See the greenhouse gas emissions caused by everyday decisions, like buying a banana or tin of fish, in real time.
There is still time to take part in the bounty for best suggestions and/or most significant bugs. After trying the app, come back here and click on the Issues tab then click "New Issue" and give feedback!
Bounty prize to be decided. Possibly may involve your name in the app.
Download from Google Play here
OR
Download the app to an Android phone.
Click on the .apk file and install the app
If you are downloading the app directly ensure that you allow "installation from unknown sources"
- Camera - for scanning barcodes
- Full network access - to look up barcodes so as to work out what is being scanned.
Barcodes are sent via http to the Open Food Facts servers. No other information is transferred via the internet or shared.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” - Peter Drucker
By quantifying the impact of your actions you can make better decisions. When it comes to money, calories or time it is common to measure the impacts of our decisions, but few people measure their carbon emissions.
This project will help to elucidate how to measure the carbon footprint of peoples’ actions, and empower individuals and researchers to make the changes needed to make sure that we can live sustainably. As with other hidden impacts associated with items we consume, increasing visibility is the first step needed for individuals to make more informed decisions. Just as putting nutritional labels on food empowers billions to make better decisions for our health, displaying carbon footprints could help people make better decisions for our planet.
For instance, which took more greenhouse gas emissions to put on a shelf in a UK supermarket – a tomato or a banana? Perhaps you may be surprised to learn that most of the time the answer is the tomato [1].
You can be part of the movement to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. We know how much money we expect to part with when we do our shopping. Buying a banana is going to have a lesser impact on our pocket than buying a coffee, or a new jumper. But do you know what the impact is on the planet, and what can we do to make our lives more sustainable?
The IPCC report, published in 2018, found that avoiding 2°C is still achievable in 2019. Technological, economic and political changes will all be crucial to trying to reduce humanity’s impact. However, the illustrative model pathways modelled in the report showed that this will require significant changes in lifestyles, particularly amongst those with greater access to resources. People are not able to quantify the environmental impacts of decisions they make in the same way that they quantify other vital parts of life.
By enabling people to quantify the effects of their actions in terms of carbon emissions, choosing the right thing can be made easier.
Technology and prosperity has empowered people to do good things. This is something to celebrate – from the increase in life expectancy across the world and connecting billions of people to the internet. But it has also given power to do things which are not-so-good, certainly when it comes to the impact on climate, such as buying budget flights, eating high-carbon diets and stimulating the production of items which have a high embodied carbon.
Don't be a bot (remove any dashes)
artur--don-aldson -AT protonmail DOT com
This project aims to help achieve changes in personal lifestyle by giving accurate and impartial quantitative estimates of the carbon emitted when taking certain actions. By tracking your emissions you can get an understanding of what your can do to reduce your environmental footprint.
Yes and no. There was a promising interest amongst manufacturers and retailers in the UK about carbon footprinting on products around 2008. The CEO of Tesco pledged to introduce CO2 labelling across its products the same year, however it was decided to withdraw support for the project because it was felt that the time invested into labelling was too great and because the dynamic nature of supply chains means that putting labels on packaging may be inaccurate. Since then, concern about the climate crisis has increased, and the surge in environmental activism in the past 12 months with the rise of highly vocal groups such as Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement show that the demand for information to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is pressing. An app to deliver estimates on carbon emissions has the advantage that information can be updated, it is possible to adjust estimates based on context (such as location or season) and enables diverse communities to be built across large geographic regions. Labelling by manufacturers is presently sparse and an independent platform offers the potential for greater objectivity and a more comprehensive scope. Furthermore, not everything which has a carbon footprint has a label. The app can allow people to keep a diary of other high carbon activities including travel, purchasing and use of home appliances.
Live life such that all other human lives on Earth can be sustained in equal happiness.
I’m Artur Donaldson - a graduate from Imperial College London with a MSci degree in Physics. A background in science, has given my scientific literacy and quantitative skills which I hope to use to tackle environmental issues. It has always been my passion to understand the environmental impacts of technology and our lifestyles, and this project is a small way in which I hope to contribute. Carbon foot-printing is not a new idea, and has been attempted before, but this project is the first time an impartial platform will have been created. The social and environmental impacts come before all else. I feel the frustration of researchers in trying to communicate research with the public, and also, from attending events.
Data [2][3] for this project are being sourced from the best available scientific literature and datasets. The mission is to give back to overlooked communities which make calculation of carbon footprints possible of our actions.
[1] Berners-Lee, Mike. How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. London: Profile Books, 2010. Most ot the time tomatoes are out of season and need to be grown in greenhouses heated by fossil fuels ... contributing to the greenhouse effect
[2] Poore, J., and T. Nemecek. “Reducing Food’s Environmental Impacts through Producers and Consumers.” Science 360, no. 6392 (June 1, 2018): 987–92. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216.
[3] Open Food Facts. “Open Food Facts.” Accessed September 9, 2019. https://world.openfoodfacts.org.
[4] IPCC. “Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C Approved by Governments — IPCC.” Accessed May 2, 2019. https://www.ipcc.ch/2018/10/08/summary-for-policymakers-of-ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-1-5c-approved-by-governments/.
More to come