A winning team takes on the Ecoed Challenge

Can you give me the name of a big, international running event?

It’s quite likely that you would say the London Marathon, New York Marathon or one of the other hundreds of organised Marathons which take place in 64 countries around the world each year. Because of the history of the Marathon race and its iconic status (you probably know someone who has done it, perhaps even you have!). We at Ecoed Life were very excited to collaborate with London Marathon Events (LME) and run an Ecoed challenge for their staff during the organisation’s sustainability week. 

LME does not only organise the Virgin Money London Marathon, they also arrange several other running, cycling and swimming events; The Vitality Big Half, the Vitality London 10,000, the Vitality Westminster Mile, the Standard Chartered Great City Race, Prudential RideLondon and Swim Serpentine. In addition, LME has committed to become the world leader in sustainable mass participation events! To do an Ecoed Challenge with such a fantastic organisation was simply amazing.

Never have I seen so many people in training gear, going out for a run at lunchtime or engaging in some other sports activity within one organisation before. Maybe I should have expected it, I mean they do arrange seven big sports events every year! Though it is not a requirement to have ever run a race to join the team – I had to ask…  The other thing that I noticed as being different, in the cosy lunch room and breakout area, with several board games and a dart board on the wall. Again, maybe to be expected at the London HQ of the most famous UK running race.

The team at Ecoed Life had created an LME Ecoed challenge, for staff to be able to play against each other in a special LME league and learn about sustainable daily habits and practical actions to take at home and at work, in a fun, engaging and ‘techy’ way. I joined them on the day the Ecoed challenge started.

Ecoed is a gaming App which excites people of all ages. I was not surprised to hear the same comments from the LME employees as from the students at a senior school I recently visited; someone exclaiming, with raised eye brows the rhetorical question of “What?! Really!? That much!?” It’s the amazing facts and information that are shared in the gaming sessions which surprises players and opens up the possibility for behaviour change.

This is why the Ecoed game app is such a great way of getting people engaged and a fantastic door opener for further learning, discussions and actions to reduce the environmental footprint of an individual, a community or an organisation. It makes you realise how our day to day actions matter and make a difference in the impact we have as humans on our planet... and, the positive thing, is that the Ecoed game app shows you ways of reducing that impact in a very practical and achievable way, resulting in a the possibility of jointly constructing a more sustainable society, one person, one action at a time.

Soon there was a small team of LME colleagues sitting on the sofas, glued to their smart phones, playing the game, challenging each other, keen to win the prize on offer. “This is really quite addictive”, said a man who then went to get his lunch and as soon as he was back continued to play the game over in the kitchen area, challenging those around him to join. A woman came up and thanked me for my time in helping to get her started; “I don't usually do this kind of thing (playing on my phone), but this is really fun!”, she said.

Four days later we had three winners, 6485 questions had been answered, 307 actions had been completed and perhaps not surprising the Ecoed game Challenge showed that one of the highest scored knowledge areas for the LME participants was health & wellbeing.

“Ecoed was the perfect tool for us to engage a competitive team of colleagues and educate them about their environmental impact. Staff were astonished by some of the facts about water, energy and waste – everyone loves a good stat!”, said Tom McGlynn from London Marathon Events on the Ecoed Challenge experience.

Thank you to London Marathon Events, for using Ecoed Life to educate and inspire your employees on sustainable living, having engaged with actions which will hopefully have changed some daily habits towards a more sustainable future.

Ref:

London Marathon Events to become a world leader in sustainable mass participation events