Best practices
Devera Impact Report
A young company building for a future we don’t yet fully understand
We’re Devera.
Today we are a small and really engaged team building technology with the purpose to enable sustainable living as a way to fight climate change.
Bootstrapped through conviction, grown from Zubi Labs , and backed by early investors who share our belief that understanding a product’s impact is step zero to changing it.
We’re not perfect. But we’re building a product that helps others get better, faster.
Devera is an AI-powered Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) platform that helps brands, especially small and medium-sized ones understand, verify, and communicate the environmental impact of their products, automatically and affordably.
Why? Because the vast majority of brands still have no clue of their product’s carbon footprint. Despite public commitments to transparency, honesty, and sustainability, this kind of ignorance is no longer acceptable.
Our story and pivots
 | · We started as Nästa, an employee benefits app that helped people easily track and reduce their carbon footprint through personalized tips and a sustainable product marketplace. We launched early 2024 but quickly discovered that companies weren’t willing to pay for this use case. |
 | · We pivoted to launch Nästa Coach, a tool to help people recycle correctly using a QR-based system. Initial traction came from the City of Valencia, office buildings, and large events. We even managed to potentially double recycling separation at origin and save +10 t CO2e in Valencia. But despite the product's value, the B2G go-to-market was unscalable and unsustainable. |
In late 2024, we validated a stronger need: consumers and brands want to understand the impact of the products they sell and buy. This aligned with regulatory trends (especially the EU Green Claims regulation) and presented a clearer path to scalable impact.
We launched Devera, both as a new product and a new brand, early 2025. "De" (prefix) + "vera" comes from "veritas" or "verus" in Latin, meaning "truth" or "true." So Devera is interpreted as the true path, reflecting our commitment to transparency and verified impact data. The other story behind the new branding is that Nästa brand registration in UE was rejected out of Spain due to trademark conflict with a “not that similar” brand. Now, the Devera brand is properly registered.
*Nästa team in 2024
*Devera team today
Devera mission, vision and values
Claim
Mission
Democratise sustainability by turning complex carbon data into clear, actionable insights that let people and businesses take responsible decisions in real time.
Vision
Become the leading global provider of technology and data that make product impact radically transparent, driving sustainable consumption and production everywhere.
Values
Be responsible, towards our mission and every stakeholder.
Radical transparency, we share our numbers, our salaries and our methods.*
No ego, humility and constant learning beat titles.
Make impact, outcome over output, data over opinions.
*With this value we struggle sometimes. It’s not easy at all to be radically transparent. We are on the way to improve but at some point we might consider reducing to a “simpler” honest value.
Longer‑term vision pillars (3 Years From Now)
Product: seamless usability, instant measurement, insightful benchmarking, data‑driven guidance.
Market: become the reference database and report provider, one vertical worldwide before multi‑vertical roll‑out, minimum touchpoints.
Culture: the smaller the better, AI‑first automation, remote‑first, quarterly nature events, strong values fit.
Brand: sustainability, tech, credibility, transparency, simplicity.
Business snapshot
Team
We are a lean and highly motivated team, currently composed of:
2 full-time founder-employees.
1 product designer. Get to know Sonia Sánchez here.
1 full-cycle sales specialist. Get to know Sara Uribe here.
1 product & operations manager. Get to know Helena Domo here.
We are supported by a shared expert team from Zubi Group, which strengthens our capabilities across people, finance, tech, sustainability, marketing, comm and funding, giving us agility without the overhead.
Technology
Our tech stack combines best-in-class tools to deliver precision, scalability, and automation:
Python for core backend logic.
React for a dynamic and high-performance frontend.
Brightway2 and Ecoinvent for robust emission factors modeling.
OpenAI and Gemini for AI-driven data extraction and reasoning.
Retool for internal data operations
Framer for an easy-to-build and update website.
AWS serverless servers.
