Do you want to change your habits, improve your surroundings and be part of the sustainable community of Gdansk? You will be helped by PULA, an application in which you will obtain Good Coins, a virtual currency exchangeable for products and services of local entrepreneurs.
PULA – an innovative solution for Gdansk
Gdańsk has become a living laboratory of the
PULA project
. This is thanks to an international consortium of universities and organizations from Polish and Norway, which are working on an innovative solution. Thanks to it, the residents of Gdansk will be able to benefit from changing their habits, improve their surroundings and be part of a sustainable community in Gdansk. They will co-create PULA, an application based on a multi-stakeholder partnership of local entities.
What is PULA and how does it work?
The operation of the pool is based on the possibility for the user to earn a special, a local currency that can be obtained through responsible actions, changes in habits and joint local ventures. For example, shopping with an app partner, using reusable bags, or participating in a dedicated event. In exchange for such actions, the user of the application receives points, i.e. the so-called Good Coins, which can be used to “pay” for specific products and services, which – just like the activities themselves – are in line with the assumptions of sustainable development. Good Coins can be obtained m.in. for the use of sustainable transport, cleaning of public places, development of green areas or use of local circular economy services.
The operation of PULA is built on the basis of strategic partners – business (Olivia Centre), scientific (Fahrenheit Universities) and educational (Experyment Science Centre, Hevelianum). PULA also has local partners – m.in. gastronomy, services and social economy, while the provider of the IT solution is Primigenius s.c.
With each passing moment, the Pula is growing!
There are currently 30 locations on the PULA map where you can earn or spend Good Coins. These include: Avocado, a chain of shops, restaurants and bistros promoting responsible gastronomy, Good Deal, a social economy store, Zeroban, a social enterprise offering upcycled products, and institutions such as GIWK Sp. z o.o., Centre for Environmental Information and Education, Hevelianum.
The PULA network also includes local NGOs, such as PLONY or the Neighbourhood Energy Incubator. The partners offer not only prizes, but also joint ventures and events that will involve residents in the circulation of currency.
Thanks to mutual networking, the map of good spots on the map of Gdańsk is growing day by day. However, this is just the beginning – the app is in the pilot phase, and its full availability is planned for the beginning of the summer holidays. In addition to the opportunities to earn and spend Good Coins, a number of events for the benefit of local communities are planned as part of the POOL. Look for the PULA app in the store from mid-July 2023.
Source:
pula.org.pl
Greencoin Project
The pool was created as part of the
Greencoin project
. An innovative solution dedicated to Gdańsk has been developed by an interdisciplinary team of scientists and urban practitioners, For the sake of the common good, they have joined forces to multi-faceted research on how to motivate Gdańsk residents to undertake ecological behaviours, as well as how to strengthen these behaviours for a sustainable future. On the basis of their research, they developed a PULA.
“There is no shortage of sustainable technologies in the world. However, there was a noticeable dissonance between the state of technology and the reality around us. Cities evolve slowly, and in the dominant economic model, ecology is of no real value. Consequently, there is a deficit of stimuli driving positive change. –Translators M.Sc. Arch. Kacper Radziszewski from the Faculty of Architecture of the Gdańsk University of Technology, Greencoin project manager – When creating the assumptions of the project, we thought that if a person behaving responsibly received funds that they could spend on further sustainable solutions (products, services, technologies), then a self-reinforcing mechanism supporting sustainable behaviour would be created. And that’s how we created Pula.
The Greencoin project currently benefits from €1.62 million in funding received from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the EEA Grants. The goal of the Greencoin project is to create a system for promoting ecological behavior with the help of an alternative virtual currency, which will be made available to a wider audience as open-source software in the future.
The project has just been nominated for the Polish Intelligent Development Award 2023 in the Social Innovation category.
Download the app on the App Store
Download the app on Google Play
