Exelon Corporation is a Fortune 100 energy company with the largest number of electricity and natural gas customers in the U.S. Exelon does business in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada and had 2020 revenue of $33 billion.
Exelon’s innovation investment team launched EcoCRED, a sustainability platform aimed at empowering people to do more for the planet. Through its mobile application, EcoCRED estimates users’ daily carbon footprint based on where they live, how they commute, their heating and air conditioning habits, and the type of vehicle they drive. It also suggests simple tasks and useful lifestyle habits that help educate users and, if incorporated into daily routine, significantly reduce their carbon footprint.
The concept of the Carbon Footprint and Carbon Offsets can be confusing and difficult for people to understand. Businesses and individuals can feel like their individual contributions will have little impact on global climate issues. Creating consistent and lasting engagement with individuals and businesses that promote climate-beneficial behaviors is even more challenging.
Exelon wanted to develop a platform to create new revenue streams that connected like-minded individuals in carbon offset marketplaces that also encouraged participation from climate-beneficial “green” businesses. They needed to develop a sustainable business model while incubating a unique brand, separate from Exelon.
They also needed to build a digital product strategy, design and deploy a digital marketplace, develop and deploy iOS and Android mobile applications.
Exelon engaged Agency 39A to incubate, concept, design, develop, and deploy the EcoCred application. Our teams leveraged design thinking, design research, user experience design, product strategy, product design, brand strategy, identity design, front-end development, iOS development, Android development throughout this program.
We began the project with a series of concept development sprints and design sprints to identify strategic priorities and highly-desired features. These building blocks for the future-state program were tested with individual and B2B end-users to validate and challenge our assumptions. Focus-groups, interviews, and detailed user observations provided more detail and data, further improving our design and the supporting features of the program.
Initial concepts advanced into interactive prototypes, supporting design research and laying the groundwork for technical development. Prototypes then became detailed and refined wireframes as our brand teams began architecting and defining the value proposition, the mission, and the brand. Initial user feedback and engagement metrics provided an additional layer of real data to inform ongoing product refinements and enhancements
We began developing the technical architecture and selecting the platforms (iOS and Android) for the future-state deployment. The EcoCred application and EcoCred marketplace were then developed and successfully deployed in both the iOS app store and the Google Play app store
Agency 39A’s work resulted in the EcoCRED app, where users can build eco-friendly habits, discover sustainable products, and read insightful articles about climate change. Based on some basic information, such as diet, lifestyle, and residence, the app analyzes its user’s current energy consumption behaviors to estimate the user’s daily carbon footprint. EcoCRED’s community of eco-conscious users connect with each other for support and helpful information.
The app and website also offer science-backed carbon offsets that help the community get closer to a carbon-neutral life.
Our visual design team developed a unique brand identity, complete with original iconography and detailed visual systems for awards including badges and digital tokens that became part of the application currency.
The App has had over 60,000 downloads and the EcoCRED community of users has collectively reduced over 4,000,000 pounds of carbon emissions through their habits and offsets since the app was launched.
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