Technical documentation is publicly available at: docs.devera.ai
Clients
We’ve served 10+ clients, analyzing over 40 SKUs across Europe and diverse sectors:
Cosmetics
Fashion
Food
Mobility
Electronics
Notable clients include Incapto, Cooltra, and Saigu, forward-thinking brands committed to sustainable innovation.
We’re also in partnership with several sustainable consultancies, ESG, DPP and PIM SaaS.
Time to result
Today: Average turnaround per LCA is 1–4 weeks.
Goal: Achieve under 1 hour per LCA by the end of 2025 through full automation and data pipeline scaling.
Methodology
Devera’s methodology is based on an automated, AI-powered Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), designed to be fast, accessible, and compliant with leading international standards (ISO 14040, ISO 14044, ISO 14067, and the GHG Protocol).
It follows three core steps:
 | 1. Automated Data Extraction Devera collects product data from websites, internal documents, and third-party sources. This includes details on raw materials, manufacturing, transport, packaging, usage, and end-of-life. The brand doesn’t need to structure the data, Devera handles the extraction and processing using AI models |
 | 2. Environmental Impact Calculation LCA phases: raw materials, manufacturing, transport, use, packaging, and end-of-life. It uses emission factors from gold-standard databases like Ecoinvent and advanced modeling techniques, such as Monte Carlo simulations, to estimate emissions and benchmark the product against the market. |
 | 3. Results & Actionable Insights A fully automated report is generated, including:
|
The entire process is automated and efficient, taking days/weeks (or even hours soon), instead of the traditional 3–12 months that manual LCA typically requires. It’s especially valuable for small and mid-sized brands that previously had no affordable or practical access to LCA tools.
More info about the methodology is available here.
An independent validation process with SGS is currently underway to ensure methodological rigor and reliability.
Awards and recognition
Devera’s work at the intersection of sustainability, technology, and transparency has been recognized by leading industry platforms:
Winner – Most Innovative Cosmetics Startup, Innovacosmética
Awarded for our impact-measurement solution tailored to the needs of the beauty and personal care sector.Finalist – Tech & Planet, 4YFN at Mobile World Congress
Selected as one of the top European startups building tech for a more sustainable future.Top 10 Startups Making Big Moves – March 2025, The Startup CFO
Featured for our market momentum and category-defining work in automated product impact.
Read more →Top 10 Spanish Startups Fighting Climate Change, El Referente
Recognized among Spain’s most promising climate tech ventures.Accelerated by Lanzadera (2024 cohort)
One of the best EU accelerators
Positive impact so far
At Devera we acknowledge that we're still learning how to quantify our full carbon impact.
Demonstrated behavior change
With our earlier product Nästa Coach, we helped the City of Valencia (and other cities, events and offices) potentially double recycling separation at origin, demonstrating our capacity to drive impact through data and design. We’ve estimated a direct impact of over 10 t CO2e due to a correct waste management.
Additionally, more than 500 people used the Nästa App to track and reduce their carbon footprint through personalized tips and sustainable product recommendations. Active users reduced around 10% their individual carbon footprint within a few months.
A work in progress
While these are promising signs, we’re still developing the tools to measure our true indirect impact, especially in terms of total emissions avoided through the use of our platform.
While measuring and reporting LCAs with Devera doesn’t directly reduce emissions, it enables indirect carbon reduction by helping consumers make more sustainable choices and supporting brands in improving their processes to manufacture products with lower environmental impact.
We recognize that quantifying this effect rigorously is hard, but we’re committed to getting better at it.
We don’t claim perfection, but we do claim progress. Our aim is to keep turning data into action, and action into measurable climate outcomes.
Devera ESG
Environmental impact
At Devera, we believe transparency must come before compensation. We still don’t measure our carbon footprint emissions.
That said, we have identified our main sources of emissions and performed some rough estimation for the past couple of years.
1. Travel
Travelling represents around 2720 kg CO₂e per year (90% of our carbon footprint).
