C02 Footprint

Track your Carbon Footprint and reduce emissions!

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Inspiration💡

We are aiming to address the issue of misinformation and awareness of the capacity challenge. Our team is made up of 4 diverse students/professionals who want to activate humankind’s potential to act on climate The problem we chose to address is that we need a place for consolidated information to track carbon footprint and get a numerical value and see how much each person is emitting. Once they know where they stand, they can take steps to reduce their footprint by getting help from our community.

Our Team 🌏

Mission: Can you (together) create that next key solution to our climate change dilemma? 

Challenge Chosen: The Capacity Challenge

Two from either end of Canada and another two miles always in India, all bringing in their innate wizardry powers of complementary strengths and weaknesses

The Iron Helm of CO2 steers the ClimateMobile calm and collected creating the gears as The Wiz of Tech powers in Carbon shooters with the speed of Flash as The Seamstress of design binds and carves it to life seamlessly and effectively as The Lois Lane of Emotional Analytics reads the emotional radar ahead for ClimateMobile to escape any blind spots of villains! The Legion of CO2 Footprint! Here to reduce one footprint at a time!

Gurm - For me climate change has always been a great issue, growing up at a young age I learned about global warming and we talked about the electric car. I have always valued going into nature and participating in activities like hikes, visiting parks, and spending time with my family in those areas. I would hate to see them disappear and no longer share in community interactions.

Our planet is at risk of being destroyed by more severe storms, hurricanes, diseases coming out from icebergs, and more infectious viruses as a result of overheating. I want to participate in the change to unite our current generation and the next generation to be aware of these issues and take action. I participated in another program where the team was trying to develop a scope 1 emissions calculator for businesses to help reduce their carbon footprint.

I think it is very important to track my own individual carbon footprint and know how it compares to everyone else and within other countries. So at least I could do my part to regulate my footprint by recycling, driving less (carpooling), managing waste effectively, and regulating the amount of travel that happens.

Vranda - For me climate change came into existence once I entered an architectural college, before that it was always unnecessary noise between all the existing problems. It was in terms of sustainable and GHRIY-certified developments, how much of the carbon footprint the industrial sector is causing, cause of its huge building blocks which are being developed and those skyscrapers made of glass, glass castles made in the desert like Dubai! Consider how many resources are they taking up just by being constructed and maintained. But one thing which I can agree on is the general public, or an individual can't do much about it.

Hence I came across a problem that is a bit more personal, and on an individual level, that is fast fashion. Being a girl I have always been interested in finding new ways to dress up, but as I grew older it became way more cheaper and convenient hence I started purchasing and throwing more. Later I realized the evil story of my plastic clothes which end up literally in rivers and God knows where. I feel this is one such topic where a consumer can directly impact the cause once they are aware of the evils that are stuck on that low price tag.

Another thing which I feel is that there are not enough campaigns that are being held, maybe in big cities but not in small towns anywhere. If we have a platform where people are sharing their stories and having similar issues could team up and do some event or a workshop together that would be great.

Sri Ram - For me, the goal to stop climate change is sowed by my father, who is an environmental activist. He took care of several lakes and ponds in my city as they were the major clean water resource for the city during the summer. He wanted to do something but went to take a long nap. I wanted to continue his legacy and taking of his NGO. Even though we keep those water bodies clean and large enough to hold the water for the summer. The monsoon keeps hitting as hard. The city's considerable amount of economy relies on tourism to waterfalls in the city. The waterfalls' water source is the monsoon that hit the western ghats. I am worried about climate change. I am still exploring and learning things. I stick to Gandhi's quote "Be the change, you wish to see in the world". I stick to some simple policies, one of which is not littering and disposing of waste in the right way. Whenever any of my friends is about to litter someplace, I would stop them and get that waste and keep it in my bag to dispose of in the bin. First, they laughed, next they observed, and they followed. I haven't them to follow but they did. I have seen people to whom I haven't had acquaintance following me. Those few people started to follow me just by observing me for some time. I believe this makes a butterfly effect and one day more than 70% of the world population do their individual contributions to stop climate change. I don't want 2023 to be the 9th consecutive hottest year in history.

