A sustainability signal system, Sustainability Tracker, is a mobile application that gives real-time signals on individual consumption behavior and encourages more sustainable consumption choices.

A mobile app is easy to use, there’s no need for laborious data entries for any calculators, it is always available, and results are sharable in the social media. In short, our application works as Sports tracker or other applications created for following the user’s behavior.

You can download the application to your mobile phone. It will be directly connected to e.g. your energy company, where the direct energy use metrics will be transferred to the application. The application will show you a time series of your energy consumption, total amount of energy consumed and saved, emissions in kilos of carbon and money saved. Most importantly, you can follow and make comparisons within your own energy use in time, however you can also compared it to the average Finnish consumption and to sustainable level.

The signal system is not only providing feedback on individual user but each user is able share his/her feedback within one’s social network. It has been shown that choosing a sustainable lifestyle is more closely connected to what is socially acceptable than to knowledge on environmental effects.

We have been benchmarking applications and other solutions aiming at encouraging more sustainable consumption. Next, we are testing different feedback systems to find the ones that work best. You can also help us in developing the Sustainable Tracker!

We are working together with our partners: Helen, Finnish Environment Institute, Taito United, Elisa, and Helsinki University Alumni Association. We are looking for new partners in areas of mobile technologies, mobility tracking and retail.