CitéGreen engages citizens to play and reduce their carbon footprint

The Company

CitéGreen is a French start-up created in June 2011 by three young entrepreneurs. Located in Paris, CitéGreen is a communication company using social media and the web to help companies, conscious consumers and public authorities reduce their carbon footprint in a playful way.

The challenge

CitéGreen developed an eponymous game which rewards citizens’ environment-friendly behaviour, such as recycling waste, saving energy or using shared or personal bikes. Players win points which they can redeem as gifts and vouchers offered by more than 60 partner companies (in food, fashion, leisure and cosmetic for example).

The company provides its game to French cities (Paris, Sèvres, Suresnes) who wish to attain sustainable development goals through a playful and innovative method.

In the case of cycling, CitéGreen needed a solution enabling it to reliably calculate the distance cycled by players and then convert it into points. A cycling game for personal bike users (in addition to public rental bike users) meant the company could find a market with players everywhere in France.

The satellite solution 

To evaluate the distance travelled by a cyclist, CitéGreen partnered with Moves, a tracking mobile application relying on GPS. The players download the app on their smartphone, thus enabling CitéGreen to calculate the points won. For instance, for each three km cycled, the player wins five points. In addition, the game sets up challenges incentivising specific behaviour that can win players additional points (such as cycling more than eight hours per week or cycling every week in winter time).

The Result

CitéGreen has already reached 45 000 players and is currently building partnerships with other local authorities who also find the game an appealing way of reaching specific sustainable development issues while providing a useful public service. The game has already reached 10% of players elsewhere in France, a figure which is expected to grow in the coming years.

“CiteGreen was an excellent way for Welcome Bio to get known, in an attractive and inexpensive manner” George Fisher, Welcome Bio Manager