The Climatarian Challenge App
A$12,241
of $12,000 targetyrs ago
Successful on 14th Apr 2016 at 3:00AM.
Please visit Less Meat Less Heat for further information and our latest news and developments.
Climate change is a problem we all face, and frankly there’s not enough being done about it from above. The agreement world leaders recently signed in Paris may lead to warming exceeding 3°C by as early as 2040 - that’s highly dangerous!
What if we told you there was a simple thing you could do to make yourself and the planet healthier?
Eating less meat, specifically beef and lamb, drastically decreases the impact of the meat industry on the climate, plus it is good for your health. A major weakness of international climate change negotiations and resultant policy measures is that they do not address the highly important area of meat consumption. That's precisely where we come in!
FACT: Emissions from the livestock industry account for half of Australia’s and a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore we eat approximately 13 times the amount of red meat* that is considered healthy by leading medical studies from Harvard and twice the maximum number of servings per week as recommended by Australian government health guidelines.
FACT: If we all reduce our red meat consumption down to a standard serving once a week we can actually avoid runaway climate change and keep warming below 2°C. However if we transition to producing most of our electricity from renewable energy but continue eating more and more red meat we are headed up to 6°C of warming - now that is catastrophic!
Many people are not aware of the impact on the climate their food choices have or that different types of meat have vastly different impacts on the climate. We want to turn this around.
We at Less Meat Less Heat want to educate and advocate for smarter food choices that are compatible with a safe climate and a secure future for all of humanity. We plan to do this through The Climatarian Challenge which requires the development of a smartphone app. This is where you come in.
*Please note: We define red meat " that is dark red before being cooked" such as beef or lamb. We do not include pork in this definition.
Climate change is a problem we all face, and frankly there’s not enough being done about it from above. The agreement world leaders recently signed in Paris may lead to warming exceeding 3°C by as early as 2040 - that’s highly dangerous!
What if we told you there was a simple thing you could do to make yourself and the planet healthier?
Eating less meat, specifically beef and lamb, drastically decreases the impact of the meat industry on the climate, plus it is good for your health. A major weakness of international climate change negotiations and resultant policy measures is that they do not address the highly important area of meat consumption. That's precisely where we come in!
FACT: Emissions from the livestock industry account for half of Australia’s and a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore we eat approximately 13 times the amount of red meat* that is considered healthy by leading medical studies from Harvard and twice the maximum number of servings per week as recommended by Australian government health guidelines.
FACT: If we all reduce our red meat consumption down to a standard serving once a week we can actually avoid runaway climate change and keep warming below 2°C. However if we transition to producing most of our electricity from renewable energy but continue eating more and more red meat we are headed up to 6°C of warming - now that is catastrophic!
Many people are not aware of the impact on the climate their food choices have or that different types of meat have vastly different impacts on the climate. We want to turn this around.
We at Less Meat Less Heat want to educate and advocate for smarter food choices that are compatible with a safe climate and a secure future for all of humanity. We plan to do this through The Climatarian Challenge which requires the development of a smartphone app. This is where you come in.
*Please note: We define red meat " that is dark red before being cooked" such as beef or lamb. We do not include pork in this definition.
Our Vision
Small actions can lead to big changes. Cutting back on beef and lamb and treating them like a delicacy for special occasions is one such action. For example, a household only needs to eat two steaks a week or one beef or lamb roast a fortnight to undo all the good their solar panels do for the climate over the same timeframe.
Research shows that beef and lamb have by far the biggest carbon footprint of any type of meat. Hence, in the absence of meaningful action on climate change from our leaders, eating less beef and lamb is a simple way we can all drastically reduce our emissions. The climatarian diet is one that considers the carbon footprint of the different types of meat consumed.
We are a group of concerned food lovers who have decided to change our eating habits for both our health and a safer future. We understand that diet change can be hard, so we are here to help. We plan to develop an app, which aims to both educate Australians about the impact of their food choices on the climate and thus promote a carbon-conscious climatarian diet.
Research shows that beef and lamb have by far the biggest carbon footprint of any type of meat. Hence, in the absence of meaningful action on climate change from our leaders, eating less beef and lamb is a simple way we can all drastically reduce our emissions. The climatarian diet is one that considers the carbon footprint of the different types of meat consumed.
We are a group of concerned food lovers who have decided to change our eating habits for both our health and a safer future. We understand that diet change can be hard, so we are here to help. We plan to develop an app, which aims to both educate Australians about the impact of their food choices on the climate and thus promote a carbon-conscious climatarian diet.
The Project
We plan to engage the Australian public on a wide scale with the launch of The Climatarian Challenge on the 1st of July. Our two key areas of focus will be:
Your money will help us to develop the "Climatarian Challenge" app.
1. Education: Our website will be a credible and easy to use source of information to raise awareness about the environmental and health benefits of a low-carbon climatarian diet. The site will engage people with interesting and inspiring personal stories and provide delicious climatarian recipes as well as hints to help people along the way.
