Gamifying Sustainable Behaviours With Bogdan Glogovac
This episode features a conversation with Bogdan Glogovac, Partnerships Manager at Ducky, a Norwegian technology company working to turn climate efforts from a solo struggle into something fun, collaborative, and engaging. It was recorded in July 2024.
With a background in Ecology, Marine Biology, and Conservation, Bogdan has spent more than a decade nurturing strategic relationships, creating, and managing climate campaigns, and facilitating climate engagement workshops for a wide range of stakeholders across the public and private sectors.
Ducky offers software solutions to help track, report and reduce organizational climate footprints. One such solution, Ducky Challenge, is a digital competition that helps companies, communities, and collectives raise climate awareness and educate peers in a fun and engaging bottom-up approach.
As a father of three boys and a member of Trondheim-based improvisational theater group "Gibberish", Bogdan is passionate about playfulness. Something that, as you’ll hear, plays a major part in his life and work.
Amongst other things, Bogdan and I discussed the art of turning data into stories, the magic and mechanics of gamification, and what the wisdom of improv has to offer when it comes to tackling challenges like climate change.
Additional links:
Visit the Ducky website
Explore Ducky Challenge
Discover the Forest app
Learn more about Green Apes
Dickon: Hi, and welcome to Communicating Climate Change, a podcast dedicated to helping you do exactly that. I'm Dickon, and I'll be your host as we dig deep into the best practices and the worst offences, always looking for ways to help you and me improve our abilities to engage, empower, and ultimately activate audiences on climate-related issues. This episode features a conversation with Bogdan Glogovac, Partnerships Manager at Ducky, a Norwegian technology company working to turn climate efforts from a solo struggle into something fun, collaborative, and engaging. It was recorded in July 2024. With a background in ecology, marine biology, and conservation, Bogdan has spent more than a decade nurturing strategic relationships, creating and managing climate campaigns, and facilitating climate engagement workshops for a wide range of stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Ducky offers software solutions to help track, report, and reduce organisational climate footprints. And one such solution, Ducky Challenge, is a digital competition that helps companies, communities, and collectives raise climate awareness and educate peers in a fun and engaging bottom-up approach. As a father of three boys and a member of Trondheim-based improvisational theatre group Gibberish, Bogdan is passionate about playfulness, something that, as you'll hear, plays a major part in his life and work. Amongst other things, Bogdan and I discussed the art of turning data into stories, the magic and mechanics of gamification, and what the wisdom of improv has to offer when it comes to tackling challenges like climate change. So, let's get on with it. This is Communicating Climate Change with Bogdan Glogovac. From your perspective, how can communication best contribute in humanity’s response to the climate crisis?
Bogdan Glogovac: In my view, communication is a bridge. One thing is to do a research and gather data. Another thing is how you interpret the data and who reads that data. In my master's studies, I was really disappointed when I learned that there are rules to be followed on how to write your master thesis, because I did master's in marine conservation and biodiversity, and so, I wrote something like, “the world oceans are in danger and we have to do something about it. Otherwise, you know…” And my mentor came to me and he said, look, this is really bad. You should drop this. Actually, drop everything you wrote so far. I went, what? Why? He said, who are you to claim this? You need data. You need articles. This is not a way to write. And I got really disappointed because I thought, no, writing an article should be more than just for another scientist to read, right? And so, later on, I dropped the science, unfortunately. But then I started with Ducky, which was luckily for me amazing because this is where I feel communication should, what it's all about, at least when we talk about climate, is simplifying things. Simplify to amplify. Try to interpret data into a language that anyone can understand. And this is where I feel there's the biggest power of communication today, especially in regards of climate.
Dickon: For listeners who aren’t familiar with Ducky, could you give an introduction to the company, its mission, and its approach?
