Environmental participation in Zagreb now works via an app!

UfU project successfully launches an app for environmental participation in Zagreb!

If you want to raise public awareness of environmental protection in your own area, participation is a good way to do so. For example, anyone who discovers garbage, illegally felled trees or other environmental damage in their neighborhood, surroundings or local recreation area is usually annoyed by it, but finds few opportunities to take action against it. However, if people are given an easy way to report this environmental damage for the purpose of its removal, not only does the sensitivity for discovering such damage increase, but also the emotional value of their own environment. In Zagreb, Croatia, UfU, together with the Croatian environmental organization Zelena Akcija, has developed an app that enables civilians to report environmental damage. There has been a telephone hotline for this purpose in Croatia since 1997, the so-called green telephone. The new “Smart Green Phone” app is intended to simplify this service and encourage young people in particular to get involved in environmental protection. The app makes it easy to send photos of environmental damage with location information. The information collected in this way can be easily distributed to the relevant authorities and also makes it easier for the authorities to rectify environmental damage. To ensure that the app is also used by the population, numerous participation processes, including surveys on the use and potential for improvement of the current/telephone service, a virtual study visit to good or similar digital participation tools from Germany and Croatia, were integrated into the development. The app currently “only” relates to Zagreb, but is to be extended to the whole of Croatia in the future. The project is an example of how digital tools can be used to sustainably improve cooperation between the civilian population and the authorities in order to achieve a common goal. The app met with a very positive response in the Croatian media. Headlines such as “Download the new” Smart Green Phone “app and report environmental problems” or the descriptions as “a revolutionary solution” call for direct use of the app. Participation is one of UfU’s core research areas. Digital participation of citizens with the help of such apps is also an opportunity to strengthen trust in democracy and society. This example should be extended to other countries in the EU and other areas.