Belong are Australia’s first Carbon Neutral Broadband and Mobile provider. Our brief was to take to market the carbon neutral message in a way that was engaging and would drive behavior change. However, this is not a straightforward challenge.

It is estimated that Australian mobile data networks create more than half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year (using approximately 10% of all energy in Australia), but less than ten percent of Australians realize they contribute to carbon emissions in the first place.

So first we needed to make consumers aware of the problem, and then make them care. In an environment where the threat of climate change has almost become white noise and those huge environmental numbers that should be shocking are no longer, we wanted to bring the message to life before people's eyes and in that moment drive direct sales.

Travel has a Carbon Footprint, and now mobile now has a Carbon Thumbprint.

The Carbon Thumbprint is a measurement designed to make you understand the environmental impact of your mobile phone’s data usage, by attributing a carbon cost to every online action you make on your device.

This measurement was then applied across mobile media, from an AR app to web and social media to help you understand the weight of your actions.

By bringing this data to life the Carbon Thumbprint not only highlighted the problem but also delivered a solution, allowing you to switch to Belong, Carbon Neutral Mobile.

Only 8% of Australians aware that their Internet usage creates carbon emissions, we needed to raise awareness of why Carbon Neutral internet was important, and why customers should seek it out.

People are familiar with the term Carbon Footprint, we needed something with the same social salience and talkability. So we created the Carbon Thumbprint; a calculation of the emissions from your online data usage.

We started by capturing annual GHG emissions that are caused in the provision and use by customers of mobile plans, including emissions associated with the powering and operation of mobile network infrastructure.

We then divided GHG emissions by the amount of annual usage data that passes through the mobile network at a per megabyte (MB) rate.

This calculation provides us with the ‘carbon intensity’ figure/ carbon-dioxide-equivalent (CO2-e) emitted per MB used. We were then ready to apply this formula to our audience’s specific MB usage.

We created a new measurement of the carbon emissions created by an individual’s mobile data usage, the Carbon Thumbprint. However, we were aware that in the fight for climate change, data and numbers alone have become white noise. They often feel intangible and impossible to understand on a personal level.

So, we developed a visual calculator that enable you to physically see your impact on the environment, in the environment around you and then in that moment take action to neutralise it.

Once downloaded the app tracks user’s data usage, and then converts the amount into the carbon emissions it creates. An augmented reality experience visualised this amount as a dirty carbon block floating in the atmosphere. We chose a grey swirling block that literally hung over the user’s head. It was important that users could see their impact in a personal way to connect their environmental impact with the environment they were in. This block was then added to Australia’s total emissions to bring home the scale of the issue at hand, and ultimately to drive behaviour change and consideration of a new Internet Service Provider.

This was launched by an above the line campaign that posed Australian’s the question; “What’s Your Carbon Thumbprint?” and then invited them to download the app.

Carbon Thumbprint is now recognised as an environmental measure by domestic telco regulators in Australia. It has also been used and reported upon by media outlets around the globe.

Consumer surveys now suggest that over 40% of Australian’s understand that mobile data usage has an environmental impact. 37 % are also confident they can explain what a Carbon Thumbprint is. Of those 67% said it will influence how they choose to select their Internet.

Since the campaign, Belong has increased the pace of customer acquisition, attracting over 95,000 new customers, helping offset over 135,000 tonnes of Co2 emissions.