Our travel-related emissions are currently low, thanks to conscious internal policies:
Remote-first by default, with minimal mandatory travel (prioritizing public transportation and bike)
Trains over planes for all medium-distance trips within Europe. We take around 10 roundtrip trains per year and 2 roundtrip cars per year, counting around 109 kg CO₂e per year.
Flights: typically 3–5 round-trip flights per year for international meetings, which counts for around 2500 kg CO₂e per year.
Local commuting: only one team member commutes twice per month by car, which counts for around 110kg CO₂e per year.
We aim to continue limiting our travel impact through hybrid work, digital meetings, and train-based mobility whenever possible.
2. Remote first
Offices and remote work represents around 200 kg CO₂e per year.
Emissions from remote work of direct employees and freelancers are estimated at around 200 kg CO₂e per person per year, assuming the use of energy-efficient equipment and that most employees are powered by renewable energy suppliers.
In addition to being relatively low-emission, remote work significantly reduces CO₂ by eliminating daily commutes, lowering demand for office energy consumption, and decreasing indirect emissions related to office infrastructure and employee mobility.
3. Cloud Infrastructure and AI Usage
Cloud and AI usage represents around 100 kg CO2e per year.
Another key share of our footprint comes from digital operations, particularly servers and large language model (LLM) usage.
Data centers: We rely mainly on AWS (Spain) and Microsoft Azure, both with robust sustainability commitments and operating with 90%+ renewable energy sourcing and working in reducing water usage.
AWS usage: Estimated at 50-100 kg CO2e and 40-60 L water per year.
LLM usage: We estimate 20M tokens/year from OpenAI and Gemini APIs models, less than 1 kg CO₂e (taking into consideration 90% renewable energies from Microsoft data centers). In addition, we estimate 0,1-4 kg CO₂e from ChatGPT* and similar LLMs general queries using the interface.
*One LLM query is estimated using 0,34 watt-hour, around 0,0136 grammes of CO₂
We are in the process of refining these estimates and aim to publish a full digital footprint report by end-2026.
Estimated carbon footprint
Devera’s entire annual carbon footprint (3000 kg CO₂e per year) is estimated lower than a single average Spanish citizen, whose emissions are approximately 7,400 kg CO₂e per year (source: Our World in Data, 2023). Anyway, this data need to be confirmed and other variables to be considered.
Carbon footprint compensation
We are exploring partnerships to support carbon removal, not just offsetting. In particular, we are in early-stage conversations with a Posidonia oceanica seagrass restoration initiative in the Mediterranean Sea. Posidonia meadows are among the most effective carbon sinks on Earth and support vital marine biodiversity.
The AI dilemma
Artificial Intelligence gives us extraordinary capabilities, but it also comes with an invisible environmental cost.
At Devera, large language models allow us to automate complex sustainability assessments that once took months. They extract product data, identify emission factors, and simulate thousands of lifecycle scenarios, all in minutes. Without AI, our goal of making LCA accessible to every brand would simply not be possible.
Yet behind every query lies a physical reality, each API call, token generation, and GPU cycle consumes energy and water, resources most users never see.
The energy (and water) we don’t see
Each product footprint we calculate avoids hours of manual consulting, unnecessary meetings, and carbon-heavy travel. But it also triggers:
A range of 0.03M to 0.4M tokens processed for each LCA.
Several seconds of high-intensity computation.
And a short but meaningful spike in energy usage inside a data center, typically powered by AWS or Microsoft Azure.
This infrastructure is growing fast, and so is its impact,
AI data centers can consume 10 to 50 times more electricity than traditional cloud workloads.
In 2023, it was estimated that global AI workloads could soon rival the carbon footprint of small nations.
Cooling those servers requires enormous volumes of water mostly evaporated during cooling processes.
To be clear, Devera’s footprint is small compared to massive AI labs, but the direction matters. If we're not careful, we could end up solving environmental problems while contributing silently to another one.
Global Progress in AI Sustainability
Fortunately, the tech industry is also responding,
AWS and Microsoft Azure both operate on more than 90% renewable energy and the later have committed to becoming water positive by 2030.
