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Climate publisher called The Cool Down, launched in July by cofounder of Bleacher Report, Dave Finocchio, reached more than 1 million monthly readers in its third month of operation, according to the company, an audience the publisher intends to grow and monetize primarily through commerce.
The nine-person startup, which raised $5.7 million in seed funding, aims to tap into a more mainstream readership of environmentally conscious consumers, a demographic Finocchio believes has been underserved but stands to grow. The publisher hopes to reach 10 million monthly readers by the end of 2023.
For now, The Cool Down has eschewed advertising and has no plans to adopt a subscription business, but instead hopes to generate revenue primarily through affiliate and commerce revenue. By building trust among readers as a source of reliable information about climate change, the publisher hopes to become the preeminent marketplace for green products.
“This is a content category where no one has been able to figure out how to build community at scale,” Finnochio said. “If you can do that, you can have a big impact socially and you can scale the commercial side over time.”
The company represents the latest in a series of new initiatives that hope to capitalize on the growing consumer and commercial interest in climate change, a subject matter that has spawned new verticals at outlets including Bloomberg Media, The Washington Post, The Guardian and Grist.
The Cool Down represents the first major venture-backed publisher to tackle the topic, and its emphasis on monetizing readers through commerce sets it apart from other similar efforts that take a more diversified approach.
Building a commerce-centric model
In November, The Cool Down launched its first two newsletters: Here on Earth, an editorial product with reporting on climate change, and Play It Cool, a product recommendation play stuffed with eco-friendly goods. The weekly emails hit inboxes Wednesdays and Fridays, respectively.
While other media ventures have embraced newsletters as a means of simultaneously building and monetizing their readership, The Cool Down has no immediate pressure to achieve profitability.
Instead, over the next two to three years the publisher plans to expand its aperture as widely as possible and develop its brand, letting audience behavior and data determine how to best monetize.
“In my experience scaling audiences—and if you look at any social platform that has been successful—none of them prioritize revenue generation for a long time in their lifecycle,” Finocchio said. “We are going to go big or go home on this. The idea is to build something transformative or die trying.”
Green criteria for product recommendations
The Cool Down embodies an irony of climate coverage under capitalism head on: It generates revenue by encouraging consumption, an act at odds with the concept of sustainability.
But consumers will always need to purchase basic necessities, and The Cool Down hopes to let them make greener decisions when doing so.
All products and partners the publisher works with must meet a standard of criteria, although different industries face different benchmarks, Finocchio said.
For instance, beauty products must contain clean ingredients, such as organic or cruelty-free compounds, and their packaging must be refillable or—if plastic—it must be recyclable and made from recycled plastic. Fashion products must be made from organic fibers, such as cotton or wool, or—if synthetic—the fibers must be made from post-consumer materials.
The Cool Down will also emphasize products that exist as part of a circular economy, meaning they can be resold or reused rather than discarded. The concept of circular fashion, along with other solutions-oriented topics like recycling, community solar and home electrification, have seen early traction from readers, according to the publisher.
When it comes to working with petroleum companies, a hot-button issue amongst climate publishers, The Cool Down plans to take a flexible approach.
“If there are oil and gas companies making serious efforts to transition their business from petroleum to renewables, I won’t say we would never work with them,” Finocchio said. “I want to give them every opportunity to evolve.”
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