Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest global challenges. The effects are currently being felt everywhere in the form of threatening, extreme weather events. To stop this development, people and companies must actively protect the climate.

Zurich Versicherung is leading the way. The company was the first insurance provider to commit to complying with the agreement to limit the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees and has consistently aligned its corporate strategy with it. Its goal is to become one of the most sustainable companies in the world.

‘Accordingly, we’ve firmly anchored various sustainability initiatives into our corporate strategy. Examples of these initiatives include the “Zurich Forest” reforestation project and the recently announced sustainability partnership with circumnavigator and climate ambassador Boris Herrmann,’ states the company on its website. In addition to the specially created ‘Planet Hero Award’ for forward-looking projects that aim to improve environmental and climate protection, Zurich wanted to expand its commitment to sustainability on its digital channels.

The challenge was to introduce a mobile tool and/or digital solution that enables everyone – not just certain target groups – to live more sustainably in their private and commercial spheres of influence in a simple and motivational way.

True to the motto ‘if many small people in many small places take many small steps, they will change the face of the world’, Zurich wanted to offer an app that guides users through their everyday lives with tips and suggestions on the topic of sustainability. The intention of the app was to be informative and raise awareness.

This is why Zurich developed the Planet Hero app with the strategic, professional, methodological and technical support of adesso. The result is a user-friendly, daily sustainability coach available on smartphones.

In addition to the development of the app, other tasks, which complete the anchoring of the topic at Zurich Versicherung, were implemented as part of the overall project. The following were included as part of the consultation:

• Strategic consulting, conception, content creation and communication
• Target group analysis and creation of personas for targeted communication and organisation
• Competitive analysis of relevant carbon footprint calculators and sustainability apps
• Development of a relevant purpose/vision/mission/USP
• Strategic preparation of Zurich’s commitment to sustainability
• Creation of a test concept for obtaining relevant feedback regarding target group perception and user experience
• Prototyping and creation of mock-ups to derive target group-specific functions
• Consultation on the Zurich Planet Hero ecosystem
• Conception and production of graphics, texts and videos
• Consultation on employee engagement
• Competitive positioning in search engines and Play Stores
• Consultation on and coordination of marketing topics and roll-out

• Technical management of the overall project
• Coaching and support for an agile approach and the utilisation of agile methods
• Conception and development of the Planet Hero app – from the onboarding process and the development of daily tips and challenges as gamification elements to the integration of a carbon footprint calculator and rewards for users’ personal engagement
• Development of the Planet Hero app with a modern design and a motivating user experience (UX/UI design)
• Conception and creation of content for the app and the sustainability ecosystem
• Support in setting up a strategy for go2market and communication: communication from appearance in the App Store to the apps public image, operation and ongoing enhancement

Regardless of age, gender, profession or lifestyle, anyone who wants to live more sustainably can receive useful ideas every day from the app on how to become a ‘climate champion’ among their friends and family.

The app motivates its users to live a measurably more sustainable lifestyle, in a way that’s entertaining, and does so without pointing a finger:

• Users receive important information on environmental and climate protection issues
• Useful ideas and tips every day on how to how to act in your personal and professional lives
• Carbon footprint calculator for directly measuring personal results
• Information on reducing individual carbon footprints
• Gamification: ‘motivation points’ and badges can be collected to become a ‘planet hero’ by successfully completing challenges, reading sustainability tips and successfully answering the weekly quiz
• Daily challenges per tip
• ‘Hero projects’ section with information on exciting initiatives from the Zurich Group. These include initiatives such as the reforestation of the Brazilian rainforest (‘Zurich Forest’) or the ‘Planet Hero Award’, with which Zurich honours the best and most effective projects for improving climate protection

The ‘Planet Hero’ app is available for everyone to download for free from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. The download link and further information can be found on Zurich’s website.

Find out more about the Planet Hero app