Celsias blog's success

A Kiwi-inspired start-up company has secured tens of thousands of dollars worth of corporate money to fund projects that will reduce climate change.

Celsias. com, which launched in November, is now one of the top five blogs on climate change in the world. It has two million hits a month, and more than 95,000 regular users.

This week Celsias is launching a new version of its website encouraging people to register a project to help combat climate change.

Celsias chief executive Nicholas Lewis said he had just secured a six-figure deal with a major listed New Zealand company. Several other companies which wanted to do something about climate change were also interested in donating money.

Celsias planned to set up a not-for-profit foundation that would manage the funding and monitor the projects. Up to 20 projects have already been submitted, including a micro-hydro scheme in Guatemala.

Lewis said he hoped the foundation would eventually have as much as $10 million to fund projects that reduce the effect of climate change. The money given to each project would be limited to around $2000. The idea was to get a lot of people doing small things to make a difference, he said.

Celsias employs five staff based in Wellington and 16 part-time blog writers from around the world.

It has no form of income at the moment, but has been able to function thanks to $600,000 invested by 20 people, including the company's founders and their friends or business associates.

Lewis hoped to start generating income from this week. His aim was for the company to break even within 12 months. It would do this via advertising on the site from companies with a climate change ethos, and environmental job vacancies would also be listed. Another way to generate income was to provide companies which wanted to take part in projects with its own private version of the website where staff could get behind the schemes.

Former Christchurch mayor Vicki Buck is one of four founding directors who has invested in the company. "I'm involved in quite a number of climate-change start-up businesses. I'd quite like there to be a planet for my kids, although it's more current than that. It's a problem that is incredibly urgent."