Garisha - The Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami in 2004 was my first glimpse into the vast amount of generational impact our planet faces. Trying to comprehend that my grandparents living on the other side of the world are potentially in danger of being engulfed to death brought upon by emotions of helplessness and fear. The gut-wrenching feeling of not knowing what to do or be there for the people you love is something all of us have felt, add on top of that the complexity of coming to terms with the fact that our inconsiderate actions are directly correlated to the wounds of our planet and the future of all living things, it’s a one-two punch! Just like every superhero who uses adversity as a catalyst to open themselves to being self-aware and becoming change-makers, like Superman, Batman, and Arrow, we as a whole need to utilize the gifts of our life experiences and knowledge to mend the climate wounds we’ve inflicted! My own journey of feeling helpless about the plight they were facing as well as many years later facing my own demons of depression and suicide, opened that closed vault of self-awareness and empathy and led me to want to make a change not only in mental healthcare but also our impacts on Mother Earth and our future children, the leaders of tomorrow! So let’s take each other’s hand and form a legion of us and be the superheroes we need now!

What it does ⚙️

We decided to create a website that consolidated resources with a carbon footprint calculator, and a blog on several components of the footprint that shows where a difference can be made. We also thought writing a letter to the government to change policies would be very influential and included a list of resources that showed incubators, environmental entrepreneurs, and grants that individuals could use to get inspired and enact change. Individuals who are climate anxious can talk to volunteer therapists and blog on this topic to discuss solutions and changes. Individuals can join the relevant groups, collaborate and get help from the members.

Our website has various resources for students to get involved in volunteering and participate in various global environment-sanctioned days like Earth Day, world forest day, and world biodiversity day. Once a person starts contributing they can earn rewards by sharing social media posts and tagging c102 in their post and once they show proof of their initiatives we will reward them with gift cards.

How we built it 🛠️

We built the website using Velo by Wix which is a low-code editor. One of the team members built the front end of the carbon calculator using HTML, CSS, JS, Jquery, and google charts. We got a free domain from Godday and hosted the carbon footprint calculator on GitHub Pages. Used a video editing platform along with our audio of different components.

Challenges we ran into ⚠️

Various time zones and team members getting sick. Was the first hackathon for many team members so could not code on many components. Many of us haven't worked with Velo before, and that was challenging. Collecting footprint data for various things were challenging, we have to go through a lot of resources. We want the data to be as accurate as possible, so you can rely on our data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🧑‍💻

We are proud that we built a functioning website that got the ability to create a carbon footprint model which redirected to blogs to help in reducing different components of the footprint, writing blogs, groups feature, a forum to brainstorm, and reaching out to individual members. Our team successfully managed our different time zones and we got everyone involved differently.

What we learned 🎓

Learned a lot about Wix, using Figma to create app design, and integrating different skill sets together. New team members learned a lot about pitching and how the process of a hackathon works. Also got a chance to network with mentors and learn about various issues when starting companies and volunteer opportunities.

What's next for C02 Footprint ⏭️

In the future, we hope to develop an app and community platform where individuals are rewarded for their contributions by keeping a track of their hours and projects. Once we have received their submissions, we will start a social media trend on the website and reward them with gift cards from our partners. The app will be a place where they can show their contributions and spread positivity and change. We also hope to use customer surveys to further build out our solution and get some more demographic data that can be used to define the web app.

Furthermore, we wanted to provide students with volunteer opportunities where they can respond to climate anxiety concerns on the website after undergoing training and workshops. The long-term hope is that we would have projects on global environment-sanctioned days and could sponsor these events by applying for grants from the government.

Preliminary Research Analysis 📈

Our preliminary research through conducting a survey shows our alternative hypothesis of the need for more awareness and education along with mental health support in a place that can provide consolidated information for members to track and make progress in their journey to reducing carbon footprint has a positive correlation with our null hypothesis being rejected with a p-value of less than 0. With over 75% showing the need for our support. A whopping 100% indicate the need for more education, resources, and climate action involvement in media and government as well as wanting empathy and mental health support for climate anxiety however cost is a hindrance for 50% of respondents which means they can’t afford the behavioral therapy needed. Our potential customers feel that there is an urgent need for climate action and have an issue with how slow the process has been especially in terms of businesses cooperating to reduce carbon footprint as well as not enough youth being involved to scale up the issue. They want to stop fossil fuel use and address these issues at a systemic level with policymakers and the community. They feel immense despair, anxiety, frustration, and helplessness while also feeling hope and optimism through taking action for climate change. This is where our product comes in to solve their major pain points. Hence, our product is not only viable but is also needed to address the needs and pain points of our potential customers. We can help alleviate over 75% of the mental health pain points with our free volunteer therapists as well as increase the progress of more youth involvement in reducing carbon footprint.

Limitations 🤞

As this is a smaller pool sample size as well as restricted to time constraints, the data may not be as accurate compared to a larger demographic sample size. We will proceed with that in mind and conduct more research to better provide for our target market.

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