Here at Zixty we’re not just about temporary car insurance, and helping people reduce their carbon footprint when using a car or a van for a short period of time. We also like to highlight ways to reduce our climate impact.
So if you’re looking to understand, measure, change, or offset your environmental footprint, then look no further. We’ve hand-picked 21 of the best apps in the UK – all designed to help you make your every-day life more eco-friendly and sustainable.
Some guides to green apps feature apps that are designed for non-UK users, which is great. We’ve approached it a little differently, and we zero in on sustainable apps that are primarily geared for UK residents. We know that some apps include eco features – we’ve selected those where the app is designed principally with the environment in mind.
We’ve divided this guide to eco apps into the following sections:
- Travelling sustainably
- Recycling
- Measuring and reducing your eco impact
- Food management
- CO2 offsetting
Travel
This section is all about helping you find travel deals that help reduce the environmental impact of travel, or to offset the CO2 emitted. It goes without saying that travel is not good for the planet, and the best contribution we can make is to not travel – which is easier said than done. Accepting that for most of us, travel is part of life, minimising the impact of it has to be worth it.
Train Hugger
Train Hugger is a train booking platform that allows you to plant a tree with every ticket you buy. With their Android and Apple apps, you can book your travel on the go, getting the cheapest fares on the market, and with the added bonus of tree planting.
Approximately a quarter of Train Hugger’s revenue from your tickets goes towards restoring the UK’s natural world. So, the more you book, the more you give back to mother nature which sounds like a win-win to us. Their app even lets you see the number of trees planted with each booking; so you can pat yourself on the back for doing your bit for the environment.
Bikemap
If you want to get fit, stay fit, don’t have a car, don’t want a car, or simply want to see more of this beautiful island at a different pace then cycling offers a great way to get around in a carbon friendly way.
With over 12 million routes, covering a wide range of countries, with Bikemap you’re sure to find somewhere new to explore, and in a climate-kind way too.
BlaBlaCar
Let’s face it, cycling places is not everyone’s cup of tea, and while it’s very planet friendly, there’s only so far it will take you in a sensible time-frame. So, let’s welcome BlaBlaCar.
It’s an awesome alternative when you need something faster or more direct than a train, and cheaper and more sustainable than renting a car. That said, the availability of rides depends on where you’re starting and your destination, with major cities offering more options. A sample ride was from London to Birmingham, which offered two reliable car-pool options for £17 and £18 respectively.
Top Tip : There’s a different app for each country, so download before you travel.
Zixty – planet friendly insurance
Need to get somewhere that trains, buses, a bicycle, or your legs won’t take you? Need to borrow a car or van to get there? Then we have the answer!
Simply download the Zixty app, or head over to our temporary car insurance page, buy a policy, and we’ll carbon offset your policy for free. Not content with that? Just be sure to enable Zixty Miles in the app, and we’ll offset up to 100 miles of driving CO2 per day while you’re a customer.
Once you have your personalised driving score, the Zixty app offers you tailored driving tips which can help you improve the eco credentials of your motoring. If you get a great score, then Zixty will offset more CO2 than was generated, meaning that your miles could be carbon negative. Zixty makes no bones about the fact that not driving is better for the planet than driving, but if car travel is essential, then it can be kinder to the planet.
Food management
Food waste is a giant problem (we come to a killer stat in just a moment), and tackling this might be one of the less obvious ways of playing our part. By being more organised with what we buy, buying food that’s at the end of its high street life, and donating surplus food, we can reduce food waste emissions AND save money. Ker Ching.
Too Good To Go
When you download the Too Good To Go app and get started, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. Their mission is to reduce the environmental and social impact of the 2.5 billion (yep – billion) tonnes of food that are wasted annually.
Headline stat : according to Too Good To Go, food waste contributes 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Which is more than the whole aviation industry. Let that one sink in for a moment.
With this app you can buy food that would have gone to waste, and at a fraction of the normal price. You play your part in reducing food waste and environmental damage,and save money.
Top Tip : You don’t know what food you’re buying. Sometimes life hands you lemons, and sometimes it hands you a cheese baguette.
