Meet Brahim Bouhadja: Building the Salesforce of carbon management

Get to know our VP of Sales Brahim Bouhadja, and his goal of turning Sweep into the ‘Salesforce of Carbon’.

Tell us about your climate journey

Over the course of my career working for B2B platforms like Salesforce, I started to feel a yearning for a deeper meaning or purpose. So alongside some of my Salesforce colleagues, I created Lightforce, an NGO that brings solar energy to communities with no electricity across the world. This was very fulfilling. But around the same time I started to learn a lot about climate change. The more I realized how important of an issue climate change is, the more I felt the need to do something to address the bigger picture.

I was also confronted with the idea of what we leave behind for future generations. Family is very important to me. I have four sisters and four brothers, and more than 15 nieces and nephews. They’re the most important people in my life. I couldn’t just leave the world in this state for them. I couldn’t let them inherit the climate mess we created. I had to act.

Why did you join Sweep?

Tackling climate change has to be done with companies. They can act swiftly and effectively, as long as they’re empowered with the right tools and data, and motivated to do so.

When a friend of mine introduced me to Rachel Delacour, Sweep’s CEO and co-founder, our chat about Sweep stuck with me. Her passion for the topic was simply contagious. She talked about the product, their network approach to carbon management, the team behind Sweep – a perfect blend of software, carbon, and business expertise, and the impressive list of high profile customers from a diverse range of industries. I could immediately see the potential for Sweep to have a real impact at scale. So it was a bit of a no-brainer: I had to join Sweep.

Now that I’m here, I see why Rachel is so passionate: we're always looking to improve, always looking for what’s next to build the most comprehensive carbon management solution out there.

Where do you see Sweep in 5 years?

The dream for a lot of start-ups is to become a “Unicorn” (reach a market value of over $1 billion). I want to see Sweep become a “Carbon Unicorn”, managing over 1 billion tons of emissions. Sweep has the potential to be the Salesforce of carbon management, working with the world’s biggest companies and connecting them to achieve an unprecedented level of collaboration. We’re already beginning to see those network effects in action, with a growing number of companies partnering with us to offer Sweep to their suppliers and business partners. For me, this is the future. Climate change is a collective issue, requiring a collective solution. By working together we can achieve so much more.

The other thing that’s super promising is the scalability of Sweep. We’ll always be dedicated to carbon management but we’re moving towards becoming a complete environmental impact tool, so companies can track water, waste, biodiversity, and ESG metrics alongside their carbon (stay tuned 🤫).

What’s the last book you read that inspired you?

I recently read Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain’s comic book “Le Monde Sans Fin” (“The World Without End”). They make the often overly serious and academic topic of climate change much more digestible. It’s a funny and light read, but also thought-provoking – making you reflect on how our lifestyle, economy, energy, and society in general should be organized. And what I think makes this book doesn’t make you feel guilty or defensive, so you’re more receptive to thinking about these big questions.