Lathika Chandra Mouli: Supporting Start-Ups in the Sustainability Space

Lathika Chandra Mouli is an electrical engineer from an Indian family. After growing up in Thailand, she moved around Asia and is now living in Singapore. Her work is focused on commercializing clean-tech solutions. Although she studied engineering at NYU Shanghai, Lathika was always interested in economics and understanding cultures, people, and psychology. “My interest in technology was less from the engineering and design side of things and more on how humans associate with technology and how it has shaped the way we think,” she said.

Lathika Chandra Mouli

After graduation, Lathika stayed in China to join its dynamic start-up space. Soon, she got a job at a renewable energy start-up in Shanghai, working on decentralizing the energy sector with technologies like blockchain, AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), and so forth. This was a rich learning experience for her as she realized that while massive ecosystem-wide change was taking place in the global environment, most countries were not ready for the repercussions. Little action was being taken.

Shortly after this moment of realization, her company applied for a UN Environment program where start-ups would get seed-funding to implement projects that solve environmental issues. At that time, Lathika was leading a product within the company focused on solar-powered electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.  She applied for the program’s Renewable Energy and Electric Vehicles Category and was accepted. She then underwent a 10-day intensive bootcamp where she learned about life cycle analysis, the environmental impact of products, and many more. “Through this program, I got to learn about the different environmental issues I wasn’t working on and that’s when I realised the mountain of challenges we are facing in terms of climate change,” Lathika said.

With her technological expertise and a better grasp of how climate change relates to human activities, Lathika decided that she wanted to blend technology with climate action in her professional career. Currently, she is working at ENGIE Impact, part of the ENGIE Group, a global leader in the zero-carbon transition. At ENGIE Impact, Lathika is the Sustainability Solutions Analyst and helps in delivering sustainability solutions and services to corporations, cities and governments across the globe. On the side, Lathika also volunteers for UNLEASH Innovation Lab for the SDGs and she represents UNLEASH in Singapore as an ambassador. UNLEASH is a global talent initiative that brings together top talent from all over the world to work on real, scalable solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The goal that guides all the work she does is two-fold. “I want to help people understand this giant topic of climate change and sustainability because there are so many different aspects to it,” she explained. She wants to make people understand what they can do to be more sustainable. Yet her second goal is to help herself live sustainably, which she admits is not always easy.

“Attending the UN Program and volunteering with UNLEASH are some of the best experiences I have had because that’s where I learnt the most. These were full of life-changing moments where you realise there is so much to learn and there are so many amazing people out there doing great things,” Lathika said while highlighting some of her happiest moments during her work. She felt that these experiences were humbling.

Lathika pointed out that one of the things she struggled with was the technical side of things. “At the end of the day, everything is science-based. To tackle sustainability, we need to know how certain things work, why they work and how we can improve them,” she said. Understanding and evaluating concepts and not taking them at face value was something she struggled with initially. Sometimes she still finds it difficult to wrap her head around certain things. It is important to know the technicalities and science behind the solutions that are proposed so that you can make your own opinion.

When asked to share a piece of advice for other Asian environmentalists, she said, “Learn as much of the technicalities and economics as you can because that makes or breaks whether a solution works. Learn about it as early as you can and from as many sources as you can.” For those in the startup space, Lathika advised them to expand their market reach. There is a lot of information out there for sustainability and solutions and not all of it is right and helpful. It is important to critically  sift through the information and find what is relevant.

In the long-term, Lathika would like to continue doing what she is doing at her current job. She wishes to learn more about why certain solutions work and why others don’t. “Working with sustainability start-ups to help them scale-up is something that I want to do,” Lathika explained.

Written by Nikhil Kamath