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Yadav unveils app to promote environment-friendly lifestyle
The app can be used by people to make various interventions in daily life to moderate their consumption patterns and lead an environment-friendly lifestyle.
New Delhi: Ahead of the G20 summit, the Union environment ministry is holding mass mobilisation events to popularise Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), an initiative envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a focus on minimising wasteful consumption, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
In a build-up to this year’s World Environment Day, which falls on June 5, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav on Monday launched a mobile app, Meri LiFE, which can be used by people to make various interventions in daily life to moderate their consumption patterns and lead an environment-friendly lifestyle, officials said.
The theme of this year’s World Environment Day will also be LiFE and Solutions to Plastic Pollution, Yadav said.
“The preamble to Paris Agreement uses the world ‘climate justice’ and ‘sustainable lifestyles and sustainable patterns of consumption and production’ which are integral to the Paris Agreement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2020 said we must look to change our lifestyles; then PM in his speech at World Leaders Summit at UN Climate Conference (COP26) in Glasgow introduced the concept of LiFE for the first time to the world,” Yadav said on Monday. “LiFE is an India-based mass movement to promote mindful and deliberate utilisation of resources instead of mindless and destructive consumption patterns. It is a behavioral change framework so naturally we have to involve people in large numbers.”
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) is collaborating with the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) on implementing the mass campaign, which will culminate on June 5.
“We have already held 1 lakh [100,000] events in different parts of the country under LiFE, in collaboration with UNICEF and other groups. Union ministries are also working to reduce their consumption patterns. We are focusing on simple behavioral practices,” he added.
Yadav said LiFE movement or the essence of the theme has found a mention in most significant global resolution documents — including the Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan that came out of COP27; at the G7 ministers’ meeting in Japan; and at the UN Biodiversity Conference last year among others.
“Blue economy, land degradation, and circular economy are some of the issues being discussed as part of G20. We are also promoting LiFE to be adopted as an integral part of the G20 decisions,” said an environment ministry official, requesting anonymity. India holds the G20 presidency this year. The 2023 G20 summit is scheduled to be held in New Delhi in September.
The ministry has developed two portals for LiFE to create a structured reporting format that can track the progress being made on the campaign. The Mission LiFE Portal is open access and can be used to download the 100+ creatives, videos, and knowledge materials that have been developed by the ministry. The Meri LiFE Portal (merilife.org) has been developed for ministries and institutions to upload event reports and capture the progress of the mass mobilisation drive, officials said.
Through the Meri LiFE app, upon successful sign-up, users will be guided to participate in a series of LiFE-related tasks under five themes — Save Energy, Save Water, Reduce Single Use Plastic, Adopt Sustainable Food Systems and Adopt Healthy Lifestyle. Through a gamified experience, the app nudges people to make these behavioural changes, officials added.
As per LiFE portal, there are 75 behavioural interventions that can be made. The three phases of LiFE include — nudging individuals across the world to practice simple yet effective environment-friendly actions in their daily lives; changes in large-scale individual demand are expected to gradually nudge industries and markets to respond and tailor supply and procurement as per the revised demands; and by influencing the demand and supply dynamics of India and the world, the long-term vision of Mission LiFE is to trigger shifts in large-scale industrial and government policies that can support both sustainable consumption and production.
