atlasGO × Tapio: engaging employees in a playful sustainable mobility challenge

The best partnerships are those where two companies can each bring their expertise in order to propose a unique offer. The partnership between atlasGO and Tapio is one of them. Together, let’s make the change happen by launching challenges combining business and fun.

For many people, reducing their carbon footprint means tedious processes, red tape and extra costs. What if we told you that it is possible to combine business with fun? That’s the challenge that Tapio and atlasGO have taken up. atlasGO is a Belgian-American B Corp certified company that has developed a mobile application to engage employees in fun and impactful actions.

The objective of this collaboration was to invite companies to raise awareness among their employees in a playful way so they can reduce their carbon footprint — by favouring soft mobility.

Complementarity as the key driver for change

The challenge took place during one month in September 2022 on the occasion of the European Mobility Week. The objective: encourage the employees of the participating companies to act on their journeys. How? By indicating on the atlasGO app the means of transport they use and the distances travelled. The calculator provided by Tapio allows them to instantly assess the impact of the journeys they make in terms of the amount of CO₂e not emitted compared to using a car.

Companies responded positively to the call. Among the participants:

• Silversquare — premium coworking spaces
• Maison Dandoy — Belgian speculoos specialist
• Greenfish (part of Accenture) — sustainable development consulting
• Mobilexpense — software developer

While the ecological transition presents many challenges, it also encourages bringing together companies with varied expertise. The success of the initiative is explained by the dual solution offered by atlasGO and Tapio: atlasGO’s ability to engage employees in a playful way around mobility thanks to social functions (chat, comments, photos), and Tapio’s ability to offer a detailed view of the impact of the participants during the challenge.

“The best partnerships are those where two companies can each bring their expertise in order to propose a unique offer.”

— Cédric Vandermeersch, Director of the Belgian Office of atlasGO

More than encouraging results

Throughout this challenge, Tapio mobilised its employees and the Silversquare ecosystem. At the end of the four weeks, the participating members of Silversquare had encoded nearly 1000 activities that allowed them to save 4650 kg (4.7 tons) of CO₂.

This represents in concrete terms:

• 214 times the amount of CO₂ a tree absorbs in a year.
• 2 round trips Brussels–New York by plane, or 7 round trips Brussels–Nice by plane.
• The CO₂ emitted by 9,235 vegetarian meals or 748 meals with red meat.

To achieve these results, they travelled 17,450 km by train, 2,729 km by bike (sometimes in bad weather), 2,397 km by car, and many other journeys by metro, tram, scooter, rollerblades, etc.

The importance of team, values and difficulties

For Cédric Vandermeersch, two elements made this partnership truly unique. The first is the opportunity for atlasGO to work with a young team, passionate and driven by the meaning of its actions. The second is the fact that the atlasGO and Tapio teams share the same values, ambitions, passions and have gone through the same difficulties.

These similarities were determining in the motivation of both companies to propose an original and quality initiative.

Together, let’s make it happen

Climate action is often perceived as difficult to implement. However, it can sometimes inspire actors to join forces to initiate change at their level. Acting in favour of the transition can also be done in a playful way — and the power of collective initiatives should never be underestimated.