percent-x

Improve your environmental impact by easily tracking and reducing your daily direct and indirect water consumption with our user-friendly app.

I am working to address the issue of excess water use by encouraging small changes in daily habits to reduce water consumption. The US is facing severe drought conditions, with 40 out of 50 states projected to experience extreme water shortages by 2071. This has led to the potential for water disputes between states and economic impacts, as seen in the Mississippi river's record low water levels. In Minnesota, where I live, 61% of the population is in drought areas, and 81 million Americans are living in drought-affected areas. Despite only making up 4.2% of the world's population, the US disproportionately consumes more than any nation in the world, with each person using 156 gallons of water per day compared to the average of 3 gallons per person in Mali. If the rest of the world consumed at the same rate as the US, it would require resources equivalent of 5.1 earth. Overconsumption of water is caused by industrial, agricultural sector also, but our current focus is households. American's daily luxuries such as long showers, overflowing closets, large homes, excess utilities use, heavy meat-based diets and personal transportation choices drive excess consumption. Continuing this trend will lead to severe consequences such as shortage of clean drinking water, loss of wildlife habitat, food insecurity, health issues, loss of productivity and damage to the ecosystem permanently. 

Percent-x is a web-based tool that enables users to monitor and decrease their consumption of goods and services by tracking their usage in customizable categories. The app utilizes information from utility providers, retail receipts, and user input to calculate the amount of water needed to produce and deliver these items (e.g., electricity, gasoline, meat products, clothing, luxury goods). Users can set consumption reduction targets, adjust their daily habits (e.g., shorter showers, meatless meals, carpooling or public transportation one day a week), and track their progress through the app. The app provides users with the amount of water saved through the reduction in consumption and generates reports on baseline consumption and progress towards the user's annual goal. This app will be developed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Amazon Textract, Python, and will be hosted on Amazon Web Services Cloud.

The solution aims to empower individuals and households with the tools they need to moderate their consumption and improve their environmental performance. The app is not only useful for households, but institutions, farms, and small businesses can also benefit from it. Our initial target group for the app will be 25 households from the same community, including my own household and those of friends who have expressed interest in the app in the survey. By limiting the pilot phase to a specific community, we will be able to take advantage of the uniformity of the utility provider and make data collection more efficient.

Households have a significant impact on their consumption habits, but often lack the necessary information to make positive changes. The app addresses this issue by providing actionable and accurate information on how to reduce their environmental impact. We believe that small changes in lifestyle, such as what we eat, wear, and how we move and consume, can have a significant impact on the environment. This approach is more achievable for people as it does not require major lifestyle changes, such as becoming vegan or switching from driving to biking. Instead, small changes can be made without much difficulty, leading to a more sustainable future.

As someone who was born in Seattle, where water is abundant, but later moved to Chennai, India where water scarcity is a common issue, I understand the importance of water conservation. In India, my family and community were mindful of our water usage and had to conserve it by using limited amounts of water and recycling greywater for non-potable uses. My dad used to go to monthly meetings where the water committee discusses ideas to reduce water consumption during period of drought. In my apartment, a rain water harvesting system was implemented. Some ways that we moderated our water consumption was by using only one bucket of water per person to shower,  collect water in containers and use it for washing utensils, water plants with water from washing vegetables, buying canned water for drinking, and community limited running tap water to 6-8 AM. Water conservation is a constant topic of discussion in my home and community.

I later moved to Minnesota, known for its abundance of lakes, but was shocked to learn that it, like much of the US, is currently experiencing a drought. This realization prompted me to research and start working on a solution, which led to my current project of building an app to address this issue.

I have experience developing apps and coding in Python. I have already explored Amazon Textract for extracting data from retail receipts. I am working on learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I am currently working with a team to develop a mobile app for small farms, with a target delivery date of March 2023. After that, we will focus on developing percent-x. Our team will have one person focusing on building the website, another on data processing, and a third on creating reports. Together we will cover the marketing, training and user support of the app for the pilot phase.

I conducted a survey within various age groups (0 to 18 years, 18-40 and above 40 years) and gender to gauge interest in changing household habits to help conserve water and the environment. 91% of respondents expressed interest in doing so, and 85% expressed interest in having an app that tracks their water consumption and helps them moderate their usage. A Nielsen study found that 48% of U.S. consumers are willing to change their consumption habits to reduce their impact on the environment. In the Summer of 2023, I plan to work with survey respondents to determine the categories where they would see the greatest impact in terms of water conservation, and whether an app with a gamification design would be effective in engaging children.

