Best apps for sustainable living

Embrace a greener lifestyle with innovative apps designed to enhance sustainability, from recycling to eco-conscious shopping and transportation.

Key takeaways

• Recycling Innovations: Apps like Olio, Vinted, Too Good to Go, iRecycle, and Freecycle promote sustainable communities by facilitating the sharing, selling, and proper recycling of goods.
• Sustainable Shopping: Giki, Think Dirty, Good On You, and GreenChoice Now offer insights into the environmental and health impacts of products, encouraging more informed, eco-friendly purchasing decisions.
• Technology for Sustainability: Ecosia and NASA Earth Now leverage technology to support environmental conservation, offering unique ways to contribute to planetary health through everyday actions.
• Eco-Friendly Transportation: Carma Carpooling, BlaBlaCar, and Greenwheels provide solutions to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector, making it easier to opt for shared or eco-vehicles.
• Empowerment Through Apps: These applications demonstrate the power of technology to facilitate sustainable living choices, making it easier than ever to contribute to a healthier planet.

Sustainable living

Every April, the world celebrates Earth Month – a time dedicated to raising global awareness of the environmental challenges facing our planet. 

During this month, environmental activists and global leaders unite to find new ways to drive sustainable development and combat climate challenges to ensure a greener, safer world for all.

Sustainability is dear to our hearts at WeAreBrain. Through the clients we work with and the projects we are involved in, right down to our company vision and mission, we endeavour to leave the world a better place. We believe that sustainability can be incorporated across different business areas: from green web hosting for your website, all the way up to the development of a sustainable brand image.

In celebration of Earth Month 2023, we’ve compiled a diverse list of apps that can help you lead a sustainable lifestyle with ease.

Recycling

One of the most effective ways you can start living an eco-friendly lifestyle is through recycling. Every day we are confronted with the growing issue of single-use items that are detrimental to the environment. Thankfully, sustainability is growing as a concept and people now have many options to help them live a greener lifestyle through recycling.

Olio

Olio aims to bring neighbourhoods around the world together by sharing, gifting, and lending household items to each other for free. From kitchen appliances to linen – and everything in between – the app aims to nurture sustainable communities.  

Vinted

A popular second-hand clothes and accessories platform that allows users to list any unwanted items to sell to anyone around the world. Sellers upload photos of garments and people can browse items like any fashion website, only the items are used, creating a sustainability-focussed fashion movement.

Too Good to Go

This ingenious concept helps fight against food waste by connecting people with stores and restaurants that have unsold, surplus food. Instead of throwing out surplus food items, the app allows customers to purchase the food at reduced prices.

iRecycle

This US-based app helps people sort their recycling correctly. The app helps you browse the materials you have to recycle and then connects you with the relevant recycling agents for safer recycling processes.

Honourable mention: Freecycle

Although not an app per se, this non-profit movement allows people to gift and share unwanted items in their hometowns for free. The idea is to reduce landfills and waste by giving and reusing items and growing a community of like-minded sustainable sharers.

Shopping

Our consumer-driven economy has created a strain on the environment from supply chain demands, shipping, and waste. From food to products, we rely on technology to satisfy all aspects of our shopping needs. Luckily, there are many apps available to help us shop sustainably. 

Giki

Giki stands for “Get Informed, Know your Impact” and is an app that helps people and businesses understand their own carbon footprint. It offers solutions to help reduce one’s carbon footprint, from suggesting ways to recycle and companies to choose that drive sustainability.

Think Dirty

This clever app helps you understand exactly what ingredients are inside the cosmetic, personal care, and household products you use. Simply scan the barcode of a product and the app will prived a list of the ingredients and offer alternative greener options for you to use.

Good On You

This app allows consumers to check the eco-rating of their favourite fashion brands to see how sustainable their operations really are. It shows the impact of leading fashion brands to inform conscious fashionistas’ choice of apparel.

GreenChoice Now

This app helps you find out the nutritional value of your grocery items, including their carbon footprint. Simply tell the app your dietary requirements and it will give you a wide range of suggestions for healthier, lower carbon footprint options. You can see each item’s nutrition, processing, food safety, and environmental impact scores to help you shop greener. 

Technology

The technology space is a key driver in providing access to sustainably-focussed initiatives and processes to the world. At the touch of a button, people and businesses are able to make changes that have a significant impact on helping fight against the environmental challenges facing our planet.

Ecosia

This amazing concept helps people plant trees without leaving their homes. Ecosia is a web browser extension that plants trees with the money it gets from people browsing the internet on its browser. Every search using the browser results in a tree being planted in a region of the world that desperately needs it.

NASA Earth Now

This web application allows users to monitor the condition of the world in real time using NASA’s satellite technology. You can see an overview of the current height of sea levels, atmospheric carbon dioxide readings, and even forest fires and volcanic eruptions as they occur. 

Transportation

We all know that the transportation sector contributes a major amount of carbon emissions globally. With worldwide drives to lower the number of vehicles on the road, including shifts to eco-vehicles and work-from-home hybrids, there are also many apps that can help you reduce your transportation emissions.

Carma Carpooling

This app allows people to share rides with anyone in their vicinity. Users can browse profiles of potential ride-sharers, send messages and invite friends. The cost of the ride is shared among passengers and world out to roughly €0.20 per km. 

BlaBlaCar

Another great carpooling app that allows you to create a profile and join rides at a fraction of the cost. In addition to regular carpool rides, the app also allows you to browse buses for local and international travel across Europe.

Greenwheels

This app allows you to rent a car for a journey. You can pick up a fuel-powered or electric vehicle from one of the many destinations around the Netherlands, use it to get to where you need to go and drop it off at a location when you’re done.  

Easy sustainability

It’s never been easier to live a sustainability-conscious lifestyle thanks to these amazing web and mobile applications.

We all have to play our part in preserving our planet for future generations. Luckily, technology is allowing us to raise our green consciousness and adapt our lifestyles to be more ethical and sustainable.

How many of these sustainable apps are you using?

Mario Grunitz

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