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The year 2019 can be fairly named the year of Eco-Activism. The attention to the critical environmental issues such as global warming and rapid extinction of wild species is at the all time high. Although, you probably already know that from Greta Thunberg. What has this to do with app development? Well, you can find out one more way digital transformation affects all spheres of our life.
Just as coal, oil and gas industries along with cars came with the price of extreme level of carbon emissions, technologies can just as well help us to be more motivated for positive changes in our lifestyles thanks to many apps out there that may be truly useful for our planet. Proceed further to know more about the best eco-apps, what it takes to make such an app, and how being eco-friendly can boost your business with safe and sound promotion.
Top Eco-Apps
Forest app has an interesting approach as it combines two things: breaking your internet addiction habits and planting trees. Installing the app, you submit yourself to a constant monitoring and with some previous adjustments made Forest is going to remind you not to slack off on YouTube or procrastinate on Instagram when you have an article to write (like I am now).
#Climate is a social media and feed aggregator for informational awareness to spread the news about everything eco-related. It gathers news and articles as well as like-minded eco-enthusiasts in a community devoted entirely to climate-change issues, environmental initiatives and green way of life. Information is power and to be informed gets you encouraged enough to act. It works.
Oroeco
This app indicates your carbon footprint and you better believe that it’s big no matter what. Nevertheless, it can be reduced but only if you know what to do. Oroeco shows how much damage you cause when you drive a car vs. if you take a bus, what products are made from recycled materials by more ethical companies, how much electricity you use, etc. We all have a carbon footprint and to live without it would mean going back to caves but the planet asks us not to downgrade but to moderate the level of our carbon emissions. And Oroeco is the leading app in this case, there’s no two ways about it.
Finally, this exciting little app shows you what products are made of, where, by whom and whether or not it is ethical to buy them. For example, it can show gluten-free or GMO-free products and goods packaged in the recycled materials. However, such products usually go an extra mile to make customers aware they’re eco-friendly. But the majority of other products have many interesting things to tell. After all, you don’t want to contribute to oil giants or sweatshops in Laos and Cambodia, right? Though, you rarely know where your money goes. GoodGuide helps you exactly with that.
What is the Average Cost of the Eco-App?
It usually costs $40 000 to develop MVP for a mid-range app like the ones described on the list above. Everything depends on functionality but if you dig deeper, you’d see that there’s no difficult functionality or complex features in the covered apps.
For planting trees Forest app partners with Trees for Future organization. Oroeco and GoodGuide are a bit more complex but #Climate simply gathers materials from the internet and let’s users comment on them. So, with a clearly defined set of objectives and marketing strategy you will have an MVP with features and functionality to allow testing your app on the end users and then upgrade, update and improve it on the way.
The most expensive things are not on the software side, since they depend on how thorough your offer is by itself. So, ask yourself a question, if your product really gonna provide users with something of value at the same time serving the interests of our planet?
How Can It Benefit Your Brand?
Adidas is doing shoes from ocean plastic while Tesla urged every other car manufacturer to go for electric cars. You still have doubts? Don’t risk being seen as a “climate change denier”, an official social villain of 2019.
In many ways, this story is not new. Making a lot of money can be tricky for your conscience, especially if you’re a board member or a CEO. Decades ago companies invested in educational programs, grants, philanthropy, humanitarian causes, African social and economic development, clean water distribution and struggle with famine in India or other developing countries.
Personal story: my mom buys cosmetics and most of her hygiene products like shampoo and soap from Yves Rocher because they are strongly against testing chemicals on animals and my mother is a devoted animal-rights activist. Yves Rocher is famous for its various environmental initiatives and the majority of its clients support the brand because it is green. It is ethical and even though testing on animals doesn’t correspond with climate change, it corresponds with ethics and climate change is an ethical problem per se.
If you’re an ethical brand, this is a great way to show good will and offer a helping hand for those in need. On the other side, this made doing good deeds profitable because media helped distributing the news around the world, thus distinguishing one brand from its competitors who, once the initiative is in operation, instantly appear in bad light. This creates a positive cycle in which companies compete for a greater good. Something like that can now be seen on the electric vehicles market with demand constantly on the rise specifically because electric cars are the future of transportation out of ethical reasons.
FAQ
Go Green!
The apps are useful but their best offer is to clear your conscience (hope you have one) of guilt and make you think more about future generations. You can develop your own app since it is very easy and now is the exact moment to release another eco-friendly app. Though it might not bring you piles of gold, it will provide promotion for your platform with the foreseeable opportunity to gain users and later monetize them. And in the process of it all you’re going to make the world a better place.
