This is a mapping application created by Zappos using google maps. Every time someone buys a product the model flashes up on the map over the place where it was bought. Wouldn't it be good to see something similar for carbon savings. Every time a person or a company manages to reduce their energy use or meets a target they get a little credit through a tag on the map. Zoom in further and you would be able to see who is making a difference on your street or your highstreet. If sustainability is about behaviour change its worth remembering that people definitely start to act differently when they are in front of the eyes of the others. A few people have been suggesting this to google and they have said that people should do it themselves for now. Lets hope they have something up their sleeve. After all lets face it the business model couldn't be that hard to crack!
I completely agree, I can see so much potential in google map , it s completely underused yet ...
ReplyDeleteWhat zappo managed to do is truly amazing. They gather data from all their suppliers.
Doing that for carbon emission should be more difficult. Of course it should be possible to offer an API that would link a public database on C02 and add a geolocalisation function for these data.
As you know every company has its own way to measure and to manage their co2 footprint, so gathering data from completely decentralized sources should be difficult.
Such mashup would have huge potential like and it could attract many corporations ( it s free , easily integrated )
I remember I made a little business plan on my own to help every buses company to enter/update data using google public transit API : http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/#mdy If you would have centralized and details information about timetable , price , journey of every buses in UK , less people would take their car ( such information provided by each company is not enough )