Bogdan Glogovac: Ducky is a company founded 10 years ago. And we were born out of a research project, which was called “People's Climate Emissions”. And basically, there was a big collaboration between climate data scientists and climate psychology scientists. And so, what we built was a platform to engage and educate citizens to live more sustainably. 10 years later, we didn’t change in our core that much. Our vision remains the same, which is “sustainable humanity”. That is what the company is really striving for. And our mission is to steer the world towards data-driven climate action. Which basically means we want to boost climate action and the way we do it is by providing intuitive software solutions that help companies, basically, track, reduce, and report climate. When you say it like this, it sounds a bit dry. But then, adding methods such as gamification, that we are also here to talk about, is something that we use. And I think this is what it's all about when it comes to Ducky.
Dickon: In very practical terms, what happens from the perspective of each user during a Ducky Challenge?
Bogdan Glogovac: Ducky Challenge is basically an online campaign. It's a game, a team-based game, in which we invite users to join their teams and log everyday climate actions within energy, food, transport, and goods and services. And there, we provide dozens of different options that they can do. All of these activities are everyday activities, and every activity has an attached CO2 savings value to it. This is information that is data-driven, country-specific, consumption-based, and every activity has tons of information on its importance and some tips and tricks on how to make those activities easier to report and do and incorporate in your everyday lifestyle. The way we see the user journey is as follows. What happens is that the user slowly but surely starts building climate literacy. That means the user starts to understand what climate is as an issue today, but even more importantly, what the user can do to tackle this issue. Another important thing which happens during our user journey is building habits, building sustainable and climate-friendly habits, which could ultimately lead to behaviour change. And this is our kind of end point to the user journey. Having users that manage to change their lifestyles is what we want. The rules are, the team that saves most of CO2 wins, and every challenge is a time-limited, usually up to two weeks. So when we speak about the journey of the user, we talk about that timeframe. Every company is a community, basically. Every company is a group of people, which is standing behind the common goal, mission, vision, whatever. What we try to do is utilize that mission and vision and invite those employees to align the companies' commitments with the company's goals, with their everyday lifestyles. Most of the companies today publicly commit themselves to sustainability and to achieving climate goals. So, we say, okay, why don't you invite your employees on board? And then we split those employees into different teams. Those teams could be departments, they could be different business units, or they could simply be made up. What really matters is that the people that join the team are people that work together. They have to be peers. And this is also coming from science and from climate psychology. You're more likely to be influenced by your colleague or your family member or your friend or even your neighbour than by a Nobel Prize winner telling you what to do in any aspect of your life. And this is very interesting. This is how we want across team conversations to begin and learnings and exchange of experiences, especially between different generations in each team. Already, that happening is a value for us before we even start interpreting any data. And so once those themes are set, the company creates a story. That's important. It needs to be anchored, so it cannot be just any climate challenge. It has to be that company's climate challenge, right? The ownership needs to be personal and on a company level. And then, of course, the company needs to set up a goal. Why do we do what we're doing? What is our call to action? How do we invite our employees to join? Then we normally perform a workshop for people that are team leaders. And we want them to be able to know a little bit more beforehand so that we make sure that every team member is well informed and that the participation is as high as possible. And I think this proved to be very efficient because when information, again, comes from your colleague, you get it much more than if it comes from an external product supplier like we are, for instance. And then a challenge is typically two weeks long. A company decides how to reward or incentivize the winning team. We always advise that this reward should also represent something climate-friendly. Otherwise, you get a rebound effect. And after that, every company receives an end report with all kinds of data that we can track for them to fulfill their KPIs.
Dickon: Throughout the challenge, you can go and you can see how each other team is doing. For me, as someone who was a previous team leader, that's what really made the difference because that's how I got everybody riled up and like, oh my God, I'm going to go and do X, Y, or Z because we couldn't fall behind.
Bogdan Glogovac: Yes! That's a pressure of missing out or falling behind. When we are doing a climate challenge, we also offer a live score board, a digital live score board in the form of a link, so that you can post either on your info screens or your social media or even your website so that everyone can see. And not even just your colleagues, but also perhaps your clients or some audience that might like to read about you can actually see what you're doing transparently. So for us, this seems to be one of the most exciting things because the impact happens in real-time. As people are logging, numbers are changing, and impact is growing.
