Why do I need to know about CO2?
Climate change is the most discussed subject right now, for a good reason. The average global temperature has risen by 0.85 degrees Celsius since the 19th century, mainly because of the combustion of fuels like coal or oil, deforestation, and cattle breeding. Luckily, people are starting to become aware of their ecological footprint.
However, based on our own experience, it can get overwhelming with this subject being in the media all the time. Whatever we do, it seems to have too little impact. So what can I change that will actually help?
Where can I save the most CO2 in regards to my lifestyle?
Since we love to combine technology with humanity, we set ourselves the goal to invent a sustainable and helpful tool, that can be used to make the world a better place. So we asked ourselves:
“How can we make it easier for people to become aware and possibly change their lifestyle?”For us, a major issue in shaping a sustainable lifestyle is that too much loose information is lying around. It is difficult to see the big picture, so you don’t really know what lifestyle change has the biggest impact on your CO2 footprint and which doesn’t. In order to solve this problem, we want to create awareness with an untiring, not overstraining approach, so that people can be confronted with the topic in a positive way.
This is where we came up with the conversational CO2 Footprint Calculator.
By inventing the conversational CO2 Footprint Calculator, we came up with a simple and playful way to calculate your personal CO2 usage which you can then compare with the Swiss average. It works by asking you simple questions about your daily lifestyle in regards to driving, eating, living, etc. This information is then aggregated with our database to give you an estimated guess of your current CO2 footprint. The database is based on the most recent scientific findings. To find out more about our data and the implementation itself, check out our github repository.
How does it work?
The footprint calculator is implemented with our platform Zircel. It engages the user in a conversation to find out about the user’s behavior. After finishing the conversation the user will be left with his or her CO2 footprint in comparison to an average Swiss citizen.
The whole purpose is to further spread the awareness and help people reflect about their lifestyles. Whether you calculate it for your own interest, to challenge your friends, to live more consciously or just for fun, it’s completely up to you.
Technology is a daily helper in our day-to-day lives, so we see this tool as a fun way to combine an important subject with something we use and engage on a daily basis.
Why was it important for us to create this Calculator?
Zircel can be used in so many ways that sometimes it's hard to visualize the different use cases. That's why for us it's really important to give you examples of what our platform's able to do.
The CO2-Calculator was implemented with our Zircel Platform, which gives it the conversational characteristics and playful mechanism. Our goal is to involve the user in a conversation and create more engagement.
The other reason why we wanted to create it was because it's so important to talk about issues like climate change and we hope that our platform can motivate people to talk about it as well.
So if this tool has made you think twice about flying to New York over Christmas, eating a whole pig three times a day or just made you smile and interested in the subject, our goal is already achieved. Challenge a friend, a family member or your next-door neighbor to test it out themselves!
Because change starts with us and each one of us can make it their own way.
Try it out now! co2.zircel.com