Olio
There’s something about their statement “A billion tiny actions got us into this mess. A tiny billion actions can get us out.” that we really love.
A bit like Too Good To Go, Olio is on a mission to reduce food waste by ensuring that as much food as possible that would otherwise be wasted is used to good effect. By doing this they’re setting out to reduce the CO2 emissions from food waste.
In a nut-shell, Olio puts people with food that they won’t use in touch with people who need it. Nice work guys.
No Waste
In a way, No Waste is looking to prevent the problem that Olio helps to solve. It’s a handy app that helps you create lists for your freezer, fridge and cupboards. You can easily check what food you have left, see what food you need to use first, plan your meals, create a shopping list, and avoid unnecessary purchases. OK – there’s some work to setting this up and keeping it up to date, but the effort should be worth it.
All of this helps reduce food waste and potentially save a bunch of cash.
Refill – life with less plastic made easy
The plastic associated with water and other food products generates an astonishing amount of waste, not all of which can be easily recycled. And anyway, it’s much better to not generate it in the first place.
Whether you’re looking for somewhere to fill your water bottle, or looking for discounts on coffee when you bring your own coffee cup, Refill is the answer. Just head over to the Refill website, download the Refill app, and take the next steps on a plastic free journey.
Measure and reduce
Sometimes in life the first step is acknowledging there’s a problem, and then dealing with it. Some problems are easily quantified and easily fixed, while others are more abstract, and the solutions less in our face. CO2 isn’t exactly visual (although we did write an article about How big is a tonne of CO2), so there are a few handy apps out there that help us see just how much of this invisible killer we’re producing, and what we can do about it.
Giki Zero
The good people over at Giki are all about helping you understand your carbon footprint, and then helping you reduce it by identifying your biggest generators of CO2, and then suggesting ways that you can reduce it. We love the colourful images and the straight-forward approach.
Scone
Scone is a little like Giki, in that it helps you understand and reduce your eco footprint.
Simply take a quick quiz about your home, your lifestyle, and your travel and transport to discover your carbon footprint in relation to your home country and the rest of the world. Once you know your starting point you can set a carbon footprint goal, and work towards achieving it.
Oroeco
Understanding the areas of your lifestyle that are contributing to climate change is a first step in change, and this is where Oroeco comes in.
This helpful app estimates your carbon footprint based on your everyday activities, including what you buy, what you eat, how much energy you burn, how you get around, and how much you travel.
Once you’ve got a clear idea of what your carbon footprint looks like, it’s over to you to make changes to reduce your footprint. Not wanting to leave you alone with this task, Oroeco offers personalised tips that outline how you can cut back on emissions and save money at the same time.
When To Plug In
Launched in 2021 by the smart people over at the National Grid, WhenToPlugIn helps homes across the UK use electricity with the planet in mind. Did you know that the electricity that comes into your home is greener at certain times of day than others. Intrigued? Read on.
The WhenToPlugIn app tells users when the electricity in their area will be cleanest – which is particularly useful if you can use power hungry devices at different times of day.
Using the app you can plan when to use energy-intensive appliances, such as tumble driers, washing machines, or dish-washers, at the ‘greenest’ times of the day.
So that you have a fair chance of planning your domestic chores, or even straightening your hair, you can check the carbon intensity forecast, which lets you know when the electricity in your home will be cleanest over a 48-hour period.
And, if you’re interested to know how your home is being powered (and why wouldn’t you be?), the app also offers a full breakdown of the energy sources powering the electricity in your region. It also provides live updates as new clean energy records are broken!
My Little Plastic Footprint
The role of plastic in food packaging has had a transformational impact in keeping food fresh and in good condition, however that has come at a vast environmental cost. Pretty much every food product in the supermarket comes wrapped in plastic – although this is changing by small degrees. Recognising this issue, My Little Plastic Footprint can help you cut back.
The app divides plastic into six categories: bathroom, kitchen, travel, leisure, household, and garden. Users can take quizzes to learn more about the impact of each type of plastic, and then scroll through more than 100 tips on ways to reduce your plastic footprint.
