The world’s largest movement goes online for a second year running

Earth Day, annually on 22 April, draws in over a billion people across the world to participate in activities to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis and the need for action. Due to the continuation of the pandemic, the event is taking place online again this year, with 10 million people expected to tune in – no simple feat, technologically speaking. But EarthDay.org are prepared, having had to build suitable online networks last year when the movement was forced online at the last minute.

More than just social-media outpours, EarthDay.org have proven the extraordinary reach of the media, and from the start of 2020 through Earth Day their outreach and messaging received over 9.9 billion impressions from readers, viewers, and listeners globally. The Earth Day movement lasts for 3 days – this week has already seen a global youth climate summit held on April 20th, led by Earth Uprising, and, yesterday, a multilingual summit on climate education, spanning several time zones and featuring activists from every continent. Notably, today’s event takes place in parallel to the Biden administration’s Leaders’ Summit on Climate. The Earth Day Live line-up includes 10 hours of digital programming, with talks and panel discussions, workshops, and special performances, focusing on Restore Our Earth™.

Even if you don’t have time to tune in, you might be interested in EarthDay.org’s clever Earth Challenge smartphone app. The app has some exciting features: individuals can take photos of the horizon nearby and upload them to help scientists track levels of air quality, for instance. The app also includes Artificial Intelligence integrations, so that, as more and more people add photos of types of plastic found in natural environments, AI will learn to recognise and classify specific types of plastic in the environment, eventually establishing details such as the manufacture source of a plastic drink bottle.  As well as the “Collect and Classify” section of the app, you can “Take Action” in clean ups and community projects, and “Compete” to raise money.

Here are some other free apps we recommend for anyone wanting to live a more sustainable life:

• Ecosia – the search engine that plants trees
• OLIO – share, buy and sell spare food and items with your neighbours
• Too Good To Go: End Food Waste – buy quality local food cheaply to save waste
• Vinted: sell & buy second-hand  – fight fast fashion

Every business has a part to play in the movement toward a sustainable future. At Infotex, we are realising that we need to think deeply about how we can clean up our digital services – keep an eye out for more to come on this in the coming weeks and months. If you’re not going to tune in to Earth Day Live, or visit your nearest beach for a clean up, then why not have a think about your or your business’s environmental impact, too.

For more information visit earthday.org.