Innovate With A Frugal Mindset: Q&A With Bolt's Head of Sustainability

Art of Smart (AoS): How is sustainability, and the Green Plan, driving Bolt's success?

Sandra Särav (SS): Bolt officially launched the Green Plan in 2019, but the idea can be traced back to 2013. When Markus founded the company, he didn't have his driving licence – and he still doesn't – but knew he wanted to reduce people's dependency on personal cars. Tallinn is a super-motorized city; more than 40 percent of households have two or more cars. As a teenager, he found it would be a nightmare to get a taxi from a regular taxi stand or by phone, so he decided to figure out a solution himself.

Fast forward to 2021, and Bolt, which doesn't own any cars, operates in around 40 countries, and we have 1.5 million drivers globally. We realized that many of those drivers used vehicles with internal combustion engines. Because they can't be expected to switch to electric vehicles (EVs) overnight, we looked at how we could offset the carbon emissions.

Bolt has partnered with UK-based Natural Capital Partners to establish an environmental impact fund. Since September 2019, all Bolt rides in Europe have been carbon-neutral. We calculated the total ecological footprint of all those cars – taking into account the vehicle's age, the type of motor, what fuel it runs on, and the distance of the trip – and this number is offset with carefully selected projects.

This solution is a quick fix to a huge problem, and in an ideal world, we will have more drivers using EVs. We already have a few Teslas on the platform, but having more EVs and hybrid vehicles is the next step.


AoS: Given that climate change and sustainability is increasingly significant for consumers following the coronavirus crisis, is there a sense that Bolt's time is now?

SS: Unfortunately, I'm still not sure consumer demand is there – customers looking for a ride remain price-oriented. In 2019, we asked our customers in six European countries whether they would use greener transportation alternatives if they were available. Over 90 percent responded that they would. However, when we followed up with a question about whether they would be willing to pay more for a greener ride, around the same number of people said they wouldn't. For this reason, when we started the Green Plan, we chose not to burden the customer with the price to offset emissions.


Aos: How has Bolt coped with the mass switch to remote working due to the coronavirus, with less demand for transport solutions?

SS: When the first COVID-19 wave hit in early 2020, business was down 85 percent. We used the crisis to consider alternative options and ramped up certain areas of the business. For instance, we had launched Bolt Food, which enables customers to order their favorite dishes to their door, in four countries in 2019. And by the end of 2020, we were in 16 countries. We saw the need for this service and expanded quickly. Even now, demand is so high in some markets we don't have enough couriers.

Additionally, in 2018 Bolt had started its micro-mobility offering with e-scooters in Paris. Last year we expanded this service to 45 cities, reacting to the demand. Some cities even reached out to us proactively and requested we bring them alternatives to public transport, such as e-bikes and e-scooters.

Now Bolt has committed to investing €100 million in 2021 to expand our micro-mobility service. We are currently on our fourth-generation, fully-recyclable Bolt e-scooter, which we have developed and manufacture in-house. We only used the e-scooters for rental at the moment. We are expanding so fast, as we have identified that this is an area where we can affect urban mobility the most.


AoS: Bolt is innovating in other ways for the good of society – we noticed that you recently launched a women-only service in South Africa. How come?

SS: I'm sad to say this was a needs-based initiative. World Bank research showed that 64 percent of women in South Africa said they are not joining with ride-hailing apps as drivers due to safety concerns. We saw an opportunity to safeguard women's safety by having only female drivers and passengers.

We are considering rolling this idea out in other countries, too. With the frugal mindset that Bolt has, we can quickly launch new services because we are a very lean company. I love working for Bolt because you can come up with this idea, pitch it, and it becomes realized in a couple of months, if not less.


AoS: What exactly do you mean when you say "Bolt's frugal mindset?" How does this help the company to make smarter decisions?

SS: Firstly, it doesn't mean we are cheap! Being frugal is also an Estonian mindset. Estonia has 1.3 million people and we've had to build all of the things we use. We have jumped over our shadows, as we say here. The same is true for Bolt. We have 1.5 million drivers and operate in more than 40 countries, and we have three business services [with micro-mobility and Bolt Food], yet we have only 2,000 permanent employees. That's massive.

The frugal mindset is: don't throw money at problems. Try to be smarter, be more economical, to fix the issues. Even if you go back to the core service, our ride-hailing, we take less commission from the drivers. In this way, we can make the price cheaper for the customer, the driver retains more of the fare, and we win by expanding to more cities.


AoS: What is it like to work with a young, pioneering CEO, and how would you describe his leadership style?

SS: I hate to disappoint you, but companies with young, pioneering CEOs are very common in Estonia. We have the most startups per capita in the world. I love Markus; he is a super-great guy. Most of the people who work for Bolt in the headquarters are also young, but Markus is very approachable. When we are in the office, I sit two meters away from him and can tap on his shoulder to talk about an idea anytime. We often discuss plans when eating together in the Bolt cafe – this is the Estonia mentality.

We joke here that no one is more than two phone calls away if you want to make something happen. I don't want to brag, but I have the numbers of a few ex-prime ministers. It works both ways: the prime minister often calls Markus, too, to pick his brains. It's refreshing and speeds up the delivery of solutions by not having to go through a drawn-out bureaucratic process. We have a digital society, and we are all very driven by innovation and collaborating. Many people are enthusiastic about building things because they realize that they are achievable with help.


AoS: Finally, what advice would you give to business leaders looking to maximize sustainability and profitability?

SS: Keep it simple. I've seen so many companies start to fear going green, because they think they have to do everything at once. There is plenty of low-hanging fruit. An excellent place to start is by offsetting your carbon footprint. You don't have to fix the system, but you can mitigate against the CO₂ your business uses. Work out what your carbon footprint is, and then set short and long-term goals.