DRIVING ESG
ENGAGEMENTS
Enhancing ESG Participation Through Usability and Gamification
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
This project is a digital platform that helps employees across the UK engage with ESG goals by tracking simple environmental actions like reducing energy use, limiting printing, and choosing sustainable commuting options. Users can monitor their impact and stay motivated through challenges, badges, and leaderboards. The platform is designed to be easy to use for all employees (office-based, hybrid and remote), while providing users and organisations with insights for ESG reporting and sustainability planning.
THE PROBLEM:
In hybrid and remote environments, employees lack an easy-to-use, interactive, and inspiring way to track and maintain sustainable behaviours beyond the office. As a result, participation drops because users don’t get enough feedback, recognition, or rewards and organisations miss the chance to measure progress and document sustainability efforts properly.
WHY THIS MATTERS:
When sustainability actions aren’t visible or reinforced:
Employees feel disconnected from ESG strategy
Motivation reduces over time
Organisations lose valuable data needed for reporting and decision-making
Scaling voluntary sustainability programs becomes difficult
GOAL
Design a user-centered digital solution that enables employees to track, improve, and celebrate sustainable behaviours at home and at work while supporting individual engagement, collective impact, and alignment with an organisation’s broader ESG mission (starting with Environmental, and expanding to Social and Governance over time).
My Role
I led the UX process end-to-end:
Defined the problem and goals
Conducted mixed-method research
Synthesised insights and created the product direction
Designed user flows and low-fidelity prototypes
Ran usability testing and iterated based on evidence
TARGET USERS:
The solution is designed primarily for:
Office-based employees
Remote and hybrid employees
Other relevant organisational stakeholders
RESEARCH METHOD
To establish a strong foundation for the product, I conducted mixed-method research (quantitative and qualitative research) to understand user behavior, awareness levels, motivations, and challenges around ESG participation.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH:
I used surveys to collect broad insights on ESG awareness, current participation levels, barriers, and what motivates users to take sustainable actions. This helped me identify patterns across a wider population and measure common behaviours statistically.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH:
I conducted user interviews with different users to go deeper into the “why” behind user choices exploring what ESG means to people personally, what frustrates them, and how they would like to engage with sustainability within their workplace and daily routines. I also gathered recognizable patterns and used them to come with a problem statement.
KEY PATTERNS AND NOTES
Overall: Users are motivated to contribute to sustainability but struggle with consistency due to the lack of structure, feedback, and seamless tracking. Users want an app that makes logging easy, feels voluntary, provides encouragement, and connects their personal actions to a broader shared impact especially within the workplace. They also respond strongly to autonomy, positive reinforcement, and clear value messaging, which are all key factors that will influence retention and long-term engagement.
COMPETITIVE ANALYIS:
I reviewed existing sustainability and ESG-related tracking tools to identify what works and what fails.
Key learnings:
Gamification (points, badges, leaderboards, challenges) helps motivation
But many tools still rely on heavy manual input, limited notifications, and friction that reduces long-term adoption
This guided a core principle for my concept: make logging easy, and make motivation automatic.
USER PERSONAS
PERSONA 1: (SARAH) Remote Worker
Sarah works from home, likes tracking her routines with apps, and cares about the environment, but struggles to see how her actions connect to company goals. She wants a simple way to log actions, get instant feedback, and receive light reminders that don’t interrupt her work.
PERSONA 2: (DANIEL) Hybrid
Daniel works hybrid (office + home). He wants consistency across both environments, prefers mobile-first tools, and wants a gamified experience that fits into his schedule. He’s motivated by progress feedback and healthy competition, and wants the tool to work smoothly with his calendar/task list.
IDEATION AND DESIGN DIRECTION
Mobile-First is better than Web, because users need to log actions anywhere (home, office, commuting).
Motivation must come from:
rewards + recognition
clear progress feedback
challenges and optional leaderboard
reminders that support, not stress users
The experience must be accessible and inclusive (e.g. dark mode, screen reader compatibility).
APPLICATION FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITIES: After research, major key notes to take are:
Log an Action: A quick recording of eco-friendly actions (with optional proof and details).
Impact Dashboard: Shows environmental impact over time with simple statistics and graphs.
Challenges & Goals: Structured challenges like “zero-waste week” to keep users engaged.
Points & Badges: Rewards users when they log actions or reach milestones.
Eco Tips: Guides users with sustainability tips and content.
Calendar Integration: To fit into a user’s day with contextual suggestions and reminders.
Real-time feedback: For instant encouragement (e.g., “You saved 1kg of CO2 today”).
Smart reminders: Prompts users to log, complete challenges and share progress.
CORE USER FLOW: "LOG AN ACTION"
This is the heart of the product:
User lands to the home screen
Taps "Log an Action"
Select ESG category
Select action (e.g., turned off idle electronics, used reusable cup, avoided printing)
Adds optional proof (photo) + additional notes
Submits and receives confirmation + points + streak feedback
My Role
Responsibilities
As the designer for this ESG engagement platform concept, my role was to explore how digital tools could encourage employees to take environmentally friendly actions in their daily routines. I carried out research to understand how people currently engage with sustainability, what motivates eco-friendly behaviour, and what challenges prevent consistent participation.
Based on the insights gathered, I designed a low-fidelity prototype focusing on the core feature of logging environmental actions, allowing users to record habits such as reduced printing, sustainable commuting, or conscious energy use. I created user flows, wireframes, and interface layouts to ensure the feature was intuitive, clear, and easy for anyone to interact with. I prioritised simplicity and accessibility in the design so that users with different levels of ESG awareness could participate without friction.
Collaboration
This was a solo project where i used the design thinking process to ensure the goal of the project was achieved.