2. The Climatarian Challenge: This month-long challenge will take people on a fun and interesting quest of self-discovery. This challenge will help participants transition towards a diet that is better for their health and better for the climate. The Climatarian Challenge smartphone app will form a central part of this challenge.
Your money will help us to develop the "Climatarian Challenge" app.
The App
The mock-up screenshots below gives an idea of how the smartphone app may look like and will work to help people keep track of their meals and progress during the the challenge.
You will start the month-long challenge with an allocation of points which represent your carbon budget. This will be called your “carbon foodprint” and is calculated based on what we all need to work towards in order to limit climate change to below 2°C. For every meal you will input both the portion size and type of meat it contains, if any. The app will then calculate and deduct the number of points relative to the carbon footprint of this meal. You will quickly learn the relative impact of each food choice you make – lots of points deducted for beef and lamb, far fewer if you switch to chicken or fish and even less if you enjoy a meal without meat altogether.
You’re a winner if you end the challenge with points remaining. The more points you have saved, the better climatarian you are, but at the very least you can pass the challenge if you do not run out of points by the end of the challenge. You can then share your final score with your friends and family, so you can compete with them in the climatarian stakes! (pun intended!). If we see you are quickly running out of points and may not make it through the rest of the challenge we will do our best to help you. This help can come in the form of climatarian recipe ideas, nearby restaurants offering climate-friendly climatarian options at special prices for participants, cooking classes and some motivational quotes to boot.
We want to help people to learn the impact that their food choices have on the climate, and to give them the tools they need to make climate-friendly diet choices. If you don’t pass the challenge the first time around don’t worry - you’re welcome to try again! The second time around you will know exactly what it takes to win!
You will start the month-long challenge with an allocation of points which represent your carbon budget. This will be called your “carbon foodprint” and is calculated based on what we all need to work towards in order to limit climate change to below 2°C. For every meal you will input both the portion size and type of meat it contains, if any. The app will then calculate and deduct the number of points relative to the carbon footprint of this meal. You will quickly learn the relative impact of each food choice you make – lots of points deducted for beef and lamb, far fewer if you switch to chicken or fish and even less if you enjoy a meal without meat altogether.
You’re a winner if you end the challenge with points remaining. The more points you have saved, the better climatarian you are, but at the very least you can pass the challenge if you do not run out of points by the end of the challenge. You can then share your final score with your friends and family, so you can compete with them in the climatarian stakes! (pun intended!). If we see you are quickly running out of points and may not make it through the rest of the challenge we will do our best to help you. This help can come in the form of climatarian recipe ideas, nearby restaurants offering climate-friendly climatarian options at special prices for participants, cooking classes and some motivational quotes to boot.
We want to help people to learn the impact that their food choices have on the climate, and to give them the tools they need to make climate-friendly diet choices. If you don’t pass the challenge the first time around don’t worry - you’re welcome to try again! The second time around you will know exactly what it takes to win!
Rewards & Recognition
Less Meat Less Heat needs you to help make our vision real. With your support we will have the ability to successfully launch our app, the first step towards a full scale launch of this wonderful organisation on the 1st July, 2016. Every pledge made to Less Meat Less Heat deserves to be recognised and rewarded. With every pledge you make, Less Meat Less Heat will show their appreciation with the following reward-scheme. Your pledge means a lot to us and we cannot thank you enough, but we will definitely try.
How The Funds Will Be Used
Your money will be spent on designing and developing the centerpiece of our campaign, The Climatarian Challenge smartphone app. The chart below shows the breakdown of the target, which includes other costs such as the Pozible campaign fees, transaction fees as well as reward production and delivery/shipping fees.
After getting quotes back from a variety of Australian app development firms we have chosen Melbourne App Development as they not only offered the best value-for-money, but were also the most passionate and excited about the project, The Climatarian Challenge and the vision of Less Meat Less Heat overall.
Melbourne App Development have quoted us $10,000 for the bare-bones version of the app and to be available in both the Android and Apple app stores. The fully featured version however will cost an additional $4,000. Let’s surpass our target and get these cool features as well!
- Recipe suggestions
- Notifications based on your progress
- Leader board showing your progress compared to your friends, family and the current national average
- Many more to be announced!
We plan to update everyone who has pledged at every stage of the development of the app. We will ask for your feedback and ideas at every stage as well so you will form a part of our wider app development team without having to spend countless nights studying app development coding languages!
If you all do a great job of pledging your support, get your friends and family to do the same and we manage to surpass our target, the rest of the money will go towards spreading the big idea to as many Australian eyes and ears as possible. We are in the process of developing a marketing plan which varies in scope depending on how much funding we have at the time of launch, we will show you exactly where each cent will go and how it performed once the marketing activity is finished. Finally if there is any money left over after that then we may actually be able to pay some salaries of the key coordinators involved in making The Climatarian Challenge a reality - we are all volunteers currently and do not get paid for the work we do.