Users can also check out the Plastic Mass Index (PMI), which ranges from 0 to 100 – the closer you are to 0, the better you are doing with your ‘plastic diet’.
Get My Little Plastic Footprint
Ailuna
Sometimes we need a little nudge to help us establish new habits, and Ailuna does just that. Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will suggest changes to your daily routine, or new activities to try that will help guide you towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
With daily check-ins and the ubiquitous badges (a bit like Scouts or Guides) it’s a gentle hand guiding you, rather than a hearty shove in the back.
Recycling
Without banging the drum too much, reduction is preferable to recycling. But if there are no options for planet friendly packaging, let’s at east understand the options for recycling the myriad types of containers that shopping arrives in.
reGAIN – recycling rewarded
Whether you’re refreshing your wardrobe, or have got kids who have outgrown their school uniforms (again), recycling clothes is an important part of a sustainable lifestyle. reGAIN makes it easy to turn unwanted clothes into vouchers.
Simply download the reGAIN app, pack your items, drop them off, and get access to discount coupons.
Horizon – recycling made simple
Effective recycling isn’t just about throwing everything into the brown/ green/ blue recycling bin, and leaving everything to the council. Food packaging changes pretty frequently, and it’s not always obvious what can be recycled, and how to go about it.
Just download the Horizon app, scan the barcode on a food wrapper, and get tailored instructions about how to go about recycling.
Offsetting
In this section we shine a light on a collection of apps that help offset the CO2 that has been generated through other activities.
With the apps above we’ve suggested ways to consume less, share more, and emit less – all geared to carbon reduction. But if you have generated CO2, and every single one of us does, what options are there for offsetting? Let’s have a look.
Treeapp
If you like to do a little bit every day of the week, then why not explore the Treeapp app. In exchange for a small amount of your time each day, you get to plant a tree each day. But, be warned, there’s a limited number of trees each day, so you might need to leave Candy Crush til later in the day. TreeApp – really does what it says on the tin.
Klima
The premise of Klima is that we all have a carbon footprint, and while carbon reduction should be our main goal, it’s better to offset than do nothing at all.
When you first open the app, you’re guided through a set of quick and easy questions. From this your CO2 footprint is calculated. There’s nothing intrusive about the questions.
Once you have a score the app calculates a unique paid monthly subscription based on your personal carbon footprint.
They offer a range of projects to invest in, meaning that you can act in a way that best suits your own views. Your monthly subscription can plant trees, fund solar power plants, or provide clean cooking stoves – or a combination of all three.
As well as collecting money from you, Klima goes a step further by providing personalised tips on how you can change your lifestyle, further reducing your footprint and your monthly sub.
ecosia – Green searching
Every search comes with an environmental cost – in the form of the electricity used to power the servers that give you the answers to important questions like “will Donald Trump be convicted?” or “How long should I cook sausages for?”. The server “farms” are simply vast, and a huge amount of juice is required to run them.
However, you can avoid these search related CO2 emissions by downloading Ecosia – the search engine that runs on 100% renewable energy, whilst also using its profits to plant trees.
Forest – mindfulness with eco
The Forest app combines mindfulness, digital-detox, and environmental elements. Which is a neat trick to pull off!
The Forest app is a visual aid that encourages you to be more productive by growing a virtual tree on your screen as you work. All you need to do is specify how long you want to remain focused for. The countdown timer will mute notifications until this time is up. If you leave the app, your tree wilt – and you wouldn’t want that happening!
We know that phones these days have Focus modes, and so you might think that Forest app is a little out of touch. But do you remember the Tamagotchi? Now, you wouldn’t want your sapling to die. Would you?
As well as helping you focus, Forest has partnered up with forestry charity Trees for the Future, to plant trees in the real world. At the time of writing they had planted 1,590,368 trees.
That’s it
That’s been a few of our favourite apps that can help you play your part in tackling climate change. No individual effort makes the difference, but if 8 billion people all made a change, the future would look brighter.
