Carbon-cutting app aims to help Londoners ease into net zero future

London Councils, the body that represents all London boroughs, is looking at developing a version of the tool, which aims to be helpful rather than hectoring, letting people create their own tailor-made path to reducing their CO2 output rather than giving out blanket prescriptions such as stopping flying or eating meat.

Finland has agreed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 15 megatonnes by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. According to calculations by Sitra,the Finnish innovation fund that developed the tool, if every household has two people reducing their carbon footprint by 20%, that reduction alone would result in 73% of the national reduction required.

The average annual carbon footprint of a Londoner is 8,345kg of CO2 emissions, according to the Global Carbon Atlas, so if two people in every one of its 3.6m households reduced their carbon footprint by 20%, this would mean an emission reduction of 12 megatonnes.

The tool, which launched in Finland in 2018, has gone viral in the Nordic nation of 5.5 million people, with 1.2m tests taken. While only about 24% of its population are motivated enough by climate fears to change the way they live, the majority think other things such as wellbeing, health, saving money and time, and fun are more important, says Terho.

Sitra is an independent body that has a mission to future-proof the Nordic nation, funded by an ?84m endowment gifted by the Finnish government to mark 50 years of independence in 1967. Terho said another 17 countries were looking to adapt the approach, and the organisation estimated this had the potential to take as much as a gigatonne of carbon out of the atmosphere by 2030.