To convince people to take sustainable actions on an individual level, Connect4Climate has set out to target them in the place where a lot of their time is consumed in the 21st century – their digital space. This generation’s digital life has become ever more colorful with entertainment to be found at every step of interaction with devices. To shine the effects of loss of color from the Earth’s environment, we are introducing #EarthMode, an initiative that removes color from the digital environment with the help of the very brands people interact with digitally. This initiative is dependable on people’s sustainable actions to bring back color in their digital environment. With more people taking steps to improve the state of our environment, colors will gradually reappear digitally, and in reality.

Starting April 1st, influential brands partnered with Connect4Climate would remove color from the icons of their mobile apps. To bring back the colors, each app will challenge people to take small sustainable actions until Earth Day (April 22nd).

So if McDonald’s switched on #EarthMode, their app could prompt a challenge like “Bring your own bag” and inspire people to show clever ways of picking up Big Macs. If Amazon followed suit they could challenge people to share ingenious ways to reuse their boxes. Uber’s #EarthMode could encourage people to ride Uber scooters for short rides to limit carbon emissions. The more brands come on board, the more people we can reach.

To track progress, we will use the hashtag #EarthMode on social media encouraging people to share their creative side.

For every milestone reached, app icons will gradually see a return of color.