EcoFind

Track

Our project fits in the Energy and the Environment track.

Inspiration

Because of the detrimental environmental impacts of fast fashion, we wanted to make it easier to find sustainable alternatives. Shopping sustainably can be difficult, especially when one is searching for a specific product, so we wanted to simplify this process.

What it does

EcoFind promotes sustainable shopping by recommending more environmentally friendly alternatives while the user is shopping online. When the user is looking at an item from that store, they can click on the EcoFind Chrome Extension to see the Good On You sustainability rating of that store, view similar products from more sustainable brands, and navigate to those sustainable alternatives with one click.

How I built it

We built our Chrome Extension using a combination of HTML, CSS, and Javascript and we compiled the sustainability ratings for clothing brands from the Good On You Eco Directory (link). We created a Programmable Search Engine that produces search results from sustainable websites based on keywords and used the Custom Search JSON API to load those results.

Challenges I ran into

We had difficulty standardizing the brands' names to search for the sustainability rating because depending on how spaces are handled and whether or not abbreviations are used, the results are significantly difficult. We also had trouble parsing through the data received from HTTP requests, because the return value was not in proper JSON format.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

This was our first time creating a Chrome Extension and coding extensively in JavaScript. We are proud to have created a fully functioning extension and to have successfully mastered a new coding language.

What I learned

While creating our first Chrome Extension, we learned a lot about Javascript, HTML/CSS, web scraping, utilizing APIs, sending HTTP requests, and using GitHub to seamlessly integrate all of our code together. In addition to the technical aspect, we also learned more about collaborating and communicating effectively in group settings.

What's next for EcoFind

In the future, we hope to expand our project to include ratings and recommendations for not only all clothing brands but also other sectors including cosmetics and skincare. We would also like to refine the search for alternate items to find matches to the desired product that are in the same price range.