Strategic evidence report · 28 July 2026 · Switzerland
Climate action as a health intervention
A scientific, economic and product-level assessment of the ClimateActions platform built at beta.climateactions.ch—and the partnership case for insurers, employers, health systems and public-health agencies.
Prospective decision support—not a clinical claim, actuarial forecast or verified carbon-credit methodology.
ClimateActions
Behaviour
→ measurable exposure
+55MVPA min/wk
187actions audited
CHF 1.7bninactivity cost
4 pathsto partner value
01
Executive decision
The opportunity is real—but it is concentrated, conditional and measurable.
ClimateActions can become a population-health engagement layer because it does something conventional prevention programmes struggle with: it converts abstract long-horizon risk into small, social, rewarded actions. Its strongest health case is not “every green act is healthy.” It is a focused portfolio of active-mobility and diet-quality actions, supported by teams, nudges, streaks, local rewards and repeated measurement.
Active mobility
Cycling, walking, stairs and car-to-bike substitution create the most immediate, best-evidenced health gains through physical activity, with additional air, noise and carbon co-benefits.
Plant-forward food
Actions work when they replace red/processed meat and low-quality foods with legumes, whole grains, vegetables, fruit and nuts. “Vegan” alone is not a health endpoint.
Clean air + energy
Mode shift, lower fossil-energy use and cleaner buildings can improve health, but most individual app actions are too small or distal for clinical attribution without exposure data.
Nature + connection
Teams, volunteering, local nature and shared meals plausibly support wellbeing and connection. Treat these as measured outcomes—not monetized promises.
Investment conclusion
Pilot for evidence; scale for economics.
In the conservative model, a 5,000-person municipal pilot is an evidence investment, not a first-year financial return. At prevention-partner scale, the base insurer scenario reaches a 5-year societal value/cost ratio of approximately 2.1×. The direct budget proxy remains far lower because it counts only a captured share of Swiss inactivity-related care costs. The commercial case should therefore combine health value, prevention engagement, ESG/climate value and research-grade evidence—not rely on near-term medical claims alone.
Stress-test this conclusion →187legacy actions in the source catalogue
40classified as direct health pathways by rule-based audit
13current emission factors—all labelled low-confidence placeholders
15new proposed actions currently seeded as drafts
12admin challenge templates designed for repeated behaviour
0clinical outcomes currently proven by the beta itself
02
Product audit
What was actually built
The adjacent ../bigblueplanet repository is a production-shaped,
multi-tenant progressive web app—not a static campaign site. It combines behaviour
challenges, teams, surveys, rewards, local partner offers and an impact layer. That
stack is unusually aligned with digital prevention, but the present impact engine was
designed first for CO₂e and must be extended before health-sector claims are
defensible.
1ReachPublic funnel, referrals, employers, municipalities
→
2Action187 actions, staged challenges, local events
→
3MotivationTeams, CTOK, streaks, leaderboards, partner rewards
→
4EvidenceSurveys, intervals, participation, cohort logic
→
5ValueHealth outcomes, CO₂e, partner reporting
Behaviour layer
- Catalogue, join, progress and complete flows
- One-shot and staged/daily action designs
- Team challenges, leaderboards and referrals
- Offline queues, push notifications and tours
Incentive layer
- CTOK token ledger and Hedera minting
- Completion rewards and staged-action bonuses
- Value-partner offers and redemption flows
- Append-only transaction records
Measurement layer
- Repeated behavioural surveys
- 13 emission-factor records across 3 domains
- Personal, team and tenant impact views
- Planned control-cohort and additionality logic
Partner layer
- Multi-tenant data and organization branding
- Admin analytics and impact dashboards
- Local merchant onboarding and redemptions
- Municipal, corporate and NGO operating models
Critical technical finding
The current CO₂ display is not an action-level health evidence system.
