3-CO Deliverable D2.4 Report on smart digital solutions to support sustainable purchasing decisions

This report presents the culmination of efforts undertaken in Task 2.4 (within WP2) of the 3-COproject, focusing on development of a digital solution prototype that integrate sustainability informationeffectively using advanced technologies like AI and gamification. The solution aim to enhance userexperience and motivate sustainable consumer behaviour, addressing gaps in current digital solutions.The task was geared towards creating a mobile application that empower consumers to makeenvironmentally conscious choices by providing them with comprehensive, easy-to-access informationabout bio-based products. The task began a comprehensive analysis of existing digital solutions relevant to 3-CO project. weconducted extensive desktop research and engaged in interviews with solution providers to exploretools that assist consumers in making informed choices about biobased and eco-friendly products.Between April and June 2024, we interviewed several initiatives, revealing a landscape of digital solutionsthat originated from grassroots frustrations and minimal financial resources, highlighting the challengesof sustainability beyond initial funding. Also, online questionnaires and co-creation workshops wereconducted to better understand the needs and challenges of consumers and involve them indevelopment of potential solutions. As a result of these activities, three digital solution mock-ups weredeveloped. Afterwards, these mock-ups underwent rigorous consumer evaluation through structured focusgroups and surveys across 10 countries. The feedback received was instrumental in choosing the rightmock-up for further development, with a particular focus on usability, design clarity, and the relevanceof features offered. A total of 28 specific requirements were identified and assessed in terms of theirimportance, difficulty level, and implementation priority. This structured assessment allowed the projectteam to strategically focus development efforts on features that provide the most significant impact onenhancing sustainable consumer behaviour. The preferred app solution, as chosen by the majority of participants, incorporates features thatsupport not only individual consumer needs, but also align with broader environmental goals. Theseinclude advanced functionalities like up to date sustainability assessments of Label and CertificationSchemes (LCS), offline label search, a marketplace for uploading and reviewing bio-products, andknowledge sources about bioeconomy. We faced multiple challenges during the development of the application as well as training the AIalgorithm. We couldn´t find a free database of ecolabels and had to build our own database to beincorporated to the app to give it offline functionality. We also needed lots of images to train the AIalgorithm to identify the labels. Partners supported us in collecting images for the targeted labels andour technical team used data augmentation techniques (e.g., rotations, scaling, flipping, cropping, andchanges in brightness or contrast) to optimize the performance of the algorithm despite this limitation. Despite all the challenges, we were able to execute Task 2.4 successfully. The continued developmentand refinement of the solution, guided by consumer feedback and technological advancements, will becrucial in realizing the vision of a more informed and environmentally responsible society.