December 24, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Entertaining and Fun.
Issues: Education, Environmental, and Food Waste.
Yo Gabba Gabba! (http://yogabbagabba.com/#) is a live-action program aimed at young children. Like programmes such as Sesame Street and Teletubbies, it has an educational element encouraging positive behaviours, such as learning a new skill or interacting with friends, but dressed up in the vibrant colours, catchy music and awesome characters that make entertaining TV.
We also think its clever that they frequently feature household names such as Elijah Wood, Jack Black, Tony Hawks and members from internationally successful bands like The Killers, so the secondary audience (parents watching with kids) are kept interested and encouraged to stay tuned. They cleverly select these cameos from the pool of celebs that would be of greatest interest to this audience – so 90s bands such as Weezer have made an appearance. Inspired.
There are lots of Yo Gabba Gabba! branded products that can be purchased from their online shop, ranging from CDs to clothing, from interactive books to lunch pack accessories. One that is of interest to our work on food waste (https://wearewhatwedo.org/portfolio/food-waste/) is their “Party in My Tummy” book, which familiarises children with healthier foods and encourages plate clearing. This is a good example of a very implicit approach (https://wearewhatwedo.org/what-we-do/) to behaviour change – kids aren’t told to reduce waste, rather the positive behaviours that reduce food waste are encouraged via an engaging product that has incentives to use and buy it beyond social change, including entertainment for kids and an easy life for parents.
Yo Gabba Gabba! is broadcast in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland and performed live shows throughout the States last year (often to sell out venues) and won the Best Non-Animated Series and Best Music at The Kidscreen awards this year.
December 17, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Easy, Saves energy, Saves money, social, and Useful.
Issues: Community, Disability, Environmental, Food Waste, and Inter-personal Contact.
Casserole Club (http://www.casseroleclub.com/) is a community-led network where members who cook a little extra are matched up with other local users to share it with, with a particular focus on those who find it a little extra difficult to cook.
The tool provides an opportunity to get to know local people, encourages people to cook fresh, healthy meals, gives them a reason to try out new recipes and could reduce food waste. It also makes it easier to help members of the community that are less able. We like the practical, facilitate approach it takes, and the fact that it builds local social capital whilst tackling environmental issues, but we wonder how you could make the social aims more implicit and whether this would make it appeal to an even wider audience.
Casserole club is currently running in Reigate and Banstead, Tower Hamlets and Barnet and we hope to see it grow in the future.
September 10, 2013, 1 Comment. See and add yours.
Good is: Easy, Saves money, and social.
Issues: CO2 Emissions, Community, Environmental, and Inter-personal Contact.
Have you ever made one of those journeys that take forever, where there’s nothing to do but stare at the countryside and dip in and out of radio stations as you weave up the motorway. With BlaBlaCar (http://www.blablacar.com/) that can now be a thing of the past. BlaBlaCar is a trusted community marketplace that can help you make some extra money by filling up the empty seats in your car. So not only will you make back some of your petrol money and have someone more interesting to talk to than the voice in your head, you’ll also help to save the planet. So far BlaBlaCar reports that it’s 3 million members have shared over 1.8 billion miles and shaved almost 500,000 tonnes off of our global CO2 output, making this a really great example of environmental behavioural change for the masses.
September 3, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Easy, Saves energy, Saves money, and Saves time.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
We love Nest (http://www.nest.com/)! It exemplifies the power that beautiful and intuitively designed commercial products can have in facilitating huge social and environmental change.
Nest, a new age thermostat, is a clever gadget that learns what you like and what you do over time to help you make tiny changes to your heating habits, saving you money on your energy bill. Brainchild of Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod, Nest is an easy to fit, easy to use device that is very easy on the eyes. Boasting a iPhone app for controlling the temperature of your home remotely, and features like ‘Auto-Away” which autonomously lowers the temperature when it realises you’ve popped out, the Nest is said to be capable of saving a household $173 per year (and that’s before you’ve even begun experimenting with these amazing features).
This is a product that takes all of the advice of popular money saving communications and distills it into a practical and easy to use commercial product that keeps lowering your energy consumption even when you forget. That’s a clever, facilitative way to change behaviour. Saving households from huge energy bills, while providing huge incidental benefits for the environment that no one at the company even needs to shout about.
To read about Nest’s impact so far download their White Paper here: http://downloads.nest.com/efficiency_simulation_white_paper.pdf
August 27, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Easy, Saves money, and Saves time.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
In 2012 GetGoing (https://www.getgoing.com/), a startup dedicated to discounts travel, launched a new service called Pick Two, Get One™ which lets flexible travellers design itineraries for two trips and then leave it up to GetGoing to book one for them. The idea is that GetGoing is then able to negotiate deals with airliners willing to get rid of spare capacity for huge discounts. When we consider that in 2012, passenger flights were only 78.94% full (the equivalent of one empty plane for every five flights) its evident that GetGoing has a lot of inventory to work with.
