Technology experts, focused on people
As an international provider of environmental services, the PreZero Group is actively involved in the transition to a circular economy by offering innovative solutions for the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste. They are the environmental division of the Schwarz Group, which also includes the trading companies Kaufland and Lidl as well as Schwarz Produktion.
The PreZero Group currently employs 30,000 people internationally in eleven countries: Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and the USA. Together with their customers, they work to combine economy with ecology to support their development in a sustainable way.
The aim is to transform cities, neighbourhood by neighbourhood and home by home, turning every waste into a resource that produces new forms of circular living that encourage citizen cooperation, boost the local economy and make it possible to protect the planet in a way that connects with citizens to make them aware that their contribution to recycling has a great value and impact.
The dugud mobile app allows citizens to earn rewards by accumulating points for good recycling practices. Specifically, citizens will have an electronic key to deposit waste in containers that will measure the amount of organic matter deposited. Thanks to this process, users will subsequently be able to exchange their points for different benefits such as tickets to museums, cinemas, discounts on transport vouchers or the selection of social or environmental projects that can be implemented in their respective neighbourhoods or districts.
The "Dugud" App is a pioneering mobile application for recycling because of its ability to combine three aspects: the possibility of obtaining prizes through the accumulation of points for good practices, social challenges and dissemination. The use of Dugud is intended to create a group of "duguders", people who simply want to do things well.
The municipality of Getxo, in northern Spain, has the responsibility to achieve a 50% recycling rate, in line with European targets. The achievement of this was transferred to PreZero Spain as part of the wider collaboration contract in the urban environmental services space. To achieve this, we needed to attract the attention of the community and encourage them to own the target as well. Getxo has a good recycling rate at present, but it is not yet at the required level.
The challenge was to create a memorable and meaningful experience to engage and motivate the citizens of Getxo in waste recycling. To do this, we designed and created a smartphone app with a team of internal experts and selected partners. The app will be tested with a group of residents to validate its functionality and identify any issues in Q2 and Q3 this year.
On the one hand, the app reframes the task of recycling, well known to the user, and connects the benefits of separating waste with the rest of the community. On the other hand, it promotes recycling by positive reinforcement. Waste separation habits are attributable to individuals and rewarded with prizes and social recognition.
PreZero
Dugud is not just an app, but a citizen recycling project that works on different levels: monitoring individual contributions, recording neighbourhood contribution rankings, waste traceability and community impact. The solution will address "triple bottom line" sustainability by affecting environmental, social and financial measures.
In the future, it could be applied to other services across cities, in Spain and other geographies. The platform was created with scale in mind and a global approach. New functionality is planned for Dugud if the pilot is successful.
This initiative represents a direct "business-to-consumer" engagement that is new to PreZero Spain's services. We have had to learn not only about app development, but also about how to make the app attractive and relevant to citizens of all ages.
Five Flames Mobile was founded in 2012 by three developers with a solid background in mobile app development. Due to this previous experience, the FFM team started working with iOS, Android from the beginning, which has provided them with a huge knowledge and a very specialised team with developers focused on a single technology. This allows FFM to develop complete and high quality native applications that quickly exceed client expectations.
FFM has been working with PreZero since 2020 developing, maintaining and improving applications for different business areas of the company. This work has provided him with the experience and internal knowledge of the company necessary to be able to not only carry out the commissioned work but also add value to the proposals developed.
