'How green is my spending?' app goes live with NZ banks

CoGo co-founder Ben Gleisner. Photo / Supplied

Ex-Treasury staffer Ben Gleisner launched his "how green is my spending?" app in the UK with NatWest, which gives his startup access to some 16 million customers.

Now, two months later, his "CoGo" app has gone live with Westpac. The bank is offering it to its customers from today, joining ANZ.

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BNZ, ASB and KiwiBank will support it by the end of November, Gleisner says, with TSB and other smaller players to follow next year.

CoGo calculates the carbon footprint of your spending choices in real-time, using formulas created from Motu data. For example, if you bought a $100 airline ticket, the thinktank ascribes that with a 4kg of carbon emissions per $1 cost, or 400kg.

Trips to the supermarket will not be broken down per item but (after filling in a quiz at registration), someone who is vegan will get a 40 per cent discount over a carnivore, for example.

Gleisner's five-year goal is to have 100 million users and a $1 billion valuation.

After quitting his job as a Treasury economist, Gleisner developed the original incarnation of CoGo as an app for making ethical spending choices.

For example, if you want to go out for a coffee, it will show you a directory of local businesses that meet criteria like buying fair trade products, or paying a living wage.

That directory still forms part of the app.

And Gleisner says in NZ, it so far boasts more than 2,00 accredited business listings and has had more than 40,000 downloads.

The ex-Treasury man - who returned home to NZ from the UK after the pandemic hit - has a lot of breathing room to develop CoGo, having raised $8 million from backers including the ubiquitous Sir Stephen Tindall, NZ Growth Capital Partners (the Crown agency formerly known as NZVIF), Andrew Thorburn (ex CEO, National Australia Bank) and BrewDog boss James Watt.

Ultimately, he wants to turn a profit by offering green products and services for assessment via CoGo, then taking a small cut if you, say, change your power plan or buy a certain model of EV after its featured in his app.