passed and given space to fearmongering and othering. It will be increasingly difficult for our species to live on the planet, but instead societies are worrying about people with differently shaded skins.

3. We didn’t leave the house enough.

Our environment turned out to be even more challenging than we had expected. And we added our own mistake. In some cases, like Wir Sprechen!, our technology really made the difference. But in others, we fell into the build-trap: Instead of running pen-and-paper prototypes, some of our projects spent too much time deploying technology where the flywheel wasn’t fully established yet.

4. Funding is hard

This is unsurprising. Funding commong goods is incredibly hard. We underestimated just how hard it would be to build out reliable sources of funding without ending up with an organization that spends half of its time on fundraising.

To close

I don’t think anyone regrets that we tried and with a maximum-risk-maximum-returns strategy, it’s the expected outcome that we didn’t stop the climate crisis.

Yet this absolutely is a sad moment. We’ve built partnerships, friendships, and enabled quite a few other organizations with our ideas and our technology. But most importantly: It was wonderful to see how hard-working and joyful the whole team took on our challenges every day.