FoodPrint is an app that minimizes global carbon footprint by encouraging personal change in daily food habits. FoodPrint encourages sustainable dietary habits by completing impactful challenges and reduces food waste by keeping inventory of your food at home. This project was completed independently at 24-hour hackathon, yuHacks. Competing with 250+ participants, FoodPrint was awarded “Best Environment-Focused Hack”.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
The Problem
Systemic racism is putting black women’s lives at risk
The world has only 8% of carbon budget left. If we don't pay attention to the carbon budget, it increases the chance of a host of global problems: the loss of coral reefs, more severe weather events and changes in crops that could lead to further food scarcity.
According to studies, the entire food system – which includes the production, packaging, transportation and disposal of everything we eat – accounts for 21-37% of all human-produced greenhouse gas emissions.
In Canada, the average carbon footprint per person is 15.6 tonnes. How? Well, food accounts for 10-30% of a household's carbon footprint. To add:
FoodPrint enables users to reduce their food carbon footprint by practicing sustainability through impactful daily challenges and reduce food waste by keeping inventory of their food at home.
Developing a Feasible Plan
As a first-time solo hacker, I knew I had to use my time efficiently due to the 24-hour time constraint and the big workload. I started off with a basic plan as a guide to meet my deadline.
What is my Carbon Footprint?
Defining the Problem of Climate Change
I decided to choose the Environment Challenge at the hackathon, creating sustainable solutions in response to climate change. As I performed general research, I found majority of my interest was centred in household carbon footprint and food. From my personal experiences, I felt that food waste was something I’m admittedly guilty of, and was determined to somehow incorporate a solution to this within my product.
I took this online footprint calculator, which asked me a variety of questions, from how big my house is, how much I travel, to how much trash I have compared to my neighbours and how often I eat meat. I was fascinated by the food consumption category, which was significantly greater than the others.
According to this source, if everyone lived like me, we would need 4.2 earths, which is a bit below USA’s average of 5.
What is my Carbon Footprint?
Understanding the User
Considering this hackathon was virtual, I used my resources and asked my peers a few questions about their daily food habits to help me define a common problem. Knowing that this might produce bias results, gathering information from omnivorous peers did help me better see the problem at hand. I used a few questions provided by the ecological footprint quiz I took earlier:
Interview Results
People want to live more sustainably
Using all the user research conducted from 9 peers (gen z), here are two insights I found:
Killing three birds with one stone
The Three Pillars
Answer 8 simple questions to better understand the current carbon footprint of your food as a start to your climate action journey.
FoodPrint provides you a variety of challenges to help you reduce your food carbon footprint. Can’t commit? Use the filter and start simple with small impactful actions such as “Composting your food waste for two weeks.” Find a challenge that works for you!
Find all your active challenges in the “My Challenges” tab with countdowns and daily reminders to keep you on track.
FoodPrint also suggests a variety of foods with low carbon footprints as you add items to your grocery list.
Finished shopping? FoodPrint automatically syncs your shopping list to your “Inventory”, telling you what food is in your fridge and when it expires. As these ingredients leave your fridge, swipe right on the item and the food is removed from your inventory.
See how much water, CO2, forested land, and food you saved from your climate action journey. FoodPrint simplifies your food carbon footprint statistics, so you understand your impact.