The database labels all 13 seeded emission factors as low-confidence placeholders
pending HSLU/INFRAS values. Most of the 187 action rows contain zero
co2_savings_kg. The implemented impact function infers impact from survey
answers using assumed distances and frequencies; it does not yet connect every
completed action to an exposure, uncertainty interval, health outcome or causal
counterfactual. This is a sound prototype boundary, but it must be explicit in partner
material.
03
Scientific pathways
Five causal chains from a tap in the app to population health
Health value requires a complete chain: exposure changes, the change persists, it is additional to what would have happened anyway, and the exposure is linked to an outcome in a relevant population. Breaking any link turns a quantified benefit into a narrative benefit.
A
High confidence · near-term
Active mobility → physical activity → cardiometabolic and mental health
WHO recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity weekly. Regular activity helps prevent and manage cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers and can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. Globally, 31% of adults were insufficiently active in 2022. [1] In Switzerland, 21% of men and 27% of women were below the recommendation in 2022; attributable conditions cost CHF 1.668 billion and 60,900 DALYs. [2]
+55.1MVPA min/week pooled digital-intervention effect
+1,329steps/day pooled effect
~25%lower all-cause mortality risk at 8.75 mMET-h/wk vs inactive
A 2024 umbrella review covering 47 meta-analyses, 507 RCTs and 206,873 adults found increases of 1,329 steps/day and 55.1 minutes/week of moderate-to-vigorous activity, though heterogeneity was high and follow-up evidence weaker. [3] The BE ACTIVE trial in 1,062 high-cardiovascular-risk adults found sustained gains of more than 1,500 steps/day and 40 MVPA minutes/week across incentive arms at 18 months; the authors stressed that clinical event reduction remains an inference. [4]
Model implication: count incremental weekly minutes or steps, not “bike challenges completed.” Apply age, baseline-activity, safety, air-pollution and additionality corrections. WHO HEAT is the preferred next-stage valuation framework because it explicitly considers activity, air pollution, crashes and carbon. [5]
B
Moderate–high confidence · slower clinical horizon
Plant-forward substitutions → diet quality → CVD, diabetes and cancer risk
The 2017 Global Burden of Disease analysis attributed 11 million adult deaths and 255 million DALYs to dietary risks, with low whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds and high sodium among major drivers. [6] The opportunity is especially relevant in Switzerland, where only 16% reported five daily portions of fruit and vegetables in 2022. [7]
27catalogue actions mapped to the plant-forward pathway
25.1%vegan-diet GHG footprint vs high-meat diets in EPIC-Oxford
0.6extra fruit/veg servings/day in digital-intervention meta-meta-analysis
In 55,504 EPIC-Oxford participants linked to 570 life-cycle assessments, vegan diets had 25.1% of the GHG footprint of high-meat diets, while low-meat diets also showed substantial reductions. This is environmental evidence, not proof that every vegan product is healthier. [8] A large digital-intervention umbrella review found an average increase of 0.6 fruit/vegetable servings/day and lower saturated-fat and energy intake. [3]
Model implication: the app should reward substitution quality: legumes, vegetables, whole grains, fruit and nuts replacing red/processed meat or high-saturated-fat foods. “Vegan dessert,” “vegan sweets” and “Vegan Label” are engagement actions; they cannot receive the same health coefficient as a legume-based meal. Digital healthy-and-sustainable eating interventions show a small pooled effect (d≈0.33), with wide prediction intervals—useful but not deterministic. [9]
Cleaner transport and energy → lower air/noise exposure
WHO estimates 4.2 million premature deaths from outdoor air pollution and 6.7 million from combined ambient and household pollution in 2019. [10] Mode shift and fossil-energy reduction plausibly create health value, but a user’s avoided kilometre is not equivalent to a measured local PM₂.₅ reduction.
