Namrata Sandhu, Vaayu: helping the retail sector become more sustainable

Namrata Sandhu is the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaayu.

Nam grew up in Bombay, India and saw first hand the impact of waste and climate change, which inspired her to pursue a career in sustainability. After working for management consultancies and heading up sustainability for Zalando and Arcadia, two things became very clear:

1.      There was a huge opportunity in the retail sector to make a dent in climate change with the sector being responsible for 25% of global emissions.

2.      The biggest blocker for retailers becoming more sustainable was a lack of accurate and real-time data to make better decisions for the planet.

So Nam founded Vaayu to solve that problem. Vaayu helps retailers calculate their carbon emissions in real-time, providing actionable insights into where they can make positive changes and helping them communicate their decarbonisation story to their customers.

Highlights:

03.24: The changes over the last 15 years in the sustainability space

04.59: Can businesses actually be sustainable?

08.10: The impact of the retail sector on climate change

14.55: What is Vaayu?

18.40: How granular can Vaayu get with the detail and helping retailers to improve?

22.35: Helping businesses avoid the greenwashing trap

25.10: Raising their Seed round and Nam’s advice for other Founders

30.00: The important of having a technical Co-Founder

34.20: Building a company that aligns with their tech for good focus

40.54: Nam’s advice on hiring your early stage team


Our Host:

Craig Turner. Founder of Confido Talent, a business that helps Tech For Good startups to scale their product, design and engineering teams.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigturner7/ / www.confidotalent.com / craig@confidotalent.com

Our Guest:

Namrata Sandhu, Co-Founder and CEO of Vaayu.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/namrata-sandhu/ / https://www.vaayu.tech/

Our Sponsor:

Jobs For Good. The only job platform to find the best jobs in sustainability, impact and much more.
www.jobsforgood.io / https://bit.ly/3wjwJa0

Our Producer:

Jabriel Al-Suhaimi. Jabriel is a podcast aficionada, editing and producing podcasts for many, including himself.
https://www.jabrielalsuhaimi.com/ / https://twitter.com/jabealsuhaimi

Our Content and Marketing:

Rachel Loosley, Content and Marketing Manager at Confido Talent.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelloosley/ / rachel@confidotalent.com