Can gamification and rewards actually change sustainable behaviour, or do they just drive short-term compliance? And how do you engage a campus community as diverse as university staff and students in environmental action? Josh Cleall, CEO of Team Jump, and Yurong Tian, Sustainability Coordinator at the University of Warwick, discuss Warwick's Green Rewards Platform: a gamified system where staff and students earn points for sustainable actions like active travel, recycling, and sustainable shopping, then enter monthly raffles to win vouchers. Josh explains why gamification works: it breaks down the enormity of climate change into small, accessible steps. The platform makes sustainability manageable through points, leaderboards, and badges, but the real goal isn't the rewards, it's building habits. Once users engage with one behaviour (like active travel), habit stacking makes it easier to layer on additional sustainable actions. Yurong shares how Green Rewards connects individual behaviour to institutional commitments like Warwick's Nature Positive Universities pledge. When users upload nature photos or record species sightings through iNaturalist, they contribute real data to science while connecting directly to biodiversity work on campus. The platform bridges big institutional commitments and everyday individual actions. We discuss reward design: the most popular voucher option is on-campus operations offering ethically sourced coffee and healthy food, meaning people doing sustainable activities choose sustainable rewards. Yurong shares that Green Rewards started from sustainable transport behaviour change but expanded to food, energy, nature, and more because everyone comes to sustainability from different angles. Josh reveals the university difference: students bring burning passion for climate action from school but find many organisations don't prioritise it. Green Rewards gives them an outlet. The challenge is students are transient (three or four years versus longer-term staff), but peer influence amongst students is stronger than other cohorts. Over 1,200 users have logged 77,000+ actions at Warwick. Interestingly, some of the most sustainably active people on campus hadn't heard of Green Rewards, showing that multiple engagement methods work and reach different audiences through different channels. Josh addresses the lasting change question: rewards are a hook to get people listening and engaging with content, but the business is building habits and getting people to think about sustainability day in, day out, not just when receiving push notifications or vouchers. Essential listening for anyone interested in behaviour change, campus sustainability engagement, gamification for environmental action, and whether rewards-based platforms create genuine transformation. Sustainability Matters Now Exploring how universities, organisations, and communities put sustainability into practice across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Hosted by Dr Tom Ritchie, Chair of the ESD Action Group at the University of Warwick. This podcast is supported by the Energy and Sustainability Team at the University of Warwick, with particular thanks to Yurong Tian, Gemma Wilkins, and Professor Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla. Join for conversations at Warwick and beyond, exploring the UN Sustainable Development Goals, institutional sustainability commitments, and the real-world challenges of creating equitable, thriving, and resilient communities. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