Quantify only with location, fleet, pollutant and population-exposure data.Nature and volunteering → stress relief + social connection
WHO finds urban green space can support relaxation, social cohesion, physical activity and lower pollution, noise and heat exposure. [11] WHO’s 2025 Commission also identifies social isolation and loneliness as serious health issues. [12]
Measure WHO-5 wellbeing and connection; do not monetize in the core case yet.Lower emissions → avoided climate-related health harm
WHO projects approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 from a limited set of climate-sensitive outcomes and US$2–4 billion annual direct health damage by 2030. [13]
Value tCO₂e separately from immediate local health co-benefits to avoid double counting.
Why health belongs in the core pitch:
IPCC AR6 concludes that active mobility, plant-rich diets, clean energy and nature-based solutions provide health and wellbeing co-benefits; in many cases these can offset substantial parts of mitigation costs. [14] WHO’s COP26 health report likewise calls for prioritizing walking, cycling, public transport, nutritious low-impact diets, renewable energy and nature. [15] ClimateActions already operationalizes these domains at the behaviour level; the strategic work is to tighten exposure definitions and causal measurement.
04
Detailed action analysis
Not all actions deserve the same health claim—or the same reward.
The action catalogue should be redesigned as a health-and-climate portfolio. The table below distinguishes direct clinical pathways from enabling, indirect and awareness actions and recommends measurable units for each family.
| Action family | Examples already built | Primary health benefit | Metric required | Evidence / claim rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walking & cycling substitutionPriority A | Move Slow; Sportlich unterwegs; Walking Distance; Auto stehen lassen; Nachhaltig einkaufen; Treppe statt Lift; Büro Challenge | More MVPA; lower CVD, diabetes and all-cause mortality risk; mood and fitness | Baseline + incremental min/week, trips, distance, duration, mode replaced, route safety | High for sustained extra activity; never infer from a one-time completion |
| Public transport & car reductionPriority B | ÖV Monat; Öffentlich unterwegs; Autoverkauf; Kurzer Arbeitsweg; In der Nähe; Rail-away | Walking access, lower traffic emissions/noise, reduced sedentary driving | Car-km displaced, access walking, fleet mix, occupancy, local exposure | Moderate; health gain varies sharply by what replaces the car |
| Carpool / remote workConditional | Carpooling zur Arbeit; Fahrgemeinschaften; Homeoffice; Online Meetings | Air/noise and stress reduction; possible social connection | Vehicle occupancy, trip avoided, sitting time, social/wellbeing outcome | Indirect; homeoffice may also increase sedentariness and isolation |
| Whole-food plant substitutionPriority A | Pflanzliche Ernährung; Hülsenfrüchte; Leckeres Curry; Weniger Fleisch; Fleisch aber gesund; Planetary Health Diet; Vegi-Week | Improved fibre and micronutrient intake; lower saturated fat/red-meat exposure; cardiometabolic benefit | Servings/week by food group, food replaced, diet quality score, 3×24h recall subset | Moderate–high; reward quality and substitution, not the label “vegan” |
| Vegan treats & awarenessEngagement | Vegane Süssigkeiten; Veganes Süsses; Backe vegan; #govegan; Vegan Label | Food literacy and social norm formation | Reach, recipe sharing, later substitution behaviour | Low direct health; avoid implying that ultra-processed vegan food is healthier |
| Food waste, local & seasonalEnabling | Zero Foodwaste; Lebensmittel retten; Saisonal kochen; Regional kochen; Richtig lagern | Food literacy, affordability, food security; possible fruit/vegetable access | Kg waste avoided; produce servings; household food spend; food-safety incidents | Indirect; local/seasonal does not automatically mean lower carbon or healthier |
| Home energy & thermal comfortSafeguarded | Cool down; Heizung runterdrehen; Stosslüften; Sauberer Strom; Sanieren; Haushalt fossilfrei machen | Cleaner air, thermal comfort, avoided mould/heat/cold exposure | Energy source and kWh; indoor temperature/humidity/CO₂; vulnerability screen | Context-dependent; never encourage unsafe indoor cold or poor ventilation |