Advances in AI chip design and model efficiency are reducing energy per token by up to 60% year over year.
Emerging best practices like hourly-matched green energy, geothermal cooling, and token-aware model selection are pushing the sector toward a greener future.
We believe AI can be part of the solution, but only if its use is measured, minimized, and constantly re-evaluated.
Efficiency vs. Rebound
We estimate that our platform reduces emissions per LCA by more than 95% compared to traditional methods, by eliminating commuting, office overhead, and manual labor. But efficiency isn’t always a win. If measuring impact becomes too easy and too cheap, brands may flood the system with reports and dashboards without implementing meaningful change.
Measurement without action is not sustainability, it’s noise.
Black Box Ethics
AI models, no matter how advanced, are not flawless. A misclassification or mismatched emission factor could distort the carbon footprint of an entire product line. We’ve built in quality checks, scoring systems, and human review. Still, we know, one silent hallucination could compromise the credibility of everything we’re trying to build.
That’s why we treat every LCA not as a finished answer, but as a living estimate, designed to improve over time, with transparency at its core.
First estimations to compare traditional LCA with Devera LCA process (to be improved)*
From our assumptions, LCA from a traditional LCA consultant requires more than 50 times more energy than LCA AI-based with Devera.
If you want to deep dive into the environmental impact of AI, check this article out. Read more →
Social
At Devera, we are building not just technology, but a culture grounded in transparency, trust, and responsibility toward each other, our mission, and the planet.
Transparency by default
All business metrics and salaries are shared internally.
Founders have consistently cut their own salaries by 50% on average to extend the company’s runway during critical periods.
Human-first policies
Remote-first by design, with no fixed office requirements.
Flexible holidays and full flexibility over working hours.
Bring-Your-Own-Device setup for autonomy and resource efficiency.
Policies for digital disconnection, continuous learning, and wellbeing.
We offer flexible retribution to employees, allowing them to optimize their compensation according to their personal and family needs.
We offer 22 days of paid vacation, plus your birthday off, and December 24th and 31st as additional holidays, because rest, celebration, and time with loved ones matter.
Zero tolerance approach to harassment: we have policies for prevention, detection, and reporting of sexual abuse.
Engagement & Responsibility
Paid volunteering is encouraged, including initiatives like post-storm Dana relief in Valencia.
Team-building activities in nature help us stay connected to what we work to protect.
We prioritize train travel over cars and flights, keeping emissions low even in our mobility choices.
We track our employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) regularly to stay accountable. We typically range 75-100 (which is quite high, however sample is very small).
Committed to building a diverse team
We firmly believe that diversity drives innovation and enhances performance.
Our team is proudly balanced, with a 60/40 female/male split and a 60/40 split of Spanish/International members.
We actively welcome and support individuals of all backgrounds, including members of the LGTBIQ+ community, vegans, people with disabilities, and anyone with unique perspectives or experiences.
At our core, we celebrate individuality and believe that inclusion makes us stronger.
Giving back to the ecosystem
Miguel (CTO) teaches at The Bridge Digital Talent Accelerator, mentoring the next generation of developers.
Sébastien (CEO) co-hosts Modo Inteligente, a podcast about AI and productivity, and participates frequently as a speaker.
These initiatives are not just extracurricular, they help us stay grounded, connected, and informed.
Devera is also member of Red Nodus contributing to social welfare and the comprehensive development of vulnerable or disadvantaged individuals who need support, guidance, training, and employment, especially young people at risk of social exclusion, people with disabilities, and women who are victims of gender-based violence.
We also support the Valencia entrepreneurship ecosystem being members of Startup Valencia Association.
A note on hard choices
We’ve had to make tough decisions. Since our launch, we’ve laid off 4+ team members, primarily due to cash flow constraints, poor performance or bad cultural fit. These moments have been painful but necessary for survival and cohesion.
Governance
Our structure is flat and collaborative. We rely on shared leadership, transparent business KPIs, and lean operations.
