Inspiration

Climate change is a global issue, but most sustainability tools target large businesses with dedicated teams. Small businesses often want to cut their environmental impact but struggle to know where to begin. We created CarbonLens to make sustainability simple, affordable, and practical for everyone, not just big companies.

What it does

CarbonLens is a sustainability app that uses AI to help small businesses calculate and understand their carbon footprint. Users can upload basic data about their business activities. The app then calculates emissions, shows the results, offers suggestions for improvement, and creates a downloadable sustainability report.

How we built it

We built CarbonLens as a lightweight app that runs completely on a laptop. The backend logic was written in Python to process data and calculate emissions using standard emission factors. We used Streamlit to create an easy interactive app interface, Matplotlib to visualize emission data, and FPDF to generate downloadable PDF reports. This method let us quickly prototype, test, and showcase the product without complicated cloud infrastructure.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was working without real business data. We solved this by creating realistic sample datasets. Another challenge was turning raw carbon numbers into insights that are easy to understand. We focused on visualizations and clear recommendations for this reason. Keeping the app simple while still meaningful was also an important design challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud to have built a fully functional sustainability app that works offline and is easy for non-technical users. The app can calculate emissions, visualize impact, and generate a professional report all in one simple workflow. This is a significant achievement within the hackathon timeframe.

What we learned

We learned how to turn sustainability ideas into practical software solutions. We also gained experience in creating user-friendly data applications and balancing technical depth with simplicity. Most importantly, we learned that small, accessible tools can have a significant environmental impact.

What's next for CarbonLens, the AI Sustainability Assistant

Next, we plan to integrate real-time Google Cloud Sustainability APIs, add AI-powered personalized recommendations using Gemini, and enable long-term tracking of carbon reductions. Our long-term vision is to transform CarbonLens into a platform that can help millions of small businesses take meaningful climate action.

Built With

• ai-powered
• app-interface-pandas
• data-processing-matplotlib
• data-visualization-fpdf
• future-integration)-google-cloud-sustainability-apis-gemini
• languages-python-frameworks-and-libraries-streamlit
• local-development-environment-vs-code-(optional
• pdf-report-generation-platforms-and-tools-laptop