Dickon: But the thing that jumped out at me is that it kind of felt like these lists that we constantly see, like “use public transport”, “don't buy so much meat”, you know, all these lists of how to make your life more sustainable or lower impact. The Ducky Challenge kind of brings that to life a little bit because not only are you being given that list, but you're also interacting with that list and you're seeing day-to-day through the challenge, the cumulative impact of making those decisions. And also then, with your team, seeing if they all go vegetarian for the week, what that means for your collective emissions reduction. And also that probably helps you win.
Bogdan Glogovac: Yeah, I mean, gamification is there to build excitement and motivation. Competitiveness is there to boost engagement and participation. And the rest is data, very valuable data, which tells a story. So what we want is you to feel proud that you are a part of your team. We want also our users to compete against themselves. I think it's very important to set your personal goal and then to try to reach it. So there are lots of levels. I think what is really important is just to understand that all of these numbers and all of that data, they are merely proxies. So it's not about being that accurate in saying how better you are. It's just about having a guidance on how to live a more sustainable life. And if I may correct you just a little bit, we try not to communicate in a way saying, “don't eat meat”. It's more about positive psychology. Instead of saying, “don't do it”, we say, “why don't you try something else?” And therefore, sure, perhaps you can eat white meat instead of red meat, or you can eat fish instead of meat, or you can try being vegan or vegetarian for a day. So lots of positive psychology is being because it's very important not to criticise people. They don't like to be told what not to do. And so in this way, we get them interested and onboarded.
Dickon: How can these kinds of initiatives generate a sense of community and collective action around the challenges associated with climate change?
Bogdan Glogovac: Once we get a green light to do a campaign, it's very important to build a story. And this story is about people - people are part of a community, and this community so happens it's called “ the name of the company”, and so what we try to do is we try to anchor the company's storytelling and narrative into the campaign story. We try to make it, of course, also more entertaining. We try to guide customers to create such a story, and then when you are representing your department or even your project or your city because it happens that your company has multiple cities to be in, you have this feeling that you belong. Not only to your company as a whole, but also to a little branch of people that you meet every day, that you work with every day, that you learn from every day, that peer influence is so strong. And when you realise the collective results, which are community results basically, and when you realise that your company can actually use these results as an achievement to be celebrated then you really start feeling proud that yes you are a part of this organisation that is actually doing something. So, I think that's the method on how we build such feeling and such excitement. It cannot be just a random competition that anyone can join. It has to be somehow under the umbrella of same value, same vision, and mission that we want to achieve.
Dickon: Can you discuss the gamification strategies used in Ducky and Ducky Challenge? How do these principles motivate users to take action?
Bogdan Glogovac: This is a very interesting question because now we talk about gamification and its essence - what are the elements that we use? And you know, what's funny we use teachings from Yu-Kai Chou. Yu-Kai Chou is considered to be the father of gamification, and you know how old is he? 38! And that shows you how young this field is, it's just insane. Gamification is represented as a craft where we use all of those game elements, to implement in some boring and dry and super stressful situations to make them fun and more exciting. And so there is something called the Octalysis Framework, which has elements that we try to implement in our product. And those gamification elements are as follows. Epic meaning, empowerment, social influence, unpredictability, avoidance, scarcity, ownership, and accomplishments. And so those eight core drives for motivation to engage in a game, let's start from Epic Meaning. What is Epic Meaning? Epic Meaning is actually inviting a player to believe that he's doing something so great, greater than him or herself and that that player was chosen to do this. That's this kind of epic storytelling we want them to feel because they are fighting about the biggest challenge of the world today. Then development and accomplishment, this is the internal drive of making progress developing skills and eventually overcoming challenges. So, we want to have a goal we want to