I am including the Survey Results below

percent-x addresses the challenge of households not having the necessary information and tools to make meaningful changes to reduce their environmental impact. percent-x offers an easy-to-use platform for households to monitor and decrease their water usage through a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface for document upload or data entry screens. With plans to extract data from utility providers via API after the pilot phase, this eliminates the need for users to manually upload their utility information. Additionally, the app converts indirect water use to water consumed per unit, providing a single metric to track i.e. water usage.

By raising awareness and encouraging individuals to take small actions, percent-x aims to create a grassroots movement that leads to long-term changes in consumption patterns and lifestyle choices across generations. Additionally, percent-x has the potential to expand and assist households and businesses in achieving broader environmental benefits such as reducing greenhouse emissions, increasing consumption of plant-based diets, practicing portion control leading to healthier diet, and reducing waste.

The pilot phase (2024) of our app aims to empower individuals to understand and reduce their environmental impact by tracking their daily water consumption. Our app will show users how a small reduction in consumption, as little as 10%, can lead to significant water savings, and demonstrate the power of individual action. To begin, 25 households that expressed interest in the app through a survey, including my own, will be selected as the first set of users. We will set achievable goals, track progress, and measure impact through our user-friendly app, which tracks both direct and indirect consumption. Users will have the option to anonymously share their progress with a community of like-minded individuals. Our goal is to create a success story in terms of environmental benefits and cost savings, which will strengthen the app's value proposition for future scaling.

Based on US averages of just 4 categories(meat consumption, water, electricity and number of jeans a person have) 10 % reduction shows we could save 56,000 gallons per person per year. 

What to measure
Metric Calculation
US Average per annum
Unit
percent-10 less
Water Consumed /Unit (gallons)
Water Saving Per Person/ Annum (gallons)
Meat
Total Consumed
224.6
pounds
22.46
1850
41,551.00
Water
Total Consumed
29,930
gallons
2,993
 
2,993.00
Electricity
Total Consumed
4,437
kwh
443
15
6,645.00
Jeans
 Count
7
per person
1
5283
5,283.00
Total Water Savings Per Person Per Year
56,472

Solution will be hosted on AWS Cloud. 

Data Extraction from Documents ( Retail receipts & Utility Statement : Amazon Textract.  Post Pilot I will explore data extraction through API from utility providers to collect data  automatically. 

Data Processing : Python

Data Storage : Postrgres

Website : HTML, CSS, Javascript

The pilot phase (2024) of our app will serve 25 households that expressed interest in the app through a survey, including my own household.

I do not have barriers for pilot development, me and my team need to learn the technology. I have identified the learning resources and also have access to mentors with industry experience. To Scale beyond pilot, obtaining automated data access from various utility providers may prove challenging. The data format from different utilities may also vary, making it difficult to standardize. Additionally, there are potential data privacy concerns about tracking household consumption, which need to be thoroughly researched. I will need to take into account these challenges and find ways to address them as I scale this app across the US. Although it may be difficult, the practice already exists in the market as seen with companies like Google's Nest collecting data of individual households. Thus, it is important for me to understand the details and take necessary precautions. 

I do not have partner organization at this stage of concept development.

Our business model is centered around assisting households, (institutions, and small businesses) reduce their consumption of categories they choose. Example for meat, water, electricity and clothing a family of four who sets a goal of a 10% reduction in these areas can save $1600 per year and reduce water consumption by 225,000 gallons. By scaling this model to a community of 130 single-family homes, we estimate that we can help these households save $200,000 per year and 29 million gallons of water per year.

In the initial phase of our operation, we will focus on building adoption and changing consumer habits by offering our service for free. This approach will allow us to establish a strong value proposition for future scaling, while also demonstrating the environmental benefits and cost savings of our solution.

As we establish a strong foundation for reducing consumption, we will expand the categories offered to customers for tracking and later introduce reuse options for our customer base. This will help further decrease landfills, extend the life of products or alternate uses. Our approach will be to prioritize building a base of customers who embrace a lifestyle of moderation in consumption and sustain it, rather than targeting a mass audience who may revert to old habits after an initial period of excitement.

Once we have a critical mass at the community or city level, we will work with data providers such as utility providers and retailers to enable data standardization and automated data extraction. This will reduce the complexity of the platform and allow for quicker scaling across cities, bringing down the cost of operation. 

To keep expenses low, we will utilize a small team of volunteers, including myself, for the initial development and marketing of our pilot solution. Additionally, we plan to host our solution on the cloud, with an estimated cost of  $3000 for year 1, which will be covered by my personal savings and my paid summer job at the hospital where I volunteer.

During the second phase, we will continue to offer it free for household, generate revenue through subscriptions from small businesses and institutions, as well as advertisement revenue from environmentally-friendly product companies targeting our curated list of environmentally-conscious consumers. Based on our learnings from the first phase and input from industry mentors, we will develop a scaling plan for the future.