Team C
e - cal
Environmental Calorie or E-Cal Symbol Mark
The Entertainment System that Helps Minimize Environmental Impact?Launched from Nagoya
1. Understand, Practice and Continue
By 2025 everyone will integrate environmental considerations into his or her activities. But it is not as if, all of sudden, in 17 years, everyone will be ready to take part in promoting environmental preservation and dematerialization. It is vitally important for us all to understand the critical situation we now face on this planet, and to think about what we can do now to envision the future.
We propose the creation of a nonprofit organization named “DIET-EARTH” as well as a new international unit or system called “Environmental Calorie (referred to as E-Cal)”, which will allow all people to be committed to continuous global environmental preservation activities.
2. The E-Cal system maximizing your enjoyment and minimizes environmental impact
2-1. International unit “E-Cal” By using this inventory unit “E-Cal” we will calculate the environmental burden of products such as home electric appliances, food and architecture based on the amount of CO2 emitted and water used during the manufacturing and building process.
2-2. How the “E-Cal” works
E-Cal is not an extraordinary system. It is a system/service that everyone can participate in and have fun playing with in daily life.
By using E-Cal, three sectors including the DIET-EARTH organization, companies and consumers can share information about the sustainability of products and services. First of all, as a nonprofit organization, Diet Earth will ensure the standard fairness of the calculations used to determine the E-Calories of products and services. Companies will calculate the calories of each of their products based on this DIET-EARTH standard and will be able to bring those that carry an E-Cal value description to market. Consumers will then be able to find out how environmentally friendly these products are from their E-Cal value descriptions and this will encourage people to buy more environmentally friendly products. The amount of E-Calories assigned to the purchased products will be recorded in real time in the database maintained by DIET-EARTH. This will allow consumers to access and utilize information freely.
2-3. Enjoy the E-Cal system
DIET-EARTH will stipulate the maximum amount of CO2 that an individual is allowed to emit and how much water one can use per day. These figures will be based on country or region of residence and an individual’s age. People will be able to enjoy reducing adverse environmental calories in various ways.
Tools and services, whether they be personal items such as mobile phones, computers and video game machines, or computers in public areas and services offered in transport vehicles, will be able to have this system installed. You will be able to enjoy playing with the E-Cal value in whichever way you like. Also, DIET-EARTH will not impose specific restrictions on the way people use the system. Individuals will be welcome to make proposals for new beneficial uses of the system. For example, someone might develop a new variation of the system in which users would be allowed to gather reward points based on the calories they have reduced and use their points either for what they want or for supporting environmental preservation activities. Other people might invent a game in which they would compete to find ways to use fewer calories. Or one might just diligently keep the daily record of the amount of the calories they have reduced.
Let’s use a practical example of a sample family; the Mother goes shopping at a supermarket. She sees all commercial product there including cabbages, carrots, cotton balls and plates, all with the E-Cal description attached to them. At the cash register detailed information on the calories of the items she has bought is input into a database and is synchronized with her family’s computer via the database so all her family members can check the information. Her family has chosen to participate in the service in which they compete with other families for the lowest number of calories used. The maximum amount of calories is set up in this service and is the sum of the calorie amount all the family members earn. Children will also get the information about their family’s daily calorie usage via their game console. They can play with their friends, competing to be the family with the lowest calorie count. There might be children among those who have lost the game that would ask their mothers to choose more eco-friendly products. This will provide a new way of communication in which children promote an environmental education to their parents and exemplifies the kind of sustainable values that our E-Cal system creates.
The information about calorie reduction practices will be shared all over the world. Thanks to the E-Cal system/service, we will be able to continuously enjoy minimizing environmental impacts.
How the E-Cal System Works
An Example of Family Games Using the E-Cal System: This game will create a family communication system in which children promote an environmental education to their parents.
Like a ripple effect, the E-Cal system will spread from person to person, and eventually will extend throughout the world.
3. Spread throughout the world
The DIET-EARTH is based in NAGOYA, a hub of manufacturing, which will disseminate the E-Cal system to the world. The system will be transmitted from person-to-person, then nationally, and eventually will extend throughout the world.
E-cal system: Spread among people like a ripple effects all over the world
One’s national identity is not a primary matter of concern. The thing that we must bear in mind as inhabitants on this earth is the importance of cooperating and helping each other in all sustainable ways.
