Technology companies are everywhere nowadays. At the cutting edge, we’re seeing incredible breakthroughs using biotechnology, blockchain-powered decentralised networking, artificial intelligence and robotics. Some of these companies are even ubiquitous, think of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple.

The good news is that more and more of these technology organisations now exist to create a positive social impact. Yet, we rarely hear about them.

Here are 5 organisations that are using technology to improve outcomes in the sustainability and environmental change arena.

The TODAY App

The TODAY app helps you track and lower your personal impact on the planet.

You get rewarded for meeting small daily challenges in practical categories such as food, home and shopping.

As you progress, you can see the positive impact of your real social and environmental choices quantified into meaningful metrics like CO2, litres of water and time saved.

The app is beautifully designed, and you also have the option to browse through and buy sustainable products through partner providers.

You can download the iOS app here.

Good On You

Good On You is on a mission to make ethical shopping easy.

It’s a free app that gives you ratings on how fashion brands treat their people, the planet and animals. You can access ethical ratings for over a 1000 fashion brands, and discover new ones that do better. To top it all, you can also find offers from the best rated ethical brands. How good is that!

Download the iOS app here.

My Green World

My Green World is an Australian organisation on a mission to engage young people in wildlife and environmental conservation through unique educational experiences and resources.

Their mobile game app World of the Wild gamifies wildlife and environmental conservation, allowing users to rescue endangered animals, plant trees, address real life threats such as oil spills and poachers – educating and engaging at the same time.

The best bit? Each action you take in the app represents real conservation work carried out by one of their 18 partner charities at the front line of wildlife and environmental conservation all around the world.

World of the Wild is free to download from the iOS App Store.

Goodments

Online investing is complex and outdated. Most share trading applications force us to make decisions about investments based on financial data and metrics alone.

Goodments wants to change this in 2 ways – through simplifying the investing process, and giving you a more complete picture of a company’s performance using Ethical, Governance and Social (ESG) ratings.

As an investor, you build a profile based on your values and get matched to investment options that align. So you can screen out the tobacco and fossil fuel companies, and discover those doing good.

By overlaying Ethical, Governance and Social (ESG) ratings on financial data, they give you a more complete picture of each company’s performance, and long term impact. Goodments claim that sustainable investing drives 3x higher returns.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Goodments currently has a waitlist and is launching soon. You can join here.

Sendle

Sendle is a 100% carbon neutral delivery service. It also happens to be Australia’s first certified technology B Corporation.

Despite being a delivery service, it doesn’t own a single van. Rather, it builds software that links several couriers to provide Australia wide delivery. It’s also just started rolling out low cost international deliveries.

Sendle has won several innovation and design awards for it’s simple pricing and business models. As a customer, you access the service online. What’s included? Flat delivery rates, parcel pick up, tracking and insurance, and excellent customer support.

You can start using Sendle here.

beeco

beeco is a marketplace and a media platform showing there is a sustainable alternative for most everyday products and services. The marketplace is growing constantly its inventory (currently over 60 products from 15 different vendors) and aims at having the largest inventory of eco-friendly products in 2020. The media platform helps people to move towards a more sustainable way of life through tips, simple guides and interviews of inspiring people.

This is part 1 of a series highlighting tech organisation that exist for good. Subscribe to follow the upcoming posts!

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Parth Gulati is a software Product Manager who works at the intersection of design, technology and social impact. He believes that the future belongs to organisations with a purpose, and that making money and improving society are not mutually exclusive. He is passionate about enabling the critical use of technology to solve some of our most pressing social and environmental problems, and is serious about driving towards a world where mission driven organisations are the are norm.