Two Dunedin men hope it is only a matter of time before businesses are required to display their environmental impact rating, the same way restaurants are required to display their food safety rating.
Casey Bell-Davies (21) and Alax Robinson (31) are designing a website and phone app to measure the environmental impact of businesses in producing their products.
Mr Bell-Davies, co-founder and chief executive officer of the team's company, Geia (global environmental impact assessment), said his aim was to change the way businesses and individuals thought about consumption.
"Enterprise is a powerful vehicle for change, whether positive or negative,'' he said.
"We might as well make it positive.''
The company's website would rank participating businesses on a leaderboard based on their environmental performance, and encourage consumers to trade with the best performers, Mr Bell-Davies said.
That would be achieved by also ranking consumers on a leaderboard, using the app, with more points gained for trading with higher-ranked companies.
Geia would offer companies advice on how to improve their rating, he said.
The six-person team had interviewed members of the Dunedin business community as trial studies, and had attracted interest from local businesses and university representatives.
The company would rank businesses in three areas: waste and disposal, energy and travel and transportation.
Mr Robinson, co-founder and marketing director, said there was a lot of misinformation about how to be ecofriendly and the company hoped to offer some clarity.
"Ideally, people will walk down the street and see a rating on a shop window which says. ‘We're taking steps to help improve the environment and this is how well we're doing it'.''
Mr Bell-Davies had been studying international business at the University of Otago but put that on hold to work full-time for the company, he said.
He had gained $17,000 in funding for the company so far.
Mr Robinson was studying design at Otago Polytechnic and worked full-time.
The company's website could be operating by March next year and the phone app available by the middle of the year.
