Development of a Mobile Application System for Eco-Accounting

• Main Authors: Hua Huang, Daizhong Su, Wenjie Peng, You Wu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-11-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: mobile app; eco-accounting; eco-shopping; recycling; eco-incentive; sustainable consumption
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9675

Nowadays, eco-accounting is widely used in sustainable consumption and production. In order to incentivise consumers’ sustainable consumption and enhance their environmental awareness, a novel mobile based eco-accounting infrastructure has been developed by this research. It applies the eco-credit values to incentivise the consumer’s recycling activities and utilises the eco-cost values to record the consumer’s footprint obtained through consumption. The infrastructure consists of four modules: the consumer’s eco-account, eco-shopping, eco-recycling and eco-incentives. In order to implement the mobile eco-accounting infrastructure, multiple mobile technologies have been applied to develop the novel functions of the mobile app, including a new QR encryption algorithm, embedded Google maps, advanced Internet-based services and multi-language support. A case study is conducted by demonstrating the consumer’s purchasing and recycling processes. It proves that the novel mobile application system has been successfully developed, which provides an effective support for the implementation and demonstration of the eco-accounting infrastructure.