Joro is now Commons: Why Climate Change Needs a Rebrand

Climate change has been communicated to us as intangible, distant, future. Someone else’s problem. But the climate crisis is real and it's happening now. Our household spending influences 65% of global emissions. We’re building Commons to tap into the collective carbon influence behind our dollars.

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New brand. Bigger ambitions.

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Today we’re relaunching under a new name: Commons.

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In 2020, we launched the Joro app with the mission to make managing your climate impact as easy as managing your money. The name was in reference to the mythological protector of the Earth from Norse mythology, Jörð. 

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Over the past three years, we’ve built the easiest, most accurate way to track and offset your emissions. Thousands of people joined, proving that people-powered climate solutions aren’t just possible — they’re happening.

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In 2022, people who joined Joro lowered their emissions by 20% and started building better lives along the way. The average user saved about $200 a month by living healthier and more balanced lifestyles.

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As our community has grown, so have our ambitions. We’ve realized we need a brand that better encompasses the potential and impact of our community.

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I’m excited to introduce you to Commons.

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For the Earth and those who call it home.

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Commons. (n). Resources for the whole of a community.

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This rebrand is more than a facelift. 

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Our new name communicates the scale of the action we’re taking together. In Commons, we’re not just building a tool to track and offset our emissions, we're using the influence of our collective spending choices to restore balance between our lifestyles and our world.

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To start using Commons, download or update your app. If you’ve been with us on Joro, you’ll keep all your emissions data and will still be able to do everything you did with Joro. There’s still no better way to track and offset the emissions of everything you buy. But in Commons, you’ll also see all-new design and functionality updates that make it easier to get started with low-carbon living, connect with others, and share your progress. 

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This is just the beginning. Over the coming months, we’re excited to share more about Commons and roll out new features. In the meantime, Join us in Commons and let us know what you think.

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Reframing the climate crisis as an opportunity

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When we set out to rebrand Joro, we started with a recognition that climate change itself needs a rebrand. We’ve been taught to think about climate change as abstract, distant, and inevitable. But the climate crisis is real-life, human, present, and solvable. 

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As kids, many of us learned in science class about the greenhouse gas effects that cause global warming. Effects that are stratospheres away from our lives. Even the most visceral images focus on the effects on nature and animals, and make it seem like an apocalypse is waiting just beyond the horizon. Melting ice caps. Cataclysmic floods. Drowning polar bears. Smokestacks belching pollution into the atmosphere. 

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But the climate crisis isn’t an inevitable, distant phenomenon. It’s a human problem, with a human solution. And it’s already affecting 85% of the world’s population. It’s just that many of us feel helpless and overwhelmed with how to take action. 

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I had a realization recently that crystallized this for me. In my own lifetime – from when I was born in 1990 until today – over half of all human-caused emissions have been released into the atmosphere. And we have just 27 years to get back into balance with the Earth, or to net zero emissions. By the time I’m 60 years old. 

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If you’re reading this, you too have probably been on Earth during the time when humans have caused the most climate damage.

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The silver lining is that in our recent history, humans were living in balance with the Earth, and we can again. People have agency through our habits and spending choices. We just need to rediscover our inner carbon compass.

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Bringing our lives in balance with our world

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Much of the reduction in global emissions over the next 30 years will be powered by consumer shifts. The UN projects that 40-70% of global carbon reductions by 2050 will come from changes in lifestyles and behaviors. 

My climate action journey started when I began tracking my carbon footprint in an excel spreadsheet as a senior in college because I couldn’t find any good tools to help me align my lifestyle with the world I wanted to live in. As I built my intuition for the choices that mattered most, I cut my emissions by over 30%. And my life is richer, healthier, and happier because of it.

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In the last few years, people like me shifting our behaviors to consume our resources more sustainably together have created massive and impactful changes positive in our climate trajectory. Plant-based eating has exploded, bringing down the emissions of our agricultural sector. Americans ate 19% less beef from 2005-2015. People demanding greener modes of transit led to France becoming the world’s first major economy to enact a nationwide ban on short-haul domestic flights on routes where train journeys of two and a half hours or less exist as an alternative.

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Scientists don't own climate solutions. Communities have an opportunity to lead the way. Climate shifts are happening all around us, and many of them are being led by people consuming resources more sustainably. As consumers demand alternatives to climate destruction, policymakers and businesses are being forced to act.

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In Commons, we’re making it easier to tap into our collective carbon influence more quickly. We can see the changes that have the most impact, connect with others to get inspired, and together, have a measurable influence on our shared story.

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Climate change is a story of human change. And it will continue to be.

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‍Join us in Commons. We look forward to writing this next chapter of our story with you.

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Sanchali Pal

CEO and Founder

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