BetterPoints hits 10 million sustainable journeys
8 October was Clean Air Day, ‘the UK’s largest air pollution campaign’. And, as if we’d planned it, the number of active or sustainable travel journeys made by BetterPoints users had just passed 10 million.
To mark Clean Air Day, we created a special medal for users of our app who walk or cycle today. And we launched our Autumn Challenge this week, in association with Forestry England, which will celebrate the environmental role of trees.
Every year, air pollution causes up to 36,000 deaths in the UK. The World Health Organisation and the UK Government recognise that air pollution is the largest environmental health risk we face today.
We share that concern. At BetterPoints, we are committed to helping businesses and local authorities improve their impact on the air we breathe and clean up the planet.
Our technology enables organisations to change habits at scale for cleaner air and better health. Since 2010, it has facilitated the mitigation of an estimated 5 million kg of CO2 emissions – we aim to double that by December next year.
We have helped European cities such as Bologna to encourage people out of cars, UK local authorities such as Warwickshire to promote active and sustainable travel, and universities such as Sheffield to improve transport on and around campus. In Leicestershire, we are helping the local councils to promote and evaluate their pop-up infrastructures as they emerge from lockdown.
BetterPoints solutions incentivise positive behaviour change and measure impact in mobility, health & wellbeing in climate change. Our mobile app tracks and analyses transport modes and journey characteristics using a sophisticated combination of technologies. We use targeted messaging and rewards to encourage people into pursuing activities until they become habits – such as commuting by bicycle, walking to the shops or using ‘park and stride’ schemes.
But we can do more, too. For WWF’s Cities team, we built a unique travel impact calculator to help people understand the impact of their everyday travel decisions and encourage them to change mobility behaviours.
