EcoTag

Start page for EcoTag
Sample of an object with an 'F' environmental impact

Inspiration

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges for humanity right now. And we, as consumers, need more information about what impact we are having. We decided to create this tool to ensure transparency of the environmental repercussions of the products we consume.

What it does

It provides a way for users to understand easily the environmental impact of any product or material. Our system takes into account the full cradle to cradle circle in order to evaluate the emissions and water and energy consumption of any item.

How we built it

We decided to build it in Python since it was the language that we all had in common. We were curious about the FastAPI library and we decided to use it. In this case, our backend was connected to MongoDB. We really enjoyed how easy it was to work with FastAPI and PyMongo at the same time. In order to save efforts on the front end, we used the Typeform Developer Kit, especially the webhooks. This allowed us to create beautiful, responsive, and enjoyable forms easily and without having to write tones of HTML. We also worked with the Segno Python library to create QR codes that were both a link to our application and identifiable assurance of the environmental impact of the product.

Challenges we ran into

Our first challenge was our lack of domain knowledge in the Life Cycle Assessment area. For this reason, we decided to talk with a colleague who is an Environmental Engineer. He taught us a lot in very few minutes (Mattia, if you are reading this, we love you!). We learned about how challenging this subject is and what the current trends on this topic are. Another challenge for all the group was that two of us were rookies, and we were 3. We did our best and were able to learn a lot and contribute to the project autonomously. We also were lucky that one of the sponsor team members joined us and gave us a couple of tips. It was a very fun late-night conversation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are happy about our time management. We were able to progress in our tasks as we had expected and we felt confident we would get to demo a version of the project we are proud of. We are also proud of having been able to prioritize. We were aware of how huge this project could be and we had to choose which features we thought were meaningful. And we think we did a good job!

What we learned

For Sergio and Joan were very productive. We reviewed all the coding we used to know and also learned a lot. We also learned how it is to participate in a Hackathon, and what a better place than UPC, our local university. We also became much more familiar with MongoDB and Pymongo, as well as FastAPI. The Typeform Developer Kit was the icing on the cake, we will definitely keep using it in future hacks.

What could be next for EcoTag

Environmental Impact Tracking and Life Cycle Assessment is a very broad subject and there is still a lot of research taking place. The whole world is demanding solutions for climate change. We believe EcoTag could be the NutriScore for the environmental impact of all products and that the implementation of a similar system should be made mandatory for all products available for sale in the EU.