Building Climate Resilience Through Technology: An Interview With Gayatri Roshan, Founder Of Dashboard.Earth

Gayatri Roshan, Founder of Dashboard.Earth

In the face of accelerating climate chaos, Gayatri Roshan has made it her mission to turn anxiety into action. Through her innovative platform, Dashboard.Earth, Roshan is revolutionizing the way individuals and communities engage with climate adaptation. In this interview, she reflects on her journey from filmmaker to tech entrepreneur, sharing how her personal experiences and professional insights inspired her to create a solution that connects people, technology, and tangible climate outcomes.

The Journey to Dashboard.Earth

Roshan traces the roots of her passion for climate action back to her childhood. “Back in the ‘80s, when I was seven, my stepdad made one of the first films on climate change,” she recalled. “It permanently bent my little brain around the existential risk we face and ultimately defined my life and career.”

She channeled this early awareness into a filmmaking career, directing and producing documentaries that explored what she describes as “our climate polycrisis through the lens of Deep Ecology — the connection between the systems of the mind and nature, our life support system.”

However, as Roshan approached her 40th birthday, she faced a sobering realization. “Surrounded by dear childhood friends, none of whom cared about climate, I realized that filmmaking wasn’t enough to make change. But money would.” From this epiphany, Dashboard.Earth was born—a platform designed to incentivize climate adaptation by leveraging technology to measure, verify, and reward climate-positive actions.

“Every day, we depend on a system that incentivizes actions driving us deeper into climate chaos. But what if climate adaptation was incentivized instead? Positive climate outcomes hold real financial value—to individuals, companies, governments, insurers. The list goes on and on. Today’s technology allows us to verify, measure, value, and reward every climate-positive action. With that capacity, we have the power to quickly scale our resilience to climate change,” Roshan elaborated.

Dashboard.Earth is a platform and mobile app that connects people to hyperlocal actions tied to regional climate goals, offering rewards for measurable impact.

A Hyperlocal Approach to a Global Crisis

“Climate chaos isn’t about polar icebergs and sea level rise,” she remarked. “It affects everyone, everywhere—hotter hots, drier dries, colder colds, and wetter wets. It’s hyperlocal.” Climate disasters in the US displaced over 3 million people in 2022, with climate change being the top reason driving relocation. Climate resilience is necessarily regional—and so is Dashboard.Earth. “I created Dashboard.Earth because, first, all the solutions we need already exist; second, billions of dollars are available for climate action; and most importantly, people finally care,” she emphasized.

This understanding shaped the foundation of Dashboard.Earth, a mobile app that connects people to hyperlocal actions tied to regional climate goals, offering rewards for measurable impact.

The platform aggregates individual contributions into what Roshan calls Verified Climate Outcomes™ (VCOs), creating opportunities for funding from Dashboard.Earth’s clients, which include non-profits, corporations, and government agencies focused on environmental, social, and governance (ESG), corporate social responsibility (CSR), and employee retention objectives. “We’re on a mission to give every human an incentive to adapt to climate change. Our app delivers hyperlocal actions tied to regional goals, rewarding users for their impact. While three-quarters of Americans want to do something about climate change, an alarming 51% don’t know where to start,” she noted. Dashboard.Earth addresses this gap by turning individual choices—which drive 60-80% of global emissions—into a powerful force for change.

Impact in Action

Since launching in Los Angeles, Dashboard.Earth has engaged over 23,000 users, with approximately 3,000 active monthly participants. The city, one of the most climate-vulnerable in North America, also has some of the country’s most ambitious climate goals, making it an ideal testing ground. The actions available on the platform were designed to help meet these goals across five core resilience themes: water, waste, energy, biodiversity, and urban cooling.

A prime example is LA’s ambitious target of becoming 80% water-independent by 2045. Despite receiving enough rainfall annually to meet its needs, most of its water is imported from distant sources. In fact, the largest single use of electricity in California is the movement of water. Through partnerships with organizations like LA Waterkeeper and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the platform encourages actions such as shorter showers, low-flow fixture upgrades, and water catchment installations, helping LA move closer to its goal.

Roshan is particularly proud of Dashboard.Earth’s efforts to engage Angelenos in composting education and action. “Forty percent of California’s methane emissions come from food waste sitting in landfills—a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than CO2. LA aims to eliminate organics in the landfill by 2028 and divert 95% of all waste by 2035,” she shared. The app not only guides users in composting but also tracks their waste diversion and emissions reductions, aligning with LA’s waste management targets.

The platform takes a similar approach to other resilience themes, focusing on actions most within an individual’s sphere of influence, and offering incentives, education, and an engaging experience to drive impact. From reducing energy consumption to planting trees and native plants, and making sustainable home upgrades, the collective actions of its users likewise help to cool the city, lower emissions, and preserve LA’s biodiversity.

Collaborative Solutions for Regional Impact

Dashboard.Earth collaborates with a diverse network of organizations, each specializing in different aspects of climate resilience. This collaborative approach, as Roshan remarked, recognizes that “effective climate action is regional,” with solutions tailored to the unique needs of local communities.

Among these partnerships, two recent collaborations stand out. The first is with LA Waterkeeper and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). “By gamifying water conservation actions and allowing users to track them in our app,” Roshan shared, “we exceeded our first-month engagement goal by nearly 800%, representing thousands of gallons of water saved.”

The second is Dashboard.Earth’s role as the technology partner for the inaugural SoCal Transit Week, convened by MoveLA. This initiative, she noted, “aims to shift public perceptions of public transportation, reduce emissions, and improve air quality across LA County.” The platform provided data on vehicle miles reduced and incentivized public participation through rewards from mission-aligned businesses.

Additional partnerships underscore Dashboard.Earth’s regional focus, including collaborations with organizations like Surfrider Foundation, TreePeople, Friends of the LA River, Accelerate Resilience LA, and LAZ Parking. These alliances empower communities to take meaningful climate action while driving measurable impact.

Looking Ahead: Scaling Resilience

Roshan highlighted the progress Dashboard.Earth has made, emphasizing the platform's growth and its financial foundation. “I’m incredibly proud of our achievements through our partnership with Accelerate Resilience LA,” she said. As a Benefit Corporation, Dashboard.Earth has secured patient, non-dilutive philanthropic capital, which has allowed the organization to successfully enter the market.

Looking ahead, Roshan noted they are preparing for the next stage of growth. “We’re preparing to raise $3 million, half from impact investments and half from philanthropic contributions through a Donor Advised Fund and Catacap,” she shared. This funding will enable Dashboard.Earth to scale its impact and reach even more users.

Despite these milestones, Roshan’s proudest moments come directly from the community of platform users. “They’ve shared that when they feel anxious about climate change, they come to Dashboard.Earth for support,” she said. “That’s what we set out to do from the start.” By building a tool that motivates climate action and brings like-minded individuals together, Dashboard.Earth has become more than an app—it’s a source of hope and empowerment in the fight against climate change.