Mobile Applications to Link Sustainable Consumption with Impacts on the Environment and Biodiversity

Ethical consumption is becoming increasingly important to reconcile global agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. Smartphones equipped with sustainability applications ("apps") could help connect consumer decisions with their environmental and biodiversity impacts. We review the existing apps for sustainable consumption to assess their transparency, their authoritativeness, whether the connections between consumption and biodiversity impacts are available to consumers, and whether sustainability ratings are consistent. We found 32 apps that met our search criteria. Food and service products were the most commonly assessed, the sustainability assessment criteria were not publicly accessible for half of the apps, and few links between consumption and biodiversity conservation were made. An ideal app would need to overcome the currently scarce official authoritativeness and use transparent and objective sustainability ratings. The potential of mobile apps for conservation is large and untapped, representing an alternative to supplier-focused, on-the-ground interventions.