Cool Choices (Wisconsin team sustainability game)
Madison-based non-profit running a 4-6 week online sustainability game where employees of companies, school districts, and municipalities form teams. Players log daily 'cool choices' (carpool, line-dry laundry, unplug devices) which are translated into points on a public scoreboard. Originally a deck of physical cards at Miron Construction; now web/mobile. 9,471+ players, 334,201+ sustainable actions reported.
Teams compete on a public scoreboard against other teams - in workplace deployments the teams are usually departments, but Cool Choices has been deployed at school-district and city-employee scale where teams map to physical locations (schools, city halls, neighborhood blocks). The Energy News Network coverage documents how the gamified league produced 'lasting reductions in electricity use'.
The game is explicitly team-based: 'The team structure of the game encourages people to interact in ways that might not be comfortable otherwise.' Teammates nudge each other in person, share tips, and the biggest gains came from heaviest-energy users being peer-influenced by greener teammates.
Documented evidence that an inter-team scoreboard + intra-team peer pressure changes real consumption behavior. Provides a tested template for any neighborhood-based version (just substitute 'team = block' for 'team = department').
Others in the same family
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.
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).
STADTRADELN (CITY CYCLING)
Run by Klima-Buendnis (Climate Alliance), 1.2m+ Germans log kilometres cycled over a self-chosen 21 consecutive days between May-September. Although billed as a climate campaign, it doubles as a population-level physical-activity intervention - municipalities sign up officially and their citizens, employers, schools and local councillors form teams. Stuttgart 2026: 8,809 participants, 1.8m km.
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.
STADTRADELN (CITY CYCLING)
Run by Climate Alliance, a 21-day campaign where municipalities sign up to compete on per-capita and absolute cycling kilometers. Mandatory team affiliation; tracked via the CITY CYCLING app GPS or paper log.
Energy Sparks
Charity-run platform that pulls schools' smart-meter data into an energy-analysis dashboard for pupils and staff, with explicit competition layer.