Gipuzkoa gamifies sustainable lifestyles

Municipalities and their residents will be able to compete against each other thanks to an app

The Province of Gipuzkoa (in the Basque Country of Spain) informed last week that it will organize a 6-month contest involving the municipalities on its territory and the residents living in them. The Klima Bai! Contest, which will be carried out through an app, seeks to stimulate a change towards sustainability in the daily habits of the population with seven challenge categories: energy, food, textiles, water consumption, waste, sustainable mobility and biodiversity.

The rules for participation will be published next week in the Official Gazette of Gipuzkoa after being approved by the Governing Council. The bases will be published on the provincial website and the city councils and citizens will have one month from the publication of the same to sign up. 

Survey has shown that Gipuzkoans are already very ‘green conscious’

The way it will work is that the app with its corresponding web version, will raise a series of questions related to each of the seven areas of action and gives a score based on the answers. Registered households will try to score points in their particular ranking by carrying out a series of actions that the app will propose based on the initial questionnaire.

Klima Bai! is, thus, planned as a contest between municipalities, and the final score will be the sum of the scores of the participating households in each municipality. Officially, the municipalities will be the ones to register for the contest, and they must ensure that the households in their municipalities participate in this initiative. 

Those municipalities that achieve the highest score will be awarded one of the prizes (1^st prize of 40,000 euros, 2^nd prize of 20,000 euros and 3^rd prize of 10,000 euros), which each municipality will decide how to invest. Likewise, individual prizes are envisaged for citizens who obtain the most points in the form of vouchers for the consumption or use of electric cars, for example. 

The project, itself, was selected by the citizenry as part of the participatory budgeting campaign in 2020, so it is sure to enjoy a lot of interest once it is launched. That is also underscored by the fact that according to a recent survey by Gipuzkoa Department of the Environment, 85% of residents had taken some measures to fight against climate change.

This proportion is very high if we compare it with the average proportion in Europe - 49%. Among the main actions that were recorded were: the separation of garbage, avoiding the consumption of disposable items, the purchase of efficient appliances, the prioritization of buying in local establishments over online purchases, the commitment to local and proximity products, learning how to save energy at home or opting for public mobility or walking.