Abstract
Increasing energy consumption and growing pollutant emissions speak volumes about the environmental challenges in various countries and regions. As one of the fastest-developing countries, China has been facing a serious environmental crisis, with many parts of the country constantly shrouded in a heavy haze. In order to improve the public’s pro-environmental awareness and encourage people to take action to contribute to energy conservation and emissions reduction, Ant Forest, a gamified participatory communication program, was launched on the top mobile payment service Alipay. This innovative approach links people’s low-carbon lifestyles with afforestation and haze control in the real world through virtual gaming experiences. This case study explains the working mechanism of Ant Forest in pro-environmental communication and investigates its effectiveness in motivating the public to engage in pro-environmental activities. Focus groups and interviews were adopted in this study to collect qualitative data. The results indicate that Ant Forest plays an encouraging role in Chinese users’ pro-environmental awareness and behaviors, but improvements in user experiences are still needed in some aspects. By introducing the haze problem in China and the practice of gamified participatory pro-environmental communication, this paper is expected to provide inspiration and reference for future efforts to promote public participation in environmental protection.
Highlights
News about air pollution, population growth, large-scale rainforest destruction, and climate change these days continues to remind us that the human impact on the environment has become an indisputable fact
Ant Forest, focus groups and of the gamified participatory pro-environmental communication practice in Forest, focus groups interviews were adopted in the present study as a triangulation method
We present themes that discuss the idea of Ant Forest in gaming experience, pro-environmental behaviors, afforestation, and user experience limitations
Summary
Population growth, large-scale rainforest destruction, and climate change these days continues to remind us that the human impact on the environment has become an indisputable fact. Scientists suggest that we declare the beginning of a new geological period, the “human age” [1]. With the continuous increase of energy consumption per capita in recent years, the pressure of the environmental crisis on the global village is mounting. The omen of a polluted future looms large in China, an ancient land where people have been living and thriving for generations, with a current population of 1.4 billion. While enjoying the dividends of social and economic development, China is facing severe challenges in climate-related environmental issues [6].
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