Negawatt zeros in on enhancing ESG through maximum employee and stakeholder involvement

Negawatt’s Zero2 mobile app helps not only general users but also your employees and stakeholders lead a low-carbon lifestyle and gain attractive incentives while boosting your company’s ESG performance.

ESG initiatives are typically led by management top-down with minimal employee and stakeholder engagement. The reasons are four-fold: the lack of budget to reward or encourage employees and stakeholders to practice ESG in their daily lives; not knowing where to start; difficult to record and centralize the ESG efforts of every individual; and not empowered to actively contribute to ESG in real life. All these lead to ineffective ESG results. “We call this ESG 1.0, which is not a successful direction to follow,” says Arthur Lam, Co-founder and CEO of Negawatt.

To solve these challenges, Negawatt has kickstarted a change for companies to evolve from ESG 1.0 to ESG 2.0, changing the top-down approach into a bottom-up approach – engaging every employee and stakeholder to voluntarily and persistently participate in ESG activities.

“Boosting employee initiative and enthusiasm is the key to success in promoting ESG 2.0,” Lam says. “This is done through our Zero2 app which employees and stakeholders can use every day as a platform to jointly make an impact in green living.”

The concept of the Zero2 platform has been recently recognized by the United Nations and has won the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Achievement Awards Hong Kong 2023. This outstanding achievement brings ESG 2.0 a huge step forward.

A sustainable ESG reward platform

The Zero2 app provides incentives in which users can earn points (Zero Coins) after completing carbon-reduction tasks, such as recycling clothes; reducing the use of plastic; bringing your own shopping bag; uploading utilities bills to show that you have reduced the use of water, gas and electricity; using your own cutlery when ordering takeout from restaurants; and walking instead of taking transportation. Points earned on the app can redeem discounts and coupons at selected merchants.

The most striking feature of Zero2 lies in its collection of all carbon reduction data of every employee and stakeholder to become the company’s ESG achievements, meaning that it can be used at an individual and a corporate level.

We have won Overall UNSDG Achievement Awards 2023 for Climate Action under SME Category with our ESG gamification app - Zero2

“In Zero2, ‘zero’ means zero carbon emissions, ‘2’ refers to both you and I, because we cannot do it alone; we need everyone to work together,” explains Lam.

Setting a shining example as the largest community ESG engagement programme
Negawatt joined hands with the Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS) to launch “Community ESG Programme” as part of HKHS’s 75th anniversary activities themed “Creating Homes for Sustainable Living”. 

From 1 July to 31 December 2023, residents of HKHS’s 20 housing estates, which include 150 buildings, can download Zero2 app to digitize their daily green activities in the form of games.

Residents can start with “clothing, food, housing and transportation” to record their carbon reduction actions and thereby sustain an eco-friendly and low-carbon lifestyle. As they complete carbon reduction tasks, points will be earned to redeem discounts from over 600 shops and restaurants.

In addition, fabulous gifts, including home appliances and theme park accommodation packages, will be awarded to the top ten residents with the greatest carbon reductions. The resident with the highest carbon reduction will receive the grand prize of an electric car!

Results are encouraging. Over 10,000 residents have joined within a month, forming the largest ESG community in Hong Kong. Initial statistics show that the whole community has recycled approximately 21 tons of items, including plastics, paper, glass bottles and clothing. When they buy food from green merchants, they did not take plastic bags and disposable cutlery. The Zero2 app also recorded a walking distance of 65,933 kilometers by the group, which is equivalent to burning 3,277,440 calories.

In total, the Zero2 app has saved 391 tons of carbon dioxide for Hong Kong, and planting 16,300 trees in an area comparable to three Victoria Park. What’s more, residents going out more often can keep their physical and mental help in shape. “It’s definitely a win-win situation,” describes Lam.

Major corporations are teaming up with Negawatt. One of them is the world’s largest commercial real estate and investment firm CBRE, which is engaging not only employees, but also landlords and tenants to improve building efficiencies, reduce electricity consumption and lower carbon emissions by completing carbon reduction missions at Zero2.

Expanding the Zero2 concept to build a smart city in the Middle East

This February, Negawatt signed a strategic partnership with Catalyst, a tech accelerator in the United Arab Emirates, to introduce green technologies to reduce carbon emissions in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City. This upcoming smart city has a target population of 50,000 and aims to generate nearly 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2050.

Lam reveals that Negawatt will introduce energy-saving technologies and launch a mobile app to integrate environmental protection through gamification in which every user is a Planet Hero against global warming, while incorporating point systems and rewards to achieve carbon reduction.

More projects are in the pipeline for a green, sustainable, low-carbon lifestyle through the unifying power of the Zero2 app. Stay tuned on Zero2’s website at www.zero2.app.

Engage your employees to form a corporate ESG community

Companies can mobilize their employees to form a corporate community through the Zero2 mobile app. As employees complete low-carbon activities and obtain rewards, the company can also benefit from their low-carbon records and data in its ESG performance. Over time, these low-carbon activities become sustainable habits as employees happily and willingly make a change in lifestyle.

“Zero2 can make it enjoyable and easier for companies and individuals to put ESG into practice so that every person can become a Planet Hero to achieve a truly sustainable and regenerative economy,” Lam reiterates.

Companies can set up their own corporate ESG community by contacting Arthur Lam at arthur.lam@negawatt.co.