What a mobile engineer learns building sustainability products

Sustainability work looks like policy from the outside. From the inside it is operations: meters, invoices, emission factors, site visits, and people who will not fill a 90-field form.

Building product in that world as a React Native developer changed what I think "good software" is.

The user is often not at a desk

Carbon and ESG data is collected in plants, offices, farms, and supply chains. A phone is sometimes the right computer. That means poor networks, cameras, offline, and forms that can be completed in ten minutes, not ten days.

Units and methodology are product features

A kilowatt-hour is not a vibe. If you hide the methodology, you cannot defend the number. Sustainability products have to show assumptions without drowning the user.

Reduction is the point

Reporting is table stakes. The useful system helps someone cut energy, fix a leak, or choose a less carbon-intensive supplier. That is closer to a workflow tool than to a CMS.

I will keep writing from this intersection: mobile UX for field data, carbon accounting basics for engineers, and how sustainability products should feel as considered as a well-shipped consumer app.