The Power of Numbers: Sustaio’s Scorecard Impact Savings at Scale
Numbers worth paying attention to
Are you familiar with the IPCC? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a United Nations working group of scientists and experts researching human-induced climate change, the potential impacts, and possible interventions. The group's latest report is causing big headline-making waves in climate news, sounding a global humanitarian alarm (for a good reason).
The warning: extreme weather and human suffering are inevitable even if the global temperature rises stays under 1.5ºC (the working target).
In this report, climate scientists and experts are saying it louder for the people in the back (our global leaders): we need to act now to prevent further irreversible damage to people, the planet, and our economy. While the IPCC's primary audience is policymakers, these headlines affect individuals. Heavy headlines leave many distressed in action paralysis by the prospect of how they can make a difference.
To cure ongoing climate-news-blues, one can practice self-care and apply a healthy dose of action. Sustaio's core belief is that we can mitigate climate change at the source: behavior. We need EVERYONE to shift business-as-usual practices to climate-smart strategies.
There are two scenarios to stay within the safe threshold of our earth's systemic boundaries that can work in tandem:
A SMALL group of individuals making a LOT of big changes (INDUSTRY).
Each of us making little changes where possible, collectively (CONSUMERS).
Our focus is on the latter —and we'll show you why. But first, let's talk about HOW individuals can make the shift in daily life i.e., where to start.
The Power of One
Good Habit Goals scorecard: Keeping Devices as Long as Possible
Let's take an example of a do-less habit. The practice here is to upgrade your devices only as needed or mend them to run as efficiently as possible.
Jane (our fictional climate hero) has a working phone but wants a new shiny ‘does-it-brew-my-coffee-too’ edition. Instead of buying the latest smartphone when their current phone is operating just fine, Jane can keep it, repair the broken screen (finally), and passively save 12,000 gallons of water (over a year) by simply not over-consuming and buying a new phone EVERY YEAR.
That's a lot of water, 480 showers, to be exact. Over a year's worth of daily rinses (squeaky clean!)
Now, what if Jane’s co-workers (let's assume a staff of 55) also kept their smartphones in use as long as possible? Their potential collective savings would be 660,000 gallons of water; enough to fill an entire Olympic-sized pool!
When one person adopts one habit, we get inspired.
55 people keeping their devices longer could potentially save 660,000 gallons of water.
Water savings calculated per person, per phone, over a year of use.
That’s water is enough to fill an entire Olympic-sized pool!
A typical Olympic-size pool is 50 meters long, 25 meters wide, and two meters deep.
Small Steps, Big Strides
830,465 pounds of CO2e =
276.7 laps around the earth
Assuming 1 lap = 24,901 miles and a vehicle emits 404 grams of CO2 per mile.
Our climate efforts are measurable. When people have numbers they can use that information to make better decisions. Sustaio is QUANTIFYING daily impact to help you make better, climate-smarter decisions. Sustaio users can see their potential positive impact grow over time by altering their habits. Since the launch of the Sustaio Score (BETA) in December 2021 until now (March 2022), our user base is 250 strong. Our community of climate heroes proves collective power is possible, even with small numbers.
Since last year, Sustaio's users have collectively quantified potential impact savings of 830,465 pounds of CO2e and 13.2 million gallons of water through adopting climate-smart reductions.
Also worth celebrating: saving money! Currently, the average Sustaio member potentially saves $497 a year (climate-smart habits do pay off).
1 million people +
1 habit each =
13.5 trips
to the moon
(of avoided CO2e)
1 trip to the moon = 95,560,000 miles. The average habit quantifies a potential saving of 1286.84 pounds CO2e.
Power of the people
There are 122 million households in the U.S. (2020 census); that's 331 million people (2.5 people per household).
People = Influence.
What if all U.S. households qualified and quantified their climate journey with Sustaio? We would call it a moonshot!
The impact of 0.3% (1 million people) of the American population adopting just 1 climate-smart habit (per person) is staggering.
1 million people adopting 1 habit could save enough emissions to fuel 13.5 trips to the moon!
Keep that in mind the next time a billionaire launches into outer space.
Action Items: qualified & quantified actions
Actions Items
The team at Sustaio has done the heavy-lifting to translate proven climate-impact reduction solutions into several Action Items, climate-smart actions that anyone can begin taking today.
The average potential impact savings were quantified from a curated set of easy-to-implement habits below & live on my.sustaio.com.
What will be your one action?
Household habits