Our founding team includes:
Sébastien Borreani, PhD – CEO
Experienced entrepreneur in tech-driven ventures, previously co-founded a fitness startup acquired by Jeff. Product, business and operation leader in hyper-growth tech operating in 40+ countries.
Miguel Jiménez – CTO
Cofounder and CTO specializing in scalable software solutions, full-stack development, backend architecture, cloud computing (AWS), and React Native. Previously led technology teams at Kolibird, TheFringe/LABS, and ApetEat. Currently mentors and instructs at The Bridge Digital Talent Accelerator.
Fernando Marzal – Managing Director of Zubi Labs and Board member
Serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in tech businesses. He is also a founding member of Startup Valencia.
While our board is currently all male, we see this as a powerful opportunity to grow. We are deeply committed to bringing more diverse voices to the table and building a leadership team that truly reflects the values we stand for.
Our funding philosophy: Purpose-driven capital
Bringing a radically new product to life is never linear. At Devera, we’ve spent the last year building what didn’t exist before, an AI-powered engine for Life Cycle Assessment that is affordable, automated, and scalable.
From early R&D to multiple product pivots, from testing with real users to validating product–market fit and now scaling, the journey has demanded focus, iteration… and capital.
We believe in the vision of Sir Ronald Cohen: that capital, when aligned with purpose, can be one of the greatest levers for change.
We see venture capital not as an end in itself, but as a tool, one that should fuel mission-aligned innovation without compromising long-term sustainability.
That’s why we’ve made a conscious choice to balance raising capital with building solid unit economics from day one.
We aim to grow not just fast, but wisely: learning from each iteration, proving traction before scaling, and always keeping our impact at the center.
Total capital raised to date: 773.5k€
410k€ from Zubi Group
Our lead investor and a long-term partner aligned with our vision for systemic change and climate-positive business.221k€ from IVF (Instituto Valenciano de Finanzas)
Supporting local innovation and sustainability from the region where we began our journey.142.5k€ from business angels and friends & family
Early believers who backed our team and mission before the market was ready.
This funding has powered our transition from Nästa to Devera, enabled the development of our LCA engine, and supported our first go-to-market in the cosmetics vertical.
As we grow, we’ll continue to raise capital in a deliberate, impact-aligned way so that every euro supports climate action, not just valuation.
Materials to learn more about Devera
What comes for the next 12-18 months
The road ahead is as ambitious as it is necessary. Our priorities over the next year and a half reflect our dual commitment to survival and impact at scale.
1. Economic Resilience
Grow revenue through more happy, retained customers.
Focus on product-led growth with strong unit economics.
Expand our presence in high-need verticals around the world, with a high emphasis on cosmetics.
2. LCA automation at scale
Continue automating the Life Cycle Assessment process to significantly reduce turnaround time.
Optimize token usage in AI workflows to reduce cost and environmental impact.
Deliver under 1-hour LCA results at scale.
3. Platform expansion
Release our public API to be easily integrated in other SaaS for a highly scalable distribution.
Launch self-serve onboarding, opening Devera to a wider base of product teams, brands, and platforms.
4. Radical transparency on AI & infrastructure
Publish a report on our AI and server footprint.
Compare Devera’s LCA method to traditional approaches in terms of efficiency, emissions, and accessibility.
5. Measuring our true impact
Begin tracking the indirect environmental impact of our work, that means how much carbon footprint is avoided by the brands we help measure and decarbonize.
6. Shifting the narrative
Launch a bold public campaign against unverified green claims, empowering consumers with real, data-backed product transparency.
7. Raising the bar
Begin the B Corp certification process to formalize our commitments to governance, transparency, and impact.
This document will evolve as fast as we do. Transparency is a moving target, and we’re committed to chasing it with integrity and openness.
Want to help? We welcome feedback.
Want to join us on the journey? Let’s talk.
Reach out: info@devera.ai or direct message the founders on Linkedin. A young company building for a future we don’t yet fully understand
