Pitch
App to tailor a travel plan according to the best sustainable options available from your home up to the end of your travel
Description
Summary
Responsible travelers have little information about the real impact they generate on the environment when traveling and do not know how to mitigate this impact. The few options they have to get that information are scattered and incomplete and, above all, are not designed for travelers.
Our solution is to create a community in which the traveler starts with a series of environmental points and as he carries out actions that affect the environment, these points are consumed in proportion to the impact of each of their actions. This solution allows travelers to easily understand the impacts they create and gives them the option to recover their credits by contributing to institutions that preserve the environment. In addition, travelers can share experiences with other travelers with similar profiles. The community will also allow sharing information about destinations where environmental actions are taking place.
Our solution is designed exclusively for the impact generated by a traveler, facilitating the choice of lower impact options, simplifying the process of mitigating this impact and rewarding travelers for being eco-friendly. In addition, the solution, being social and competitive, gives additional motivation to get more involved and feel that the efforts are collective rather than isolated, being part of a “friend of the planet” community.
What concrete idea do you propose?
Develop a community in which any traveler can register. When you register, you receive credits that are consumed according to the activities you have on your trips, especially through the sponsor companies (Lufthansa, Expedia, Uber and Google) and a list of companies, products and services identified as eco-friendly. The consumption of your credits is public, so that all members of the community can see your ranking in the community.
Consumption is calculated through a carbon footprint calculator that translates your actions into an amount of emitted carbon that is translated into credits which can be discounted from your account.
The community will be placed in a digital cloud system that travelers can access through the web and a downloadable APP. The system will connect with the services of sponsoring companies to automate your impact (when traveling by plane airlines have their own carbon footprint calculators, when traveling UBER Google Maps will be used in order to calculate the carbon footprint of your taxi ride). The community will be promoted through Expedia when a traveler selects a destination so that the use of sponsoring companies are linked to environmental projects that exist in those destinations. The APP includes geolocation services so that it will provide recommendations on environmental destinations and how to lower the impact of your travel.
The system maintains an account statement and a series of alerts for the traveler, each time a milestone is reached (time, consumption, opportunity for impact reduction, absence time, etc.), the system will alert the traveler so that they can take action about it.
Once the traveler decides to take actions, they can enter the "recover credits" or "repay credits" section where they will find a list of organizations and projects in which they can donate time (manual work, promotion through social networks, etc.) or donate money according to a credit conversion table to recover the credits they have consumed. The donation will be virtually channeled through one of the sponsoring companies and these will reward travelers with discounts such as travel miles or credits to travel in UBER.
The system has information to calculate the carbon footprint of other activities during travel not included in the UBER or Lufthansa calculators. For example, using geolocation, the system can calculate how much carbon you emitted depending on the means of transport used at the end of each day (Bike, train, walk for example). The system will ask the traveler about their daily activities and this information will serve to make the calculation more accurate and complete.
The system includes the following features, among others:
DAILY LIFE:
The APP can be used in your own city to keep track of your carbon footprint outside of travel, this allows you to see your consumption (during the trip or in your city) in real time. The caveat is that, if you use the APP in this way, you will not consume your traveling eco-credits.
COMMUNITY ACTIONS:
The APP allows you to share your travel and eco-sustainability stories with your contacts in the APP community as well as your other friends and contacts on other social networks, either in the form of automatic reports, texts and reviews that the travelers can share.
RANKING:
The system maintains 3 types of competitive ranking tables:
1) The global ranking: How do you look about all the members of the community worldwide
2) The ranking by registration: How do you look about the members who joined the community at approximately the same time as you, with the possibility of filters by people who have similar travel habits to yours?
3) The ranking of friends / contacts: How you look about your contacts people who are also members of the community
RECORD OF DAILY ACTIVITIES:
At the end of the day or when the traveler wants, you can inform the APP of other activities that you have done that do not include trips in UBER and Lufthansa, so that the APP can calculate an approximate of your carbon footprint for each activity. This will be handled with approximate values ??per activity and will be filled based on simple surveys such as: walk to work, bus to work, train ride, bicycle, scooter ride for example.
