Aerial is a mobile app that links to a user's Gmail account to automatically extract flight, ride‑hail and train receipts and calculate the associated CO₂ emissions using industry‑standard factors. The app displays per‑trip and cumulative emissions, recommends offset contributions at $10 per metric ton, and enables direct purchase of verified forest‑conservation credits. It also provides sustainability tips while ensuring data privacy through read‑only OAuth access.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Travelers receive flight, ride‑hail, and train receipts by email but lack an easy way to quantify the associated carbon emissions, making it difficult to monitor personal impact or take timely mitigation actions.
Solution
Aerial is a mobile application that connects securely to a user's Gmail account and automatically scans the inbox for travel itineraries and receipts. Using natural‑language parsing and a calibrated emissions engine, it calculates the CO₂ emitted by each trip and presents the results in kilograms, similar to fitness‑tracking metrics. The app then recommends a carbon‑offset contribution—priced at $10 per metric ton—and enables users to purchase verified forest‑conservation credits through a Climate Action Reserve partner. A Discover tab offers actionable sustainability tips, and the platform can retroactively assess past trips, giving users a comprehensive view of their travel‑related carbon footprint.
Target Audience
Environmentally conscious individual travelers and frequent flyers who want an automated, low‑effort way to track and offset their travel‑related carbon emissions.
Features
- OAuth‑based Gmail integration that grants read‑only access to travel‑related emails while preserving user privacy.
- Automated extraction of flight, Uber/Lyft, and train reservation data using natural‑language processing.
- Emissions calculation engine applying industry‑standard emission factors to produce per‑trip CO₂ estimates in kilograms.
- Interactive dashboard that visualizes individual and cumulative travel emissions, comparable to calorie‑tracking apps.
- Offset recommendation engine that converts emissions to a monetary contribution ($10 / ton) and facilitates direct purchase of verified forest‑conservation credits.
- Partnership with a Climate Action Reserve‑verified forest project, ensuring high‑quality carbon‑sequestration offsets.
- Discover section delivering curated tips on sustainable habits and lifestyle changes.
- End‑to‑end encryption of data in transit and secure handling of email content, with no long‑term storage of raw messages.