It would be nice to have a phone based SAFE application as follows:
Enter in your demographic information and it renders a carbon score and helps you set personal carbon goals
In shopping it will sort product choices by carbon scores and credit your purchases to your score.
It will sort contractors, financial institutions, employers and cooperatives also educational institutions, nations, states and municipalities by their carbon scores and credit your choices to your carbon score based on their type and your degree of affiliation
It will tally diet choices and credit the carbon score for purchases as they occur.
An organic farmer could have “certified fully renewably produced” produce with a composite carbon score which would include water quality (it’s a carbon issue) and the use of similarly green contractors for shipping and retail.
Thresholds could be added into the personal carbon footprint score. For instance upon reaching a no sugar added diet the health impact would reflect in the carbon score. Similarly, if someone achieved a household with a certain level of conservation features, like water reclamation and all electric appliances and vehicles powered by a solar system with sufficient battery storage.
For planting a viable permaculture garden with consideration of its parameters and health and for composting.
Such an application can be private and secure but still social the degree that individual end users find useful. I don’t think systems that sell people’s information or rely on sponsorship or allow sponsorship influence are compatible with carbon reduction goals as such system have deep conflicts of interest. It should be possible to use software to help achieve goals in a way that is secure, decentralized, transparent and privacy protecting.
Let the sharing economy build it. Someone does a seed or template in the creative commons under a General Public License 3 format and then the community forks it, builds it and keeps it transparent, inclusive and conflict free. The “internet of things” which is just about here will make this much easier as will ad free flat search models that eliminate sponsorship and sponsor influence. Such search engines might carry the general unsponsored index but would only get a cut or micropayment when they actually matched a buyer to a seller. It means that commerce is incidental not primary and it puts the emphasis on accurate search even where search is not commercial. In these flat systems the conflict of interest is removed and trust is increases as the parties interests are aligned. The new sharing economy is also developing a range of non-invasive verification systems aimed at fostering trust and the reliability of systems.
This application could be a bit like a Fit Bit in that the health of the body and planetary ecology are intertwined. It could show various clocks and the impact on the global score if everyone had the same footprint as the user.