Future Friendly

Our vision is that all businesses in Glasgow will ‘Go Zero’ for the COP26 summit.

Future Friendly is a new non-profit digital platform being tested in Swindon that could enable NGOs such as SCCS to mobilise activists to enlist all local businesses to pledge to ‘go zero’. Businesses will win awards when they sign up for actions such as ‘Renewable Electricity’, ‘Eco-generation’, and ‘Carbon Removal’. Like Trip Advisor, they would be awarded certificates and window stickers. 

All awards would be independently verified, and volunteers could also ask businesses to go for more Future Friendly awards relating to other environmental and social issues, eventually covering all the UN SDGs.

Volunteers from SCCS’s local networks would need to sign up businesses locally using Future Friendly’s easy-to-use mobile app, after which the businesses would be asked to sign into their accounts and administer their awards. The Future Friendly platform allows continual interaction with the businesses to ensure constant improvement. Volunteers and SCCS can see how businesses progress and the success of the campaigns using a sophisticated reporting portal. The number of tonnes of CO2 saved could be monitored in real time.

By November 2021 it is entirely possible to have created a ‘race to the top’ among Glasgow’s businesses, where they realise that to be credible they cannot remain inactive. By beginning in May2021, and starting with the retail and hospitality sectors, recruitment could reach a tipping point (20%) in the Summer and the target could be to have 75% of businesses signed up for COP26.

See the test site here: www.futurefriendly.org.uk

I’d be delighted to speak to any organisation wishing to spearhead the local application of Future Friendly to adapt it for use with Glasgow COP26.