This has the potential to provide a triple win as airlines are making money on otherwise empty seats, travellers are getting cheap holidays with a touch of serendipity and the world is (theoretically) seeing less wasteful, half-empty planes sent into the sky. To give you just one stat, if companies like GetGoing could fill even half of the spare capacity of just 200 flights sent from London Heathrow to JFK this year, they’d save the planet 5.93 million kg of unnecessary CO2 emissions. That’s huge.
So while the company trades on value, discounts and the underrated element of surprise, we think GetGoing’s Pick Two, Get One™, which uses the same ‘spare capacity’ model that was pioneered by Lastminute.com 14 years ago, has the potential to deliver huge and scaleable incidental environmental benefits in a sustainable way.
August 20, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Easy and Useful.
Issues: Environmental, Health, and Local Business.
When we first heard about Hubbub (https://www.hubbub.co.uk/) in 2011, the company with a mission to save the high street, we knew it had the potential to be something quite special. Bringing all of the convenience of online grocery shopping to your local independent, Hubbub lets you purchase items from various local shops, online, and have them sent straight to your door in a single convenient delivery.
Now, just 2 years after they launched, Hubbub is already operating within 35 stores and selling over 4000 products to thousands of customers. Hubbub works by attracting online supermarket shoppers and busy commuters, who wouldn’t ordinarily their local grocer, butcher or artisan baker, to their online shop and taking a small cut of these brand new sales. That’s a win-win for local retailers who, as Hubbub founder Marissa Leaf says, rely on volume to survive.
We think Hubbub is great because it helps to get fresh, healthy and tasty produce into the nations homes without relying on messaging, bribery or government intervention. Rather, it takes traditionally niche behaviours such as ‘shopping local’ and makes them accessible by building them into a convenient, easy to use online service. Plus, as a successful commercial business with a viable model for growth, Hubbub represents a sustainable form of facilitative behaviour change that has the potential to become ingrained in our national culture.
July 30, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Entertaining, Fun, and Useful.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
The concept of Soccket, by Uncharted Play (http://unchartedplay.com/), is a beautifully simple one which puts fun theory to work. Soccket is a football with a difference. As well as providing kids of all ages with hours of fun, this clever device converts the kinetic energy of play into green energy that’s powerful enough to light a room for hours.
Currently Soccket’s core market comprises of children without reliable access to energy and whose only alternative to a Soccket is often a dangerous kerosene lamp, diesel generator, a wood burning stove or darkness. However, we also think this provides an interesting example of how to embed change initiatives into our daily routines. If every child in the western world was given a Soccket, whose green energy they used to light their room at night or charge their mobile phone, imagine how much electricity could be saved. Not to mention the impact on childhood obesity.
Soccket makes using alternative energy sources interesting and easy, by prioritising play and fun over sanctions, campaigns and guilt.
Currently Sockett’s core market comprises of children without reliable access to energy and whose only alternative to a Socckett is often a dangerous kerosene lamp, diesel generator, a wood burning stove or darkness. However, we also think this product provides an interesting example of how to embed change initiatives into our daily routines. If every child in the western world was given a Socckett, whose green energy they used to light their room at night or charge their mobile phone, imagine how much electricity could be saved. Not to mention the impact on childhood obesity.
Socckett makes using alternative energy sources interesting and easy, by prioritising play and fun over sanctions, campaigns and guilt.
July 23, 2013, 1 Comment. See and add yours.
Good is: Saves money.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
Since the the Oyster Card was introduced to London by Transport For London (TFL) in 2003, there have been over 43 million Oyster Cards issued. While there have been reports of waste on the Oyster Card with almost 44% of these lying unused, the Oyster Card seems to also be responsible for some interesting environmental benefits.
According to the minutes of an Oyster Card Briefing between the London Assembly and TFL, by 2009 sales of paper tickets had been reduced by 65%. Today it appears that figure may be up, with over 80% of journeys through London now being made using an Oyster Card. In 2010 TFL recorded 24.8 million trips to, from or within London. This means that in 2010 alone, the Oyster Card system was responsible for reducing our use paper tickets by 19.84 million. One report suggests that it is responsible for a saving of as much as 32 million paper tickets each year since it was launched. This is the equivalent of 26,335,507.98 kilograms (26335.5 metric tonnes) of paper saved yearly. That’s a saving of around 74.9m gallons of water, 16.8m pounds of solid waste and 82m pounds of CO2.
