Can mobile applications be used for the ecological transition? The WAG (We Act For Good) application, launched at the beginning of November by the international environmental protection NGO WWF, proposes to act at one’s level. The principle: take up challenges to transform your daily actions into eco-responsible behavior. It’s not just about sorting your waste or turning off the light when you leave a room, but also, for example, changing the way you do your Christmas shopping. Here is how the application works.
Where did the idea come from?
“Melting glaciers, rising waters, heat peaks sometimes accompanied by pollution peaks… Today, the majority of French people are aware of climate change, explains Pascal Canfin, WWF’s director general, to franceinfo. To alert, it is already made. Today, the number one request is “Help us to change.
The NGO then thought about an application, WAG, which allows everyone to take action, in partnership with Ademe (the Agency for Environmental Management), La Poste and Maif.
What is the objective?
WWF intends to make this application “a weapon of massive transition”. “The idea is to add up the services rendered individually and the strength of the collective,” says Pascal Canfin. In mid-January, two months after its launch, the application had been downloaded 220,000 times. WWF has set a medium-term goal of one million downloads.
“We bring together the community of those who are in action and who can serve as ambassadors, and those who intend to act but are unable to do so,” explains Pascal Canfin.
How does it work?
- Choose your category. The application, available for free on the App Store and on Google Play, offers 500 challenges classified in five categories. “Eat well”, where you learn for example how to take inventory in your fridge, “Towards zero waste”, which focuses on sorting, “Getting around”, “Optimizing energy” and “Do it yourself” which offers among other things recipes to make your own cosmetics.
- Identify your eco-responsible actions. Before embarking on a new challenge, you can already look at the small things you do on a daily basis and get your first points. Thus, while browsing the “zero waste” category, I choose the sub-category “Give rather than throw away”. And in the proposed challenges, I notice that I can already check the box “Find a collection point near my home (clothes, books, toys…)”, because I regularly drop off clothes at a relay point near my home. Result: 110 points collected. I can now tackle a new challenge.
- Launching a challenge. In the “Do it yourself” category this time, then the “cosmetics” sub-category, I can select “Make your first beauty product”. To take action, I choose the tutorial “the recipe for deodorant in a jar” where a list of ingredients is indicated. The making is simple, except for some ingredients that have to be bought in an organic store, and rather fast because it only takes five minutes to obtain a satisfactory deodorant.
- Take part in the daily quiz. Every day, at 12:45, the application offers a quiz in the form of a true/false. Example: “The signs ‘Elected product of the year’ or ‘Flavors of the year’ are quality labels”. After answering, WAG proposes a series of actions to go further on the subject, such as downloading the guide published by WWF to learn how to choose your fish or downloading the Yuka application, which allows you to scan the products bought in supermarkets.
- Sharing good tips. The WAG application is also collaborative. I can suggest the address of an organic restaurant or a place where consumers and producers can buy directly from each other. The address is then checked by “super users”, volunteers at WWF, and helps to fill the interactive map, accessible without going through the challenges, which currently lists 36,000 addresses throughout France.
Sources : https://weactforgood.com/app-telecharger/