Cool Block / Cool City Challenge
Block leaders recruit 5-8 neighboring households into a 'Cool Block' that runs a 9-meeting, 5-month program across carbon, water, resilience, livability, and empowerment themes. 'Cool Neighborhood' = ~10 Cool Blocks in geographic proximity.
Cool City Challenge pits cities against each other to recruit the most Cool Block leaders and achieve the largest aggregate household carbon reductions, with $1M prize tier funding the winners' carbon-neutrality plans. Blocks within a city are ranked on recruitment and reduction.
The heart of the program: 5-8 neighbors meet in each other's homes biweekly for ~5 months, build social trust, take 25 coordinated actions together (electrification, water, disaster prep). Pilots showed 45% block recruitment rate and 32% household carbon reduction. Strong intra-area mutual-support evidence.
Combines hyper-local (block of 5-8 households) with city-scale competition. Documented measurable outcomes, not just engagement metrics. Block size is small enough to enforce real mutual support.
Others in the same family
Klima-Taler
City-branded climate app powered by motiontag that auto-detects walking/cycling/public-transport trips and converts CO2 saved into 'Klima-Taler' coins redeemable at local pools, museums, shops. Each participating city gets its own white-label instance; users join open teams.
Eco-Olympics / Green Cup (campus residential)
Month-long competition between residence halls (dorms) on percent reduction in electricity and water vs baseline. Tracked via real meter data, often visualized on color-changing orbs (Oberlin BuildingOS).
Las Fallas de Valencia (Casals Fallers competition)
~750 neighborhood 'casals fallers' (faller clubs). Covering ~25% of Valencia's population. Each commission and build a satirical sculptural monument (a 'falla') up to five stories tall in their own neighborhood. All fallas compete in juried categories (Seccion Especial down to local sections), plus a separate Ninot Indultat popular-vote contest decides which figure escapes burning on 19 March.
Mural Arts Philadelphia Block-Captain Programs
Mural Arts Philadelphia runs 50-100 community mural projects per year, each anchored to a specific block via a 3-block-radius consultation. Every mural is co-designed with block captains, town watch groups, library leaders, and district leaders. The program employs 300+ artists and has produced over 3,600 murals across Philadelphia neighborhoods including Kensington, Northern Liberties, and the Gayborhood.
Energy Sparks (UK schools energy league)
Open-data platform that ingests half-hourly electricity and gas meter readings for ~620+ schools and turns energy investigations and saving actions into points. Public national, regional (London, North-West England, etc.), Multi-Academy-Trust, and Local Authority scoreboards rank schools in real time across the academic year. Cash prizes for top schools are spent on a sustainability project the school chooses.
Munzee Clan Wars
Players capture physical and virtual 'munzees' at real-world locations. Each month, clans (player teams) battle in Clan Wars with rotating monthly requirements (capture types, regions, point totals). Levels 1-6 with reserved tiers for premium players.