see that we are better than we were we want to see some kind of getting closer to achieving our goal and then we of course want to see that we now know more than we did before. Empowerment of creativity and feedback, and this is when users are engaged in a creative process. I mean, in our case, we want to engage them so that they become co-owners of the campaign. This is why sometimes we perform planning workshops as well, where we try to figure out this story together: what is our call to action? How do we do this? What do we want to achieve? It's pretty much connected to the ownership and that's another core drive of this Octalysis Framework because users are motivated when they feel that this is something which belongs to them. Right? Then, social influence and relatedness, I think this is interesting because we talked about peer influence, and that's social influence. Social influence is also being able to actually invite people to join, showing this to other people. Then there is scarcity and impatience. One of the main barriers in climate communication is connected to distance, temporal distance, because we often hear stories about achieving climate goals by 2050, going climate neutral by 2030. When people want to know what I can do today, what can I do today? I don't want to know what are the goals for like 20 years from now. And so feeling impatient is a big frustration and this is what we try to solve because what we say is, “okay, let's do a campaign for two weeks and see what you can do.” Then there is unpredictability and curiosity. We offer translations of CO2 savings, and so that means that if you save a number, let's say 100 kilograms of CO2, that is quite abstract you don't really understand what that means. But then we are able to translate this number into kilowatts per hour or kilometres or calories, and then we visualise this in a form that everyone can understand, so even 100 kilograms of CO2 means something that is impactful and important. And then what we do is we offer surprises. Every time you refresh your page, you come back to the challenge, you would get a different example of your impact with the same CO2 value, and so that's how people really get engaged and they really want to go again and again and discover what are more examples of their impacts. And then finally there is a loss and avoidance, something that you also mentioned, Dickon, in your team. You were trying not to miss out, trying not to fall out, just “come on keep on doing it.” Basically in a nutshell these are the core drives that we try to constantly maintain and implement in our solution. So kudos to Yu-Kai Chou.
Dickon: Can you think of any notable apps or tools that you've also seen around that kind of makes use of this same approach? I mean, I'm thinking of the one where you don't use your phone and a tree grows.
Bogdan Glogovac: Yes it's called Forest. I have it actually on my phone and sometimes it actually works. There is one called Green Apes. This is an app from Italy and what they do is they create a funny narrative. You get an avatar of a gorilla and then you join your tribe and you collect nuts and bananas, but you do all of that by doing sustainable activities. And those nuts and bananas, you can actually exchange for some services and products that are climate-friendly and sustainable. And I think that's interesting. Having points doesn't serve that much but being able to translate them to have a monetary value then it brings up a value and motivation for users to collect points. Probably one of the most exciting things that I’ve heard of are those carbon credit cards. So the concept was imagine you have a credit card which is CO2 limited. You add a limitation and then the credit card is actually educating you telling you how much you can spend. So if you book many flights or if you do other unsustainable behaviours throughout the year at some point you reach your limit that's it. What happens as a result is that you get to learn how to spend, and I think that's very interesting and I hope such concepts would be commercialized.
Dickon: It's like an overshoot day for your bank account
Bogdan Glogovac: Exactly! Because I also believe that at some point we need that hard way to really kick in a butt. I remember that we had some trials and interesting attempts to connect let's say, when you do a Ducky challenge as an end report, you get a part of your total savings. But then those total savings could be turned into trees, biomass, let's say, or trees surface acres, using that as a means to plant those trees for real, right? And then you can say, no, this is not just mitigation. This is not just offsetting. This is what our people did. And we are planting those now. And this is our forest, right? You download digital results into reality that can remind you every day for years to come on your achievement.
Dickon: What data or insights can you share regarding the effectiveness of DACI's gamification strategies in driving real-world behavior change related to climate action?
Bogdan Glogovac: We always try to gather data from our projects. And after each project, we try to gather data from our projects. And after each project, we try to gather data from our projects. And after each project, we give questionnaires to both users and decision makers, understanding what is the value, how they feel, how they felt before, how they feel after, and so on. And so now we have lots of insights, interesting information, which I think proves the effectiveness of our gamification. One of them, for instance, is that over 60% of respondents stated that Ducky Challenge made them aware of their carbon footprint and how it impacts the environment. And I think for us, this is very important. It belongs to that climate literacy building. 67.9% stated that they will continue efforts to reduce their carbon footprint after doing the Ducky Challenge, which is another very encouraging piece of information. 42% of the respondents have stated that Ducky Challenge initiated or increased their interest in their organisation's environmental program. And this is probably one of the most interesting insights for our customers, because what they really want is they want their employees to become more proactive and to contribute in their company's environmental initiatives. And then we also have 42% of respondents who stated that they have adopted one or more sustainable habits after doing the Ducky Challenge. I just had a meeting today with our partner, Global Action Plan Ireland, and they were just saying that, for instance, they did a campaign recently, and one of the ladies that was a participant said that she implemented the vegetarian day just for the challenge. She's like a big meat eater. And she ended up now, two months after, having two vegetarian days a week, every week. And she was really proud. Having a game in which you need to think of strategies, how to do this in order to win, that can, eventually, boost your habit change. It's just fantastic. And I think this is what gamification should all be about.
Dickon: What strategies does ducky employ to make complex climate change concepts more accessible and understandable to a wide audience including those who may not be familiar with the environmental issues at all?
Bogdan Glogovac: This is where communication comes in place, the first question. How do you simplify complicated piece of information and tell a story that stays in our hearts? I think what is really important to us is to create some sort of emotion by saying that what you do makes a difference. My favourite reference stories are usually from Gandhi, I mean it's just the way it is I guess, but one time he said something like, “Everything you do is insignificant but it's so important that you do it.” I think it really makes sense. What we try to do there is translate each gram of CO2 because people don't understand that, you know, every kilometre that could be equivalent to your everyday savings matters. Actually to correct myself, they do understand, but they need to see it in order to get it and so what we try to do there is to translate this information and to make it more accessible to the audience and to the audience and to the and then visualise it. Visualise it in a way that can correspond to users that they can feel proud that they would like to share this, they would like to smile about it, they would like to challenge themselves to do even more. So, that's that's kind of the main thing. And I think also, I feel that after each challenge, it's so easy to tell a story. All you have to do is go, “Once upon a time in a country, far, far away. There were 250 climate warriors that managed to do A, B, C, and D. They fought bravely and they are still fighting, you know. These kinds of stories are being told by themselves, and thanks to data, we're able to tell them. But I think it's important in the end to say that data without a story doesn't mean much. So putting that context, attaching this kind of story to the data units is our strategy and it’s the way we engage our users.
Dickon: I can imagine some people listening, jumping into their critical mind and saying, “well, carbon footprint such an individualisation of the issue.“ How would you respond to that kind of criticism?
Bogdan Glogovac: Well, I disagree that this is individualisation. For sure. First of all, climate is above nations, it's above all of us right? I mean, you had Carl Sagan talking about it 40 years ago, where governments should focus their attention, and how they don't understand that it doesn't really matter what your community has as a goal because it affects simply all of us. So, I would say we are all part of that puzzle and then each one of us is so important right? It's like a beehive, you know, they control the temperature of their hives by their own wings. I think we all have our own little thing which is individual, but without a collective, it doesn't work. So, I wouldn't take that as a criticism, I would say “yes, and.” Both individual, but don't forget the collective.
Dickon: “Yes, and” - Spoken like a true member of an improvisational troupe!
Bogdan Glogovac: Yes, that's the main philosophy. You know, I think it really makes sense. Fighting against climate is difficult because it's interdisciplinary. And interdisciplinarity causes different minds, which are all brilliant, to have conflicts. I don't have the same angle of viewing things, for instance, if I was an engineer or a physicist. But if we embrace 'yes, and” principle, where it's okay, I listen to you and I say yes, because I understand where you're coming from. But now I want to add also my bit, then we could build together a building block for solving this issue. And I think this is one of the main challenges today, because we all claim that we're not going to be able to solve that. We claim that we are the smartest and we know how to do, whereas we are only smartest if we work together.
Dickon: Now, I'm just regretting that we didn't just do a show about the values of improvisation to the climate crisis.
