Climate Change Interviews

Interview with Brennan Spellacy, CEO of Patch

March 13, 2023

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Today I am joined by Brennan Spellacy, CEO and Co-Founder of Patch.

Climate change is accelerating, and Brennan Spellacy has built a platform that could exponentially scale our efforts to reverse its effects. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Patch, the platform that powers climate action. Backed by some of the world’s most visionary investors, they have figured out how to empower businesses to make bold, impactful climate action a reality with every transaction — with just a few simple lines of code.

From his first day as a chemical engineering student at McGill University, Brennan already had a clear vision of his future: he saw himself working on renewable energy, doing his part to solve the growing climate crisis. But when he graduated, his only job offers came from the oil and gas industry. So he set his newly-earned degree and his climate aspirations aside, and instead accepted a programming position at an ambitious young eCommerce company: Shopify.

With his foot in the door of the tech industry, Brennan soon landed a job at hospitality startup Sonder. Over the next four years, he worked his way from software engineer to senior product manager, helping the company scale from 15 to 1500 employees, while achieving a billion-dollar valuation and eventual IPO. But despite his success in tech, he never lost sight of his original goal: putting a dent in the climate crisis. In 2020, he left Sonder with a 10-page pitch deck in hand and a plan to bring his career arc full circle.

Now with his company Patch, Brennan is enabling businesses to seamlessly neutralize their carbon footprint through a global network of quality vetted carbon credit projects. He’s betting that by taking the friction out of carbon removals, he can kickstart the fragmented carbon credit industry and help humanity avoid the worst outcomes of climate change. If he’s right, the whole planet wins.