About the Project

Inspiration

Climate change often feels like a global problem that individuals can't meaningfully influence. We wanted to make sustainability more approachable by building a platform that turns complex environmental data into clear, personalized actions. Instead of creating another AI chatbot, our goal was to build a practical sustainability workspace that empowers users to understand and reduce their environmental impact.

What it does

EcoPilot AI is an AI-powered sustainability platform that helps users make environmentally conscious decisions. It features an AI sustainability assistant, carbon footprint calculator, climate data analysis, waste classification, sustainability report generation, document summarization, habit tracking, and actionable recommendations. Users provide their own OpenAI-compatible API key, allowing them to choose their preferred AI provider while keeping control over their usage.

How we built it

The application was built as a modern web application using Next.js, React, and TypeScript. The interface is styled with Tailwind CSS and shadcn/ui, while animations are powered by Framer Motion. AI capabilities are integrated through OpenAI-compatible APIs, enabling support for providers such as OpenAI, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Groq, Together AI, Ollama, and other compatible endpoints. Interactive charts and analytics are implemented with Recharts, with local storage used for client-side settings and preferences.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was designing a platform that combines multiple sustainability tools into a single, intuitive experience while keeping the interface clean and responsive. We also focused on creating a provider-agnostic AI architecture, allowing users to connect their preferred OpenAI-compatible models without locking them into a single service.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Built a polished, professional sustainability platform with a modern UI.
• Combined multiple environmental AI tools into one unified application.
• Designed a flexible AI architecture that supports multiple OpenAI-compatible providers.
• Created an experience that is beginner-friendly while remaining powerful for advanced users.

What we learned

This project reinforced the importance of thoughtful product design alongside AI implementation. We learned that making environmental technology accessible requires clear user experiences, reliable data visualization, and actionable recommendations rather than overwhelming users with raw information.

What's next for EcoPilot AI

Future plans include real-time climate data integrations, satellite imagery analysis, collaborative sustainability dashboards for schools and businesses, IoT energy monitoring, predictive carbon analytics, gamified community challenges, and expanded multilingual support.

Built With

• analytics
• eslint
• lucide
• next.js
• openai-compatible
• prettier
• query
• react
• shadcn/ui
• tailwind
• tanstack
• typescript
• vercel
• zod