Considering that the 43 million issued Oyster Cards used a comparatively tiny 218,010kg of plastic and 903,000kg of CO2, this seems like a good trade.
*weight of paper tickets calculated using 100 business cards weighing 2 pounds or 0.907185kg
July 16, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Easy, Fun, Saves energy, and Saves money.
Issues: CO2 Emissions, Environmental, and Health.
Named by Fast Company (http://bit.ly/ZzMPa5) as one of the most innovative companies of 2013, Green Revolution (http://www.egreenrevolution.com/) is a company that applies a niche concept (renewable energy) to a mass activity (the gym).
Selling $200 generators to gym owners, Green Revolution’s technology helps people to convert their exercise into electricity. We think this is a deliciously simple and practical way to introduce green energy to a mainstream market, using behaviours that millions of people perform every day to help cut their carbon footprint. At the time of writing, Green Revolution had already helped gyms to generated 214,049,837 watts-hours of green energy. That’s enough to power the Olympic Stadium for well over 8 days.
June 18, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Saves energy, Saves money, and Useful.
Issues: CO2 Emissions, Environmental, and Food Waste.
The Samsung Smart Fridge is the latest in a new wave of products hoping to form the first wave of commercial products to deliver on the promise of the Internet of Things. The Samsung Smart Fridge, as you probably suspect, is a connected refrigerator. It runs on Google’s mobile operating system Android, and comes equipped with a 10-inch wi-fi enabled touch screen that helps users to do many handy things like look up recipes, check their calendar, send emails, receive coupons, check their twitter and even track the expiry date of their food.
Whilst there is a public impression that more gadgets means more energy usage, this isn’t necessarily the case.
As technologies like this becomes more pervasive, they can make ‘environmentally good actions’ much more convenient. Imagine what a dent we could make in the 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted globally every year if every standard fridge never let us forget that the cheese in the back was about to go mouldy, or that we should really make lasagne today because as well as that cheese there’s also a packet of mince we bought and it’s expiring tomorrow.
We think smart, connected, ambient technology like the Samsung’s Fridge, may not only help to create a world that is ever more convenient to live in, but also one in which it’s increasingly easy it is to perform those little simple positive behaviours we often forgot, overlooked or couldn’t be bothered with in days gone by.
May 28, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Fun, Saves energy, Saves money, and Useful.
Issues: Environmental.
What we love about The Atom by Sive Cycle (http://sivacycle.com/), is it’s simplicity. It takes a 180 year old green energy concept and applies it to a popular activity to solve a common need of modern times.
The Atom is a useful device that attaches to the back wheel of a bicycle where it harnesses the kinetic energy generated as a result of your regular cycle. This energy can then be used to power any USB charging device such as an iPhone. That could be a god send for avid riders who increasingly rely on a whole host of mobile apps to guide them through cycling adventures.
April 30, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Fun, and Useful.
Issues: Community, Digital Inclusion, Education, and Environmental.
Would you know where to find some parsley growing wildly near you? Strawberries? Rosemary? Pears? If not, it is time to think about starting your urban foraging journey. ‘Edible Cities’ is a not-for-profit organisation, created after an observation that there are many fruit trees and edible plants around our urban environment but we do not really use the resource properly. They decided to create an intuitive service platform which offers information based around a map on wild food growing near you, as well as allowing users to contribute to the archive of food sources on the website. The results have been very positive, successfully increasing people’s awareness of their local environment, encouraging them to eat food that would otherwise go to waste, getting people doing exercise outside and eating healthy locally grown food, all in a fun and accessible way.
April 16, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Fun, and social.
Issues: Community and Environmental.
Can “Fun Theory”, as demonstrated in these previous posts (wearewhatwedo.org/good-ideas/piano-stairs/) be used to break down the barriers between strangers? The 21 swings project (http://www.dailytouslesjours.com/project/21-balancoires/) , created by Daily Tours Les Jours, suggests it can. Taking over the high traffic area in Montreal, a set of musical swings was set up, each sounding a different note, and when they were all swung together, acted like a giant musical instrument. Super-fun to use, the swings encouraged outdoor play, gentle exercise, and, perhaps most noticeably, the idea of cooperation. Speaking on their project, Daily Tours Les Jours said, “We believe we can achieve more together than separately.” The project provides a different perspective on connecting citizens with public space, and provides a meeting and talking point for people of all ages and backgrounds. It reminds us of a couple of other projects that involved putting pianos and pingpong tables in public places around cities.
April 9, 2013, 1 Comment. See and add yours.
