Any Job Can Be A Climate Job You Don’t Have to Care About Climate to Make an Impact — Lizzy Kolar (Scope Zero)
Your utility bill is a behavior-change problem (and a benefits opportunity). Lizzy Kolar explains the Carbon Savings Account and why employees actually use it.
This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job - a podcast exploring how people bring climate impact into everyday work, even in roles that aren't labeled 'climate.'
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lizzy Kolar grew up in West Virginia, worked as an engineer, and became co-founder + CEO of Scope Zero. She shares how her experiences shaped a focus on everyday consumer behavior - because small changes, repeated at scale, add up to real impact.
We go deep on Scope Zero's Carbon Savings Account (CSA): a financial wellness benefit that reimburses employees for home technology and transportation upgrades (LEDs, power strips, low-flow fixtures, ENERGY STAR appliances, and more). Lizzy explains why this works even for people who aren't climate-motivated. When the incentives make sense, people opt in, learn how they're consuming, and shift their behavior at home and at work.
If you're an employee, you'll leave with a concrete next step to bring to HR. If you're a leader, you'll hear why "Scope 3, Category 7" (employee commute + work-from-home emissions) matters - and how a benefit can measure, report, and reduce it.
In this episode:
- Why Lizzy shifted from "clean energy" to everyday behavior change
- The Carbon Savings Account and how it's like a wellness benefit
- Why companies offer this: talent retention + automated Scope 3 reporting
- "Low-hanging fruit" upgrades (LEDs, power strips, low-flow fixtures)
- What "vampire loads" are and why unplugging matters
- How employees can pitch CSA internally
Who this is for:
- HR/Benefits leaders evaluating practical benefits
- Sustainability leaders tracking Scope 3 reductions
- Employees wanting to pitch new benefits
- Anyone reducing household costs through efficiency
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
About Lizzy Kolar:Co-founder and CEO of Scope Zero. She holds a master's in sustainable design engineering from Stanford and a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from WVU. Former engineer at Ameresco designing energy and water efficiency upgrades for military base housing. She's leading Scope Zero's mission to reduce utility bills by $300B per year and co-created the podcast "It All Adds Up."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Resources:
- Scope Zero - Lizzy's company
- DOE standby power guide
- Rewiring America calculator
- The Conundrum (book)
- "It All Adds Up" podcast
- Lizzy on LinkedIn
Disclaimer: This episode is for informational purposes only. Views are the guest's own, not professional advice.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 Other platforms:
🎙 Credits:Produced & Hosted by Louisa HenryEdited by Alex LeffMusic by Run Riot RunLogo by Cassidy Frost