Green Badger is a leading SaaS provider simplifying sustainability and ESG in the built industry. It is accelerating environmentally responsible construction worldwide by equipping the built industry with affordable technology and the knowledge to automate and easily report LEED compliance and ESG metrics. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Green Badger founder and CEO Tommy Linstroth to learn more about the company.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): Could you tell me more about your background as an entrepreneur starting in the industry where you realized a better solution was needed?
Green Badger (Tommy): I’ve been involved with sustainable design and construction my entire career. I started on the owner’s side as Director of Sustainability for a development company and then ran a sustainability consulting firm before starting Green Badger. I’m a huge proponent of transparency and third-party verifications like LEED but I’ve seen too many projects drop sustainability goals because the certification process can just be awful.
After pounding my head against the wall too many times and seeing 100-column spreadsheets in my sleep, I created Green Badger’s software to eliminate the headaches that come along with the actual certification process. Today, Green Badger is the TurboTax of LEED and ESG automation in the built environment and is making sustainability more accessible, attainable, and effortless for the entire construction industry.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): Could you please share more about your role and responsibilities at the company as founder and CEO?
Green Badger (Tommy): As the founder and CEO of a startup, I have my hands in a lot of pots. On any given day I might be working on the strategic direction for the company, product management, quality testing and implementation, financial reporting, marketing, and, of course, board management. Needless to say, no two days look the same! That said, the ability to engage with everyone on my team daily and work hand-in-hand with our customers is what is most exciting about my role.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): Your company is 10+ years old, what are some of the most memorable milestones?
Green Badger (Tommy): Our customer growth milestones, like reaching our 1,500th project last year, and closing our first founding round in 2021 come to mind. But there’s also adding new team members and all the sustainability initiatives we’ve accomplished along the way, such as contributing more than 16,000 new trees through our partnership with One Tree Planted. We’ve been carbon-neutral for the past four years by reducing our emissions and offsetting what we can’t. We actively work to empower our employees to incorporate sustainability into their own lives through initiatives such as providing LED lighting replacements, ergonomic workstations, and home composters. Our internal sustainability committee is tasked with finding new ways to improve our corporate operations and has a specific focus on employee health and well-being.
But every successful project is a new milestone, and every time a project team reaches out to share the news that they’ve met or exceeded their sustainability goals is a time to celebrate.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): What challenges have you faced in building the company?
Green Badger (Tommy): As a small business, we’re faced with challenges daily. As a construction tech startup, we had to fight the industry’s ingrained resistance to change for a long time. We weren’t replacing an existing solution, we were replacing a manual process, so fighting change management/resistance was a big challenge.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): In 2024, what are the top core products and features of your solution(s)?
Green Badger (Tommy): Green Badger’s LEED documentation platform continues to lead our growth but as we’ve expanded features of our construction ESG solution, launched in 2022, it’s gaining momentum as well and we’re seeing growing interest in enterprise adoption.
Both solutions are core to how Green Badger automates tedious, repetitive tasks and simplifies the LEED and ESG documentation process from start to finish. We replace unconnected, antiquated spreadsheets with cloud-based, mobile-friendly software that keeps teams constantly up to date and stores all the needed green product verification details in an easy-to-search database.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): How has the company’s technology evolved since launching?
Green Badger (Tommy): Technology is a constant evolution – from adopting the latest encryption technology and security offerings to launching new products in a modern, dynamic code stack, we’re never sitting on our heels. Among many other upgrades in 2023, we greatly expanded our platform for ESG tracking, updated our user interface to further simplify and customize our dashboards, and we released increased integrations with other major industry design and construction software.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): Can you share a recent customer success story?
Green Badger (Tommy): Our typical customer is the general contractor/building – who is in the service industry to meet their clients’ goals. Sometimes those goals change halfway through a construction project, which is never an ideal time! But this year alone, we’ve been able to help more than a dozen project teams earn additional/unexpected LEED points that raised their project LEED certification to a higher-than-expected level without adding cost – which is a win for everyone.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): What is your #1 differentiator for the company from its competition?
Green Badger (Tommy): Green Badger is still the only SaaS solution designed for the construction industry to automate LEED documentation. The combination of our constantly updated library of verified green materials and products with all the required documentation, our mobile app, and our dedicated team of sustainability experts for 1:1 support is unique.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): What are some of the company’s future company goals?
Green Badger (Tommy): Green Badger’s mission is to automate and simplify LEED & ESG reporting so sustainable construction is more attainable and effortless for the entire industry and we continue to roll out new features, integrate with other popular construction software, build in new standards, etc. We’ve partnered with firms on more than 1,500 projects and we will double that again very soon.
Pulse 2.0 (Amit): Any other topics you would like to discuss?
Green Badger (Tommy): Sustainability and ESG can seem overwhelming. When companies are first getting started, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good – it’s important to just get started and make progress. You don’t have to have things figured out 100% from the beginning. It will be an evolution and as companies mature on their ESG journey, the plans grow into more comprehensive programs. So just get started – the first step can be the hardest!
