Apps to make your (sustainable) life easier.

Keeping track of all the steps we take towards sustainability and making sure we don’t lose a beat in our journey can become a real challenge. Our phones can become a great asset in finding, tracking, and learning about environmentally friendly products and actions we can take. In the last couple of years I have been using a few apps on my phone that have been really helpful in making better choices. From strategies, to shopping, to verifying products of all types, there are a lot of tools out there to keep you rocking your sustainable journey.

· Think Dirty app. Think Dirty is a rapidly growing platform where you can search for a specific brand and products for personal care, or even scan the barcode to figure out if the ingredients are clean or not. This app has helped me make better make-up and skin care choices and understand what to look for in a product and what to avoid. The only search function locked behind paid services ($2.99/month) is search by ingredient and categories by characteristic or specific ingredient (like “Mineral Sunscreen” or “Products with Bakuchiol”).

· Yuka app. Yuka is an app that allows you to scan food items and cosmetics to quickly see if there are any allergens or harmful ingredients. The free version only allows you to scan, which is still a really great feature. If you do pay $15/year you can unlock search, food preferences, and the ability to scan offline. Food preferences allows you to select ingredients you would like to avoid, like gluten for example. The app will make sure to highlight the part of the ingredients you are most concerned about, like if it is gloten-free or not.

· Good on you app. Good on you is a hub to find sustainable clothing and accessories. Companies are rated on three points: environment (how encironmentally friendly are their processes), labor (how good of a company it is to work for), and animal (weather they use animal products or not, or if they are vegan). Good On You does not have any in app purchases or subscription. It is funded through good and great brands placing ads in the app (they are offered the opportunity to advertise after having been rated).

· Earth Hero app. Earth hero helps you track your progress through your sustainability journey recording which actions you have completed how many earth points you have earned, and how your emissions look compared to your country average. It lets you set targets, has plenty new ideas on what all you can do to be more sustainable (environmentally, socially and financially), and the suggested action you can take have a difficulty rating system to help you determine which of the actions are within your reach. I have played with app quite a bit and I have not find a function locked behind a purchase yet.