POINTS AND EXPERIENCE FOR USING THE APP:
Each activity you do in the APP, such as registering, logging in, inviting a friend to use it, sharing a report on social networks, filling out the activity questionnaire or using UBER or a flight in LUFTHANSA, will allow you to earn points and which can help you to raise levels, win badges and maybe in the future, exchange those points for eco-friendly products and services.
Who will take these actions?
This project will involve 3 groups of institutions and people who are:
• Environmental NGOs such as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
• Sponsoring companies (Expedia, Lufthansa, Uber, Google)
• Travelers
Environmental NGOs
These will provide the options for the traveler to repay their credits by mitigating their impact on the environment collaborating with environmental projects on the ground.
The projects that will be included are managed or linked by globally recognized NGOs such as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and WWF (World Wildlife Fund)
The app will provide options for the use of time (physically going to perform tasks in the projects sites, active promotion of projects in social networks) and the option to donate money for the projects.
Each action either in time use or money donation will have a table of conversion to “eco-friendly credits” that will be added to your social profile in the APP
Sponsoring Companies
Sponsoring companies will integrate the services they already provide to the app services, such as:
Google: Geolocation services, maps and servers
Lufthansa and UBER: Integration with the APP for travelers
Expedia: Information about destinations with environmental projects to be shared through the APP
Travelers
Travelers will be the main participants, their participation includes:
• Share their movements and actions
• Fill in additional information about consumption and activities
• Socially share their achievements in mitigating their carbon footprint and thus serve as ambassadors for the initiative
• Donate time or money to compensate their carbon footprint
Impact/Benefits
What impact will these actions have on sustainability within Travel & Mobility?
This proposal will allow the traveler to reduce its impact and make a contribution to sustainability no matter where they go or whatever the reason for their trip.
While it is impossible to completely eliminate the direct impact, this can be reduced by alerting and helping travelers with information about their footprint and options to reduce this to the minimum possible, At the same time it calls for actions helping conservation projects .
We believe that the impact mitigation by changing consumption habits can be reduced by more than 25% with additional benefits from information and education linked to climate change and environmental challenges.
According FAO, it is known that there is a direct impact on people habits related to the environment linked to educational programs.
Data:
Why do we think we can achieve a reduction of at least 25% on impacts to the environment due to changes in habits?
According to multiple studies, promoting and encouraging change of habits based on validated information and with sufficient repetition, achieves an improvement of 30% in average while in children can be up to 72% and similar figures in adults, achieving changes in consumption even in a short time (2 months)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814002213
http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/b126a34f-821d-4c94-8c68-397353eb0d2e
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bse.1836
http://article.sapub.org/10.5923.j.edu.20180802.01.html#Sec5
Why do we think travelers will donate to environmental projects?
In the US alone, citizens donate more than 410 billion each year, with 37 million donor households with an average donation between $ 3,000 and $ 5,000. Currently 7.2% of donations go to environmental causes and can be increased.
https://givingusa.org/giving-usa-2017-total-charitable-donations-rise-to-new-high-of-390-05-billion
Human behavior shows that the donation choices are largely emotional and there is a strong component of social / environmental pressure. In addition, donating is contagious, that is, if you see that your peers are donating to a cause you will be prone to do the same. The platform is designed to solve all those human needs.
Finally, most donors do not have a fixed cause or charity to donate, but they change regularly according to trends and fashion, having more chances to donate to causes that give them greater immediate emotional impact.
About the team members
Iñaki Calderón:
IT Consultant with more than 28 years of experience in Information Technology and
Telecommunications. Developed a mobile payment platform for 4 countries that is still used to date. In the Public sector, worked with the Prime Minister, in the FIU Financial Intelligence Unit (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing), finally worked with the Public Attorney, always related to IT, development, security and communications.
Renato Carabelli:
Entrepreneur dedicated to the design of innovative digital products that generate an impact and change in human groups, focusing on each individual in each group.
Founder of the first digital advertising agency in Peru in 1993, former communications director of the Peruvian League for the Fight Against Cancerwww.ligacancer.org.pe- years 2011 to 2016) and collaborator of multiple impact initiatives social, including the Gadea Projectwww.proyectogadea.com- currently), Festival of urban cultures PURA CALLEwww.puracalle.compatronage of RIMAC (Conservation of cultural heritage in Lima / Peru - currently) and the Wiese Foundation (www.fundacionwiese.org- years 2012 to 2017).
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