Becoming More Eco-Friendly One Day at a Time
Are you interested in becoming more eco-friendly? Maybe you need a little help, a nudge here and there, or a simple reminder to do so? Well, we’ve got an app for you: OneSave/Day. OneSave/Day is an easy-to-use app designed by a young man who saw the impacts of climate change, yet felt a little overwhelmed at being able to make a difference. So, what did he do? He made an app for that! Now, people all over the world can use the app to become more eco-friendly one day at a time.
Just imagine the impact we could have on this planet if each person did just one eco-friendly action per day. This would then naturally migrate into two per day. Eventually, we’d see countless people making all kinds of sustainable lifestyle changes. What’s so simple is it all starts with one simple action per day. Better yet…you don’t even need to remember to do it. The app will remember for you and give you a daily task to help you become more eco-friendly.
Before we get into the app, we wanted to share a little bit about its creator. This will give you some insight into how this idea came to fruition, straight from the man himself.
Maxime’s Story: How I Came Up with OneSave/Day
“First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Maxime Leroux. I am 21 years old, half French and half Austrian. I am currently studying International Business & Administration as my Bachelor’s degree in Marseille, France. While I have never been particularly interested in climate change, I was becoming overwhelmed with all its negative consequences. So, I wanted to start taking action and mobilizing other people who felt like me. This is my story.
“I have never really been interested in climate change. It just wasn’t part of my life when growing up. Two years ago, I suddenly was overwhelmed with all the dooming news and became aware of the negative and irreversible effects global warming has on our ecosystem. So, I took a look at my own lifestyle and wanted to take action, but didn’t really know where and how to start. I felt overwhelmed and decided to tackle climate change with the simplest possible method: One eco action per day, every day.
“I started to pick up plastic on the ground when waiting for the bus, eating less meat, and taking shorter showers, in short, I lived more consciously.
“This method worked really well for me as I did not change my lifestyle from one day to the other, but integrated eco-friendly behaviour in my everyday life which quickly transformed into habits.
“However, my impact was still very small.”
Creating OneSave/Day
“I needed to find a solution to mobilize more people like me, who want to take action, but did not really know how to start. Instantly, I thought about a mobile app, usable for anyone on the planet. So, I spent day and night for the next two weeks learning the basics of coding on YouTube.
“The result: OneSave/Day, an easy-to-use app, displaying one eco-challenge every day.
“The key rule was and still is: It must be as simple as possible, so even people like me, who are not particularly interested in climate change, can take action and responsible lifestyles can become accessible to all of us.”
Turning OneSave/Day Into a Global Movement
“One year later, the community already grew over 10,000 users who have tried out the prototype and the app’s purpose became true: One action a day, multiplied by a global community, can truly make a difference.
“The feedback from our users was exciting, as many reported they made a shift in their lifestyle with our simple and direct approach. Others said they were able to incite parents and friends to take daily action.
“I spent the next couple of months questioning the users about the app to find out what they needed to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. In the beginning of 2021, I started working together with an app development agency to build this full-scale version of OneSave/Day, including the daily ‘Saves’ (that’s what we call the eco-challenges), a digital ‘public square’ (a space in which users from all around the world can ask questions and share their experiences to spread knowledge and best practice), and a feature to track one’s personal progress to stay motivated along the way.
“This full-scale app launched on iOS, and became available for Android in the beginning of September.”
Gaining Recognition and Support
“Then, just a few days before launching, I received a phone call from the President of the Jane Goodall Institute in France. He told me Jane Goodall read an article about OneSave/Day and wants to support us in our endeavor as OneSave/Day puts into practice what she has always claimed: “Every individual and every day counts in the fight against climate change and only if we act all together we can make a change”. Further, she sees our app as a tool to reach and mobilize an entire generation and beyond. In the coming months, Jane Goodall will be actively included into our app with her own eco-challenges and topic groups to help our users to adopt more eco-friendly habits and routines.
“Finally, one could argue individual actions are not the solution to climate change. It is true, we need industries to change in order to reduce pollution and to mitigate negative effects. However, companies and industries act upon our demand. As studies show, our individual actions cause social ripple effects in the norms and values of people around us, leading to the bottom-up support needed for structural solutions. It all starts with us.”
The OneSave/Day App
As you can tell from Maxime’s story, it all starts with doing something. Making a commitment to do one individual action a day can help you become more eco-friendly. If millions or billions of people do the same, it will have a global impact.
Whether you’re new to “being green”, or you consider yourself to be a sustainability expert, you can still benefit. Not everyone is perfect. Not everyone thinks of, or remembers to do, green activities on a daily basis. Sometimes it just takes retraining your mind to the point where such actions become second nature. At the very least, download the app and use the public space to share your tips and green practices. You might even learn something new yourself along the way.
When we start incorporating sustainable living into our own lives, we will request and demand the same from others. We will want our friends, businesses we deal with and the local community on board. It starts at home. It truly starts with us.
You can download the app (both iOS & Android) here: http://onelink.to/onesaveaday
If you want to connect with OneSave/Day, you can do so on Instagram: https://instagram.com/onesaveaday or via the website: https://onesaveaday.org.
Then, stay tuned in November for a special episode of The Biofriendly Podcast where Noel and Jacob sit down with Maxime to discuss the app.
With the OneSave/Day mission being to “become a crucial part of the overall climate change solution by turning millions of lifestyles into more sustainable ones“, this is a goal we, at Biofriendly Planet, can definitely get behind!
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