Sam Sneddon, Co-founder and CEO, WollemAI

Sam Sneddon realised while doing a Masters in Sustainability at the University of Sydney that agricultural emissions presented one of humanity’s challenges - and potential solutions - in the battle against climate change. She founded WollemAI to do just that.

How did you start down this career path?

I have a background in using technology to solve problems - albeit in a very different field (thought leadership/media). While I was studying Sustainability it became very clear to me that agriculture is probably the most important place to fix emissions - we can’t opt out of producing food as we can other emissions-intensive industries, so we must figure out how to produce food more sustainably. Fundamental to this is being able to accurately measure agricultural emissions, so that we can measure them.

The pace of change required in this sector makes it a challenge that everyone must work together to solve - it’s not something to palm off on to the farmers. It became clear to me and my co-founder John Mottram that a good way to tackle the issue would be to develop a tool that those involved in financing our food production system - banks, insurers, investors and big corporates - could use to understand their emissions and model decision-making processes to become more sustainable.

What inspires you in your role/industry? Why?

Technology is such an extraordinary enabler of so many positive ideas that can help us move forward as a global community. Seeing people using technology in new and creative ways to solve real problems - whether that be with AI and ML as we are doing, or innovative deployments of robotics technology, or a myriad of other applications, is very inspiring.

What's your approach to customer service that separates you from the rest?

I think WollemAI is unique in two ways. Firstly, we work with our clients to solve problems that they must solve from a regulatory perspective, that are difficult for any individual organisation to solve themselves.

Secondly, WollemAI makes the entire agricultural finance chain better as we scale, because we provide consistent and accurate information about climate, which simply hasn’t ever been available before at scale. Until now every company has measured and modeled climate in their own unique way, which makes coordinated efforts toward reducing emissions very difficult and complex. In addition, large organisations offering offer new products and services to help climate proof the sector have had to gather climate data one farm at a time. We’re providing automated, audit grade results for thousands of farms in the same time it typically takes to generate results for one.

How do you innovate and stay ahead of industry trends?

Regulation in emissions reporting is changing very quickly all over the world, so we work very hard to ensure we are at the forefront of understanding each change as it is proposed and helping our clients be ready to meet new rules, which will impact them differently depending upon which part of the sector they operate in.

Fusing data sources to deliver truly accurate emissions data, and then using AI and ML to fill in any gaps and provide accurate forecasting over long periods is obviously very complex. We’re lucky to have an exceptional and creative team who have been able to solve this problem for the first time.

What is the toughest challenge you've faced in your role? How did you overcome it?

Not just for WollemAI but for the climate sector broadly by far the biggest challenge is changing mindsets when it comes to understanding climate risk. There are multiple powerful factors at play - geopolitics, vested interests, local politics, and so many more. Climate is not a problem we can solve unless we all work together as an international community, and that’s still a work in progress.

What are some of your goals for the next 5 years?

we're planning a Series A investment round and expanding first into APAC and then into the US. By 2029 I’d like to see WollemAI as the provider of choice for large institutions globally to measure, report on and manage their emissions and climate risk

Learn more at https://www.wollemai.com/