Renuka Khatwani
Rishi Ladhad
Namrata Dond
Rabjoat Singh
Jatin Khare
Goa Institute of Management
Divya Singhal
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Cool the Globe is a citizen-led app that enables people and communities to take action in reducing carbon every day with daily targets. It tracks collective emissions saved through a global meter, thus providing a visual for the impact of small, united actions that create big differences. Organizations like schools, colleges, and communities can also use the app to bring about collective climate action. This app encourages accountability and cooperation among the people and hence aligns with SDG 13 by advocating for a sustainable future.
Cool the Globe is an innovative mobile application founded by Prachi Shevgaonkar, that enables individuals and communities to directly fight against climate change aligned with UN SDG 13 (Climate Action). The app encourages users to make small but impactful changes in their daily lives through offering them personalized daily carbon-reduction goals. A global meter tracks total progress, showing users the emissions saved by everyone participating with the app. This creates an atmosphere of community and collective responsibility through the illustration of how large-scale impact can be attained through individual actions on the environment.
The inspiration for Cool the Globe came from Prachi's personal experiences and her deep understanding that climate change is an issue affecting every facet of life. It all started as a family effort to reduce their carbon footprint. Friends and communities rallied around the initiative; the app has since grown to embrace millions of users around the globe. Today, it is used by countless schools, colleges, organizations, and even local governments, uniting communities in the pursuit of climate action.
Cool the Globe distills such a big concept that's relatable and accessible to both individuals and large business organizations, inviting everyone to participate. Cool the Globe is an easy platform for people to track and decrease their carbon emissions. It is, therefore, the simple solution to combatting climate change. The application was developed with the idea of promoting sustainability and environmental responsibility, hence fostering accountability and collective action as crucial elements in overcoming climate crises and creating a sustainable future.
When Prachi Shevgaonkar realized that citizens play a vital role in solving global issues, she decided to act against climate change. She asserts, "any major transformation requires the participation of ordinary citizens." Prachi’s journey began as a profoundly personal quest to uncover how she could bring about change, especially after she had traversed the length and breadth of India, where she witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of climate change on agriculture and sanitation. She said, "Climate change was the biggest villain of all. It affected everything."
Feeling responsible, Prachi and her father set a pretty ambitious target to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% within the period of one year. "I started making small changes in my life, which included cycling to college, recycling, composting, and even having solar panels installed", shared Prachi.
As Prachi tracked her activities, she realized that it had made the process almost a little fun and worthwhile. "It felt good that, at least at my own level, I was doing something," she said. The satisfaction drove her to let people know about her cause, and before long, others were collecting in support of her initiative. This collaboration was transformed into the Cool the Globe app, an application that will allow users to track their own carbon footprint reduction by doing simple, everyday activities. Prachi genuinely believes that "when a lot of people like us come together, the collective impact can be extraordinary." It sports an international meter with the amount of total emissions saved through its users. It has become a powerful instrument to inspire participation across the globe in fighting climate change.
Cool the Globe has had an enormous short-term impact as 100,000 users have collectively saved 6,000,000 kg of emissions, showing the immediate impact of small changes such as cycling to work, reducing waste at home, and tracking your carbon savings through an app.
"Our vision is to empower all citizen to shape the world and SDGs are blueprint towards shaping the world and Cool The Globe app is something which is aligned with Mission LiFE. Climate change affects everything and that's why larger idea is to involve young people", stated Prachi.
As one form of Global Meter application tracks a cumulative count of all users together in total emissions, individual behavior can be significantly influenced through shared responsibility. Long-term possibilities run into thousands: Prachi is confident that someday the service can attract 10 million users, which can reduce 600 million kilograms of emission. She has not lost her confidence; she still believes that the application can go beyond the ambitious goals set for it, keeping in mind that it had exceeded expectations all along. Meanwhile, the Global Meter is a must-have, vividly showing the growing influence of the efforts of the community in real time, which in turn fuels users' motivation to stay engaged and inspired.
This initiative makes climate action not only accessible but also measurable for individuals and organizations, as the app broadens its reach to schools, universities, and local governments. Cool The Globe encourages collective participation and cultivates a culture of sustainability, laying the groundwork for lasting positive environmental change.
Since its inception, Cool the Globe has experienced great success, and has been a boon for both society and the environment. To date over 100,000 users have registered in the application, from an individual user to corporation, and now it has access to almost 150 countries. An individual has free access to the application, and corporate subscriptions are between ₹300 and ₹500. Offsets are schemes that offset the emissions that users generate, mainly when their production exceeds what is needed to raise that money. The platform examines photos of activities with anomalies and verifies the validity of all claims related emission reduction.
Young people have fallen in love with the software and are now incorporating climate change into every aspect of their lives. While Prachi shares a heartwarming story about a 9-year-old child who reached out to her and described the actions she was taking to combat climate change, another user proudly stated that he had cut his emissions by more than 60 kg just by riding his bike to work. As most of Prachi's relations are part of the move, it has had unprecedented employee retention. Cool the Globe has also bred significant global responsibility among this more youthful workforce.
Her sister and father constitute a core team that is closely working to achieve business objectives. Their family-friendly strategy, new investments, and commitment to reinforcing the company culture have opened opportunities for growth. The corporate entity has expanded its reach in the market by introducing several new products to tap into emerging markets, thereby having a more influential role over social, environmental, and public interests. Prachi was awarded the Olive Crown Award by the International Advertising Association and named the young Green Crusader of the year in 2021.
Because of the innovative app that Prachi has created, she has been awarded by the finance minister of India as the 'Young Change-maker of the year 2022. She is also the first Indian citizen to be appointed on the advisory board of Climate Leadership Coalition, alongside the former Prime Minister of Finland. Selected by the Ministry of Environment, UNICEF, and UNDP, she represented India at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, where she was honored with the COP27 Young Scholar Award. She was honored as part of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia - Class of 2024. Her extraordinary journey was also highlighted in a Google TV campaign, inspired by her initiative, Cool The Globe.
Cool the Globe gamifies climate action and enables the users to cut down on their carbon footprint by making them take on daily sustainable activities like cycling, segregation of waste, or using less energy. It gives each user customized targets and challenges them to monitor savings in emissions toward a global goal. By incorporating a global meter into the app, the aesthetic impact is shown from collective users so that one wants to maintain their sustainability. This means small efforts in real time will actually result in noticeable changes to the environment. "Today its not about balancing on burden but they need to see this as an opportunity", shares Prachi while talking about the balancing profitability and sustainability.
This builds a kind of community using this app with which people share a common reason for emission reduction towards society. It reaches people, schools, and organizations, making climate action accessible at the personal and institutional levels. Prachi envisions a future that reaches 10 million people who will pledge to reduce 600 million kilograms of emissions. Therefore, it creates a global movement for climate change.
On an environmental level, Cool the Globe encourages the use of habits that save and consume less resources while emitting minimal harmful emissions. Thus, through tracking, a user is able to visualize how his or her individual effort affects the earth; it makes sustainable behavior much stronger. This innovation, other than helping individuals fight climate change, helps in achieving long-term environmental sustainability because it is inclusive, founded on a community.
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Cool the Globe is a citizen-led app that enables people and communities to take action in reducing carbon every day with daily targets. It tracks collective emissions saved through a global meter, thus providing a visual for the impact of small, united actions that create big differences. Organizations like schools, colleges, and communities can also use the app to bring about collective climate action. This app encourages accountability and cooperation among the people and hence aligns with SDG 13 by advocating for a sustainable future.