Good is: Cool, Easy, Saves money, and Useful.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
Since Amazon released the first Kindle in 2007, the world of reading has never been the same. The Kindle, designed by Google’s Lab126, is pretty revolutionary. Not only has it created new norms for readers everywhere, provided us with often cheaper alternatives to physical books and allowed us to carry thousands of bestsellers in our pockets, it also packs a powerful environmental punch. According to one report by CleanTech Group LLC, a Kindle DX emits 167.78 kg of CO2 per year. The same report also states that the average book is responsible for 7.46kg of CO2 over its entire lifetime. Now, in a survey by Ipsos Public Affairs the average person is said to read 6.5 books every year. That would mean that the average CO2 cost of each ebook read in a year is 25.812kg. You’d need to read 23 books each year on your Kindle to make it more environmentally friendly than buying physical books, but then every extra ebook you bought on your Kindle would mean a 7.46kg saving in CO2 for the planet. Not to mention a £1.57 – £3.66 saving for yourself!
March 11, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Useful.
Issues: CO2 Emissions and Environmental.
Tom Tom is perhaps the best known sat-nav system for our cars but there are a whole host of similar products. Over the last decade more and more people have bought some form of sat-nav to take the stress out of navigating. The incidental effect of this has been that we have likely saved vast quantities of oil consumption through avoidance of getting lost and having a much more efficient system of finding the quickest route for journeys. The average distance travelled per person in the UK in 2011 was 6,826 compared to 7,206 miles in 2005. Who knows how much of this 5.2% reduction was down to good old Mr Thomas-Thomas.
February 25, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool and Fun.
Issues: Environmental, Health, and Inter-personal Contact.
Geocaching (www.geocaching.com/) is a digital-age version of treasure hunting. Using the GPS in your phone, and a string of clues, you hunt down little treasures hidden in caches in your area. There are 1,993,050 active caches and 5 million geocashers located all over the world. A usual cache may contain a constantly lengthening logbook of people that have found the hidden spot or some small trinket or toy that can be traded around caches.
In a similar way to how www/Historypin.com uses cutting edge technology to breathe new life into looking at old photos, making it an activity 16 year boys might reconsider, Geocaching repositions outdoor play and physical activity for an age that is obsessed with gaming, tech and gadgets.
Geocaching gets people engaging with the history and geography of their local area, breathing fresh air, doing physical exercise and most importantly, enjoying themselves.
January 29, 2013, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Saves money and Useful.
Issues: CO2 Emissions, Education, Environmental, and Health.
The Waka Waka Light http://www.wakawakalight.com/ is a solar powered device that can charge electrical gadgets or provide a minimum of 8 hours light (and up to 80 depending on the setting used) from a single day’s sun. They are a much cheaper alternative to kerosine lamps so are becoming popular in Haiti, Ethiopia, Kenya and other developing nations for families looking for the cheapest solution.
However the benefits of these nifty lights extend much further. Not using kerosene improves air quality and reduces house fires and injuries from burning. Most inspiringly, there is research that highlights the improvements to school results that can be seen when free solar lighting replaces kerosene lighting. This is attributed to a number of factors including more income free for the parents to spend on education and more time in the evening for the children to do their schoolwork. Lots of hidden benefits for a lamp bought for its low price point.
August 28, 2012, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool and Fun.
Issues: Environmental.
Could a simple sound effect inspire more people to throw their rubbish into a bin rather than litter? Volksvagen’s “Fun Theory” campaign thought so and decided to try it out by creating the world’s deepest bin. The bin was rigged to produce a cartoon like sound of a very long fall followed by a large crash every time a piece of trash was thrown in. This illusion fascinated passers by and inspired them to throw 41kg more of their trash into this bin than a similar one nearby.
July 3, 2012, No Comments yet. Add yours.
Good is: Cool, Easy, and Fun.
Issues: Environmental.
Richard Reynolds, the original Guerilla Gardener, has transformed gardening from something practised solely by the middle-class middle-aged types, to an edgy pastime for young urbanites. It reminds us of Tom Swayer in Huckleberry Finn who turned the chore of whitewashing of Aunt Polly’s fence into a treat. “Do you call this work?” He told his friends. “Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence everyday”. Soon Tom’s friends were not only paying for the privilege but deriving real pleasure from the task. He transformed a situation in which compensation was required to one in which people would pay to get in on the fun.
You don’t have to pay to get involved Guerilla Gardening, but if they started charging we wouldn’t be surprised if people were prepared to pay. Would the same trendies have offered to help out in the parent’s garden’s? Probably not. And that is the great magic of Guerilla Gardening: it repositions a worthy behaviour (cleaning up where you live, getting to know your neighbours, getting outdoors, doing exercise) as something cool and fun.
