Eco Buddy: Take control of your impact on the environment
I built a mobile app to help YOU save the planet. Are you going to live more sustainably?
Update: Eco Buddy is live on the UK App Store. Sign up for updates.
I made this app walkthrough to explain how it works.
Eco Buddy empowers you to:
- Learn about CO2 emissions and the impact of food and transportation on the environment.
- Keep a diary of your carbon emissions from food and transportation. Enter information about what you eat and how you travel, and compare your emissions between different days.
- Whether you move by foot, bike, train, bus, car or plane, you can track your emissions and see how to reduce them.
- Share your CO2 emissions on social media and compare them with your friends.
- See trends and historical data about your emissions.
- Receive daily reminders to enter your meals and journeys (opt-in).
Introduction
When Eco Buddy is opened for the first time, these four screens are presented as an introduction.
Diary
The Diary page is where you keep track of your daily meals and journeys:
- Add new meals and journeys.
- Edit, share or delete existing meals and journeys. To do this, tap on an existing meal or journey to reveal three action buttons.
- View your daily CO2 emissions from food and transportation. Note that items are color graded. Green: low emissions, yellow: medium emissions, orange: high emissions, red: very high emissions.
- Select previous days. Tap on the “Today ▾” button to reveal a calendar and choose any day in the past.
Track your meals and journeys
The Diary page has two options:
Add Meal: enter the type and size of your meal, and select all the relevant foods, then tap “Done”. Eco Buddy will save your meal and show you the CO2 emissions to produce your food.
Add Journey: you can select a transport mode such as walking, cycling, rail, bus or car, enter the distance traveled, then tap “Done”. Eco Buddy will save the journey and show you the corresponding CO2 emissions. For air travel, you can select “plane”, then choose your departure and arrival airports, as well as the flight class.
Carbon Footprint Report
Open this by tapping on the Carbon Footprint popup on the Diary page.
- Daily CO2 rating: Report about emissions from your daily meals and journeys.
- Share report with family and friends, and on social media.
- See personalised suggestions to live more sustainably.
Stats
This page shows two charts with historical data about your CO2 emissions:
- A bar chart, showing your daily emissions over a date range of choice
- A pie chart, showing you a breakdown of your emissions by type.
- You can choose to view your emissions for the last 7 days, 2 weeks or 4 weeks.
- You can also filter the data by food only, transport only, or both.
Learn
Eco Buddy helps you learn how to make a difference. You can read useful information about these four categories:
- CO2 emissions: Learn how they contribute to global warming and the resulting impact on the environment.
- Food: Learn about the emissions to produce your food, and how changing your diet can make a big difference.
- Transport: Learn about how the way you move contributes to global warming and air pollution, and how to travel in the most eco-friendly way.
- Recycling: Learn about the importance of recycling and the impact of waste on the environment.
Future Roadmap
Eco Buddy aims to be your companion app for everything related to your carbon footprint.
The initial release of the app is limited to emissions from food and transport. In the future, it will include other important factors such as energy consumption, water usage, and shopping to build a comprehensive picture of your carbon footprint.
Eco Buddy will also help driving collective change, by adding social features, challenges, rewards and gamification elements.
Finally, you will be able to compensate for your emissions by donating to selected climate protection projects.
You can learn more about my vision for this here:
FAQs
Why Eco Buddy?
- The carbon footprint of the average American is 10 times that of the average Indian.
- While the CO2 emissions of the richest countries have the gravest effects on the environment, the poorest suffer the most.
- Reducing your carbon footprint is an important ethical decision you should make, and Eco Buddy helps you towards this goal.
How much does Eco Buddy cost?
Eco Buddy is completely free.
Does Eco Buddy include cloud integration?
Yes. If the user is signed in to iCloud, Eco Buddy automatically syncs all data across all iOS devices. Additionally, the app can be used entirely offline — your data is synced again once an Internet connection is available.
How are food emissions calculated?
Eco Buddy uses reference data from published articles and scientific sources for the greenhouse gases to produce fresh foods.
The overall CO2 emissions for each meal are calculated based on the foods it contains and the meal size chosen by the user.
How are journey emissions calculated?
Eco Buddy uses reference data about the CO2 emissions per kilometer of various transport modes. This is then multiplied by the journey distance provided by the user.
For air travel, the user can specify departure, arrival airports and the flight class, and Eco Buddy estimates the corresponding CO2 emissions using a specific calculation formula from myClimate.org.
Is my data private?
Yes. All user data is stored securely on the device, and on Apple’s iCloud servers. This also means that no sign-up is required and you own your data.
Join the movement
There is a strong climate movement building up in the world. This app is just a small piece of the puzzle. Are you going to take part and help driving collective change?
- Share this article with friends, family, neighbours, everyone!
- Send me your feedback, comments and ❤️.
- Follow me! I’m @biz84 on Twitter.
- Follow the official Eco Buddy Facebook and Twitter accounts.
- Sign up to the Eco Buddy TestFlight Beta.
Climate change is happening now. Now is the time for climate action.
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