Bogdan Glogovac: You know, there is a simple way to demonstrate “yes, and.” Whatever I ask, I want you to answer “yes” to every question I have. Okay? And let's see what happens. Now, Dickon, would you like to hear the story about climate fighters from Norway?
Dickon: Yes.
Bogdan Glogovac: And the way they fought their way through the biggest impact ever?
Dickon: Yes.
Bogdan Glogovac: How they recycled and stopped eating meat and how they walked for miles and miles and miles?
Dickon: Yes.
Bogdan Glogovac: And then how they fought a big giant climate dragon with nine heads and eleven tails?
Dickon: Yes.
Bogdan Glogovac: Okay, then I'll tell you. So, that's the end of demonstration. Now I want you to whatever I ask, answer no. Now, Dickon, would you like me to tell you the story about two climate fighters from Norway?
Dickon: No.
Bogdan Glogovac: Okay, then I won't. It's just such a powerful demonstration of what we need, you know?
Dickon: Yeah, thank you for that. What's the single most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our communication endeavours?
Bogdan Glogovac: Well, in my view, this is storytelling. And I think this is what makes us human. Storytelling is not just what defines us as people and the way that we actually spread information. I think it's also about going to the emotional side of things. I think we are definitely over flooded by rationality and data. There is a hyperinflation of data today that doesn't really allow us to understand what we could do, and that creates lots of dissonance in our everyday relationship with the climate and our own lifestyles. So, I think storytelling, but our own stories. I want to know my story. I want to know your story. What have you done today? What will you do tomorrow? I want to know what does that mean. I want to know if I can somehow resonate with that. And I think this kind of stories create emotional responses in people, which makes us better. This is something that is lacking today. I think this is something that's definitely most important.
Dickon: On the flip side of that, what's the biggest mistake that you see communicators make when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues?
Bogdan Glogovac: Oh God, I met so many sustainability managers and the way they communicate, they are all so serious! You never met a sustainability manager who would go, “Haha! Sustainability, what a topic.” They would go, “Okay, this is a big deal. We need to do this. We need to cut that. We need to go there.” Why not try to smile at adversity a little bit? Try to make this process, no matter how difficult, try to make it a bit more fun, a bit more entertaining, because I think it helps all of us.
Dickon: It was a blast talking to Bogdan for this episode, but what in particular stuck with you from our conversation? What will you take from it and apply to your own work? For me, first and foremost, it's the value of playfulness. This is something that I've already been trying to incorporate into my own work and something I feel really has a lot to offer. As mentioned, I've been part of a Ducky Challenge in the past. I've seen how factors like competition, virtue signaling, FOMO, and more, can be harnessed to generate engagement and action, to give people a reason to get out of their comfort zones and generally push the boundaries of how they conduct themselves. But fun, playfulness, enjoyment, these are big levers that we don't seem to be pulling nearly enough. They have a capacity to take things to the next level. As Simone Salvo mentioned in a previous episode, fun is what keeps people coming back for more. Next, I have to give some mention to the concept of “yes, and”. How great was that demonstration? Where can we apply this approach to climate-related work of all kinds? What tectonic shift would take place if we all embraced this philosophy more broadly? Those are the things that I'll be taking with me. But how about you? What did you hear? What will you be incorporating into your communications endeavours? Thanks to Bogdan Glogovac for sharing his time and insight with the show. It was great. You can find links to some relevant resources in the show notes. Thanks also to you for listening to Communicating Climate Change. If you enjoyed this episode, why not leave it a rating? Or a review? Your feedback not only helps to shine a light on the guests and themes that resonate with you the most, but also boosts visibility, meaning the series reaches more people, expanding the community and driving the conversation forward, which, after all, is what it's all about. You can find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts, or by subscribing, so you never miss out. You can find Communicating Climate Change on LinkedIn too, and if you think the series would be of interest to friends or colleagues, why not point them in the right direction? Remember, each and every episode attempts to add to our toolkits, to help us develop the outside-the-box thinking and the playfulness that we'll need for this enormous task. So, be sure to stay tuned for more. For anything else, just head over to communicatingclimatechange.com. Until next time, take care.
