“If you want to be an entrepreneur, pick something that genuinely lights you up because that is what has allowed me to power-through during the difficult times.”
Meet Anjali Mahadevia, W19, Founder of Plastic Scorecard,
an industry-leading framework that guides companies to reduce plastic waste, verify progress and communicate their Impact.
Plastic Scorecard’s the first of its kind — providing brands of all sizes and stages with the blueprint and verification to enable continuous and transparent progress toward a world with less plastic waste.
Anjali loves working at the intersection of social impact and business with the goal of leaving a positive impact on society. Having worked in fast-moving big corporations, budding start-ups, and capricious classrooms- her experience has broadened her perspective to the different ways impact can be seen.
When she graduated from Wharton, Anjali joined an asset management firm in NYC. While she enjoyed learning how a big corporation works and found it both dynamic and rewarding, she realized this wasn’t quite the perfect fit — her dream had always been to make an impact on the world. Anjali quit and joined Teach for America where she worked with inner city students in South Central, Los Angeles and developed a deep appreciation for the social inequities and difficulties they face.
When COVID hit, she was angered by the state of the world and seeing the planet deteriorate. She wanted to embark on a venture with macro level scale. To her, the fastest way to move the needle in our plastic crisis was not by demanding change from consumers, but demanding change from corporations.
She and her two cofounders created Ampliphi, now The Plastic Scorecard, to ignite a fire within brands to move together towards a world with less plastic waste.
Tell us a bit about your company
The Plastic Scorecard gives brands the tools to reduce plastics across their value chain and showcase their sustainability stories to the world in a streamlined and standardized way.
What inspired you to start your business — what opportunity in the market are you seeking to address?
Greenwashing allegations have more than tripled in the last decade and consumer brands are under the microscope. We fundamentally understand how frustrating it can be for brands to communicate their goals, initiatives, and impact to consumers through the noise of sustainability. We created the Scorecard to cut through the noise and allow brands to transparently communicate their authentic stories and a claims in a third-party verified and standardized way.
What is it about your personal background, experience, or perspective that fuels your passion for this venture?
When I originally left Wharton, I joined an asset management firm and quickly realized that it was not for me — my dream has always been to make an impact on this world. I quit and joined Teach for America where I taught high school math for three years in South Central Los Angeles. When COVID hit, I felt angered by the state of the world and seeing our planet deteriorate, and wanted to embark on a venture with macro level scale. To me, the fastest way to move the needle in our plastic crisis was not by demanding change from consumers, but rather demanding change from corporations. My two co-founders and I created this Ampliphi (now The Plastic Scorecard) to ignite a fire within brands to move together towards a world with less plastic waste.
What are one or two of the biggest wins or most encouraging experiences you’ve had so far?
We have been ranked as one of the highest rated start-ups in within sustainability verticals at Plug and Play. We have amazing industry partners over the last several years and our work has been featured in several papers associated with the United Nations Environmental Programme, World Wildlife Fund, and World Economic Forum. We are currently signing on several brands to pilot our product through a national campaign are launching in July.
What has been one or two of your biggest learnings so far?
- Timing is everything. There are still many brands that do not believe in supporting the planet if there is not a financial profit associated with it. We had to make a major pivot to our business model which was just focused on the absolute reduction of plastics and incorporate a way that companies would actually see a positive benefit to doing this work. By positioning the Scorecard as a storytelling asset and enabling the communication and transparency of practices, brands are then held accountable to the claims and targets they are making, and incentivized to show continuous progress towards sustainability.
- The life an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart and there are incredible highs along with incredible lows that you go through on the journey. If you want to be an entrepreneur, pick something that genuinely lights you up because that has what has allowed me to power through during the difficult times.
What is an obstacle that you are grappling with as you continue to build this venture?
Bootstrapping this business and finding peace in stillness. There are some months when we are hitting our revenue targets and other months that are much slower. It’s hard when you get ghosted after three months of conversation client or a deal that is supposed to come suddenly falls through. Cash is king as an entrepreneur and being scrappy has been one of the biggest skills I’ve had to learn to develop.