After getting quotes back from a variety of Australian app development firms we have chosen Melbourne App Development as they not only offered the best value-for-money, but were also the most passionate and excited about the project, The Climatarian Challenge and the vision of Less Meat Less Heat overall.
Melbourne App Development have quoted us $10,000 for the bare-bones version of the app and to be available in both the Android and Apple app stores. The fully featured version however will cost an additional $4,000. Let’s surpass our target and get these cool features as well!
- Recipe suggestions
- Notifications based on your progress
- Leader board showing your progress compared to your friends, family and the current national average
- Many more to be announced!
We plan to update everyone who has pledged at every stage of the development of the app. We will ask for your feedback and ideas at every stage as well so you will form a part of our wider app development team without having to spend countless nights studying app development coding languages!
If you all do a great job of pledging your support, get your friends and family to do the same and we manage to surpass our target, the rest of the money will go towards spreading the big idea to as many Australian eyes and ears as possible. We are in the process of developing a marketing plan which varies in scope depending on how much funding we have at the time of launch, we will show you exactly where each cent will go and how it performed once the marketing activity is finished. Finally if there is any money left over after that then we may actually be able to pay some salaries of the key coordinators involved in making The Climatarian Challenge a reality - we are all volunteers currently and do not get paid for the work we do.
The Challenges
We understand that meat and especially beef and lamb are a big part of the Australian culture as well as many other cultures around the world, especially amongst the growing middle class in both developed and developing countries. This is why we think that shifting people’s behaviour will not be an easy task. We have a dedicated research team which have been studying the academic literature around behaviour change, habits and cultural norms just to name a few key areas.
Furthermore, we have enlisted the help of leading experts in the field of social marketing who have worked across academia, the private sector and government institutions such as Vic Health. Finally our marketing and communications team collectively have decades of experience in all areas of both disciplines so we have plenty of talent and skills in house too. We are currently working with Roy Morgan Research to ensure we fully understand the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in relation to meat consumption.
Ultimately some of our strategies will work and some will not. We will monitor and review the results of all of our marketing and communications strategies and tactics on an ongoing basis and optimise towards the most effective ones driving the greatest and most lasting behaviour change.
Furthermore, we have enlisted the help of leading experts in the field of social marketing who have worked across academia, the private sector and government institutions such as Vic Health. Finally our marketing and communications team collectively have decades of experience in all areas of both disciplines so we have plenty of talent and skills in house too. We are currently working with Roy Morgan Research to ensure we fully understand the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in relation to meat consumption.
Ultimately some of our strategies will work and some will not. We will monitor and review the results of all of our marketing and communications strategies and tactics on an ongoing basis and optimise towards the most effective ones driving the greatest and most lasting behaviour change.
10 Climatarian Recipes
We have over 50 regular volunteers at Less Meat Less Heat and each person has their own story of how they became climatarians. Furthermore each of us has their favourite climatarian recipes which we would love to share with you. We have voted on our top 10 climatarian recipes which we will send to you via email, with each recipe including some information about the volunteer whose favourite recipe it is.
73 chosen / 927 available
Est. delivery is May 16
Less Meat Less Heat Tote
These stylish Less Meat Less Heat tote bags are both designed, made and printed right here in Melbourne. They come in two colours, orange or black. Please note that we will not ship outside of Australia (to keep our carbon footprint down). Pickup is available if you are in Melbourne - we are located in Collingwood. In addition to this reward you will also receive our 10 favourite hand-picked climatarian recipes.
15 chosen / 85 available
Est. delivery is May 16
Be Featured On Our Site
We will add a page on our website with a photo of a large field of cows and sheep. If you choose this reward, we will turn one of the cows into something more climate-friendly, such as a chicken or a vegetable with your name underneath. If you’d like it to be something from the sea (it may look out of place in a farm) we’ll see what we can do! In addition to this reward you can also choose to receive rewards from the lower pledge amount categories.
15 chosen / 85 available
Est. delivery is May 16
Be an App Beta Tester
That's right, you heard correctly. You can actually be one of the first people to test out the very first version of the app and provide feedback to the app development team which will be integrated into the final design. Very cool! In addition to this reward you can also choose to receive rewards from the lower pledge amount categories.
5 chosen / 45 available
Est. delivery is Jun 16
Ticket to Launch Party
We will be hosting an exclusive launch event as well as an after party which you will be invited to. The event will take place in Melbourne so you will be responsible for your own travel arrangements. Meet founder and CEO Mark Pershin as well as all of the volunteers that have helped get Less Meat Less Heat to this crucial point. There may even be a few celebrities! In addition to this reward you can also choose to receive rewards from the lower pledge amount categories.
1 chosen / 19 available
Est. delivery is Jul 16