| Cold water & cold showersDo not health-claim | Kalt duschen; Kaltes Wasser; Ohne Baden; Kurz und heftig | Energy/water savings only in the core claim | Hot-water volume and energy source | Insufficient for general health benefit; add cardiovascular and frailty cautions |
| Circular consumptionClimate-first | Second-Hand; Reparieren; Sharing is caring; Give&Take; Buy less; Elektronik länger nutzen | Affordability, reduced financial stress, skills/purpose; hazardous-waste reduction | Item category, avoided purchase, repair lifetime, household spend, wellbeing | Indirect; material-health claims require product-specific exposure data |
| Nature & civic participationMeasure wellbeing | Bergwald-Projekt; Blumenwiese; Grüner Daumen; Werde aktiv; Freiwilligenarbeit; Balkon bepflanzen | Nature contact, physical activity, purpose, social cohesion, stress relief | Minutes in nature, WHO-5, loneliness/connection item, volunteer hours | Emerging–moderate; benefits depend on quality, access and participation |
| System and social diffusionMultiplier | Fahrradwege; Corporate Action; Vorbild sein; Auf der Arbeit engagieren; Grüne Pensionskasse | Changes default environments and reaches people beyond the app user | Policy adoption, people affected, verified implementation, duration | High potential / low attribution; evaluate as implementation outcomes |
Planned pipeline · 15 seeded drafts
Health interpretation of the next proposed actions
These proposals are present in the source repository as
status='draft' and is_active=false. Their suggested CTOK
rewards are not evidence weights. Publishing should follow health, equity and
measurement review.
Only health-positive when replaced with walking/cycling or public transport that adds walking. Ask replacement mode and distance.
May reduce tailpipe pollution and emissions with Swiss electricity; does not add activity and still creates road-injury and particulate exposure.
Potential thermal-comfort and indoor-air gains. Capture temperature, humidity and ventilation; protect older, ill and low-income residents.
Direct combustion reduction can support air quality. Benefit depends on technology replaced, installation quality and electricity source.
Important mitigation action; personal clinical benefit is too distal to attribute. Reward verified tariff change, not health.
Potentially large long-lived climate impact. Apply installation-safety, tenancy and affordability safeguards.
Plausible nature contact, cooling and biodiversity value; measure participation and wellbeing, not clinical outcomes.
Health gain requires higher produce or whole-food intake. Local supply alone is not a nutritional endpoint.
Affordability and reduced consumption; no direct health coefficient. Avoid moralizing users with limited clothing budgets.
Worker and environmental-health relevance is upstream and supply-chain dependent; report climate/material outcomes separately.
Climate and affordability value; health relevance mainly via hazardous material supply chains and reduced financial pressure.
Can change defaults for food, commuting and buildings. Verify a policy or operational change and count affected employees.
Potentially expands reach beyond enrolled users. Use referral experiments or network measures before claiming multiplier effects.
Near-zero direct health pathway. Keep reward small unless an independently verified climate contribution is attached.
Impact is highly context-dependent and hard to verify. No health claim; prioritize higher-evidence behaviours in partner programmes.
12 admin templates
Repeated designs are more valuable than one-tap actions.
The templates “Velo statt Stau,” “ÖV statt Auto,” “Mitfahr-Woche,” “Pflanzliche Woche,” “Saisonal kochen,” “Food-Waste Stop,” “Repair statt Replace,” “Second-Hand-Monat,” “Leihen statt kaufen,” “Standby-Detektiv,” “Kalte Wäsche” and “Heiz-Check” define 14–30 day targets. For health partners, promote Velo statt Stau and Pflanzliche Woche first, convert targets from generic “actions” to minutes/kilometres and food-group substitutions, and retain the other ten primarily as climate-engagement modules. Repetition creates a plausible dose; it still does not establish persistence after the challenge.
60% direct
health actions
health actions
Recommended health-partner portfolio
Concentrate rewards where health and climate overlap.
- 35% active-mobility actions with verified minutes or distance;
- 25% high-quality plant substitutions with food-group data;
- 15% clean mobility/energy actions with measurable exposures;
- 15% nature, team and civic actions with wellbeing outcomes;
- 10% circularity and awareness actions for breadth and engagement.
Nutrition adequacy
Use positive, food-based guidance; include B12 and life-stage signposting for fully vegan patterns; never prescribe calorie restriction or weight loss by default.
Mobility injury
Route safety, helmets where relevant, visibility and local infrastructure must be part of active-travel challenges. WHO HEAT explicitly includes crash risk.
Cold and indoor air
Heating reductions need minimum-temperature and vulnerable-person safeguards. Ventilation actions should avoid humidity, mould and excessive heat/cold trade-offs.
Gamification harms
Avoid shame, punitive streak loss, weight-centred rankings and public health-status comparison. Add quiet mode, recovery days and opt-outs.
Equity
Do not reward only those with safe routes, flexible work, money for new appliances or control over household energy. Offer equivalent low-cost pathways.
Privacy
Health data should be purpose-limited, consented, minimized and separated from leaderboards, employers and merchants; aggregate reporting requires suppression rules.
05
Economic case
Four ledgers—not one inflated ROI number
Value partners need to see what can enter a budget, what represents societal welfare and what should remain non-monetized. The recommended model deliberately makes the difference visible.
Potentially avoidable direct cost
Based only on Switzerland’s CHF 1.668bn annual inactivity-attributable health cost and 60,900 DALYs, scaled by eligible users, dose, maintenance, additionality and an adjustable partner-capture share. Diet, air, nature and mental-health savings are excluded.
Healthy life value
Modelled DALYs averted multiplied by a configurable USD 50k–150k per DALY. This is a decision-analysis value—not revenue and not a reimbursement claim. Swiss transport appraisal separately recommends a CHF 6.9m VOSL for 2021. [16]
Avoided climate damages
Verified tCO₂e multiplied by a policy or damage value. The dashboard defaults to US$190/t, the US EPA 2020 central estimate at a 2% near-term discount rate, and also supports the Swiss CHF 120/t fossil-fuel levy benchmark. [17] [18]
Measured, not yet monetized
Wellbeing, connection, health literacy, prevention reach, employer culture, community resilience, member loyalty and partner brand value. Report these separately until causal and financial attribution is demonstrated.
| Base scenario | Year-1 enrolled / retained | Horizon | Healthy days gained | tCO₂e | Societal NPV | Programme NPV cost | Value / cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Municipal pilot5k addressable | 400 / 84 | 2 years | 9 | 48 | US$7k | US$76k | 0.10× |
| City / region50k addressable | 6,000 / 1,755 | 3 years | 725 | 1,870 | US$441k | US$623k | 0.71× |
| Employer10k workforce | 2,800 / 1,048 | 3 years | 378 | 1,107 | US$243k | US$426k | 0.57× |
| Insurer prevention250k members | 37,500 / 14,438 | 5 years | 33,393 | 34,753 | US$13.8m | US$6.45m | 2.14× |
| National coalition1m addressable | 100,000 / 32,160 | 5 years | 31,857 | 70,076 | US$18.7m | US$13.5m | 1.39× |
Base-case prospective outputs, rounded. Health realization is 40% in year 1, 70% in year 2 and 100% thereafter; NPV uses 3%. Carbon factors are illustrative portfolio averages and cannot support Contribution Claims. Open the dashboard to change every assumption.
Why small pilots look “unprofitable”
Fixed evidence and deployment costs dominate.
A pilot pays for integration, recruitment, safeguarding, scientific design and measurement across few users, while most chronic-disease benefits accrue only after sustained exposure. Its output is a validated effect size and operating playbook. Treating a pilot as a cost-saving product prematurely would invite overclaiming.
Why scale changes the equation
Digital marginal costs fall; health value compounds.
The existing multi-tenant architecture, self-service actions and automated rewards allow larger member cohorts without proportionate delivery staff. At scