Eco-Bud is a sustainability app that aims to promote a greener lifestyle within society on a global scale. We do this by encouraging users to participate with one another whilst completing day-to-day tasks. Allowing users to carry out tasks that they do on a regular basis, makes our goal much more achievable.
At Eco-Bud, we believe that the concept of “sustainable citizenship” is the key to bringing about success through our app. Similarly to Michele Micheletti, we believe that the sustainable citizen should be urged to create a greener planet. We implement this theory of increasing social justice and safeguarding nature through individual and collective practices, by using “Gamification”.
Within our app we have included an array of game mechanisms that encourage real-world changes in people. The cycle of quick gratification, collectibles and point-scoring, competition and recurring challenges has become the norm within many apps, and by using such mechanisms we hope to not only have a constant and active community but one that actually changes our world for the better.
There have been many movements that have heavily relied on smartphones and social media to make an impact such as the #metoo movement which imprisoned Harvey Weinstein and the #blacklivesmatter movement. However, when it comes to the environment Greta Thunberg is simply not enough to make a change. What we have realised at Eco-Bud is that users find it very hard to comprehend the scale of climate change and the apps that do try to encourage sustainability are very boring due to having no gaming elements within them. This is why Eco-Bud was created; to combine fun gaming aspects with a strong political stance. As a result of this fusion we hope that our users will enjoy coming back to our app on a regular basis, eager to compete with their friends and fellow Eco-Bud users, to give birth to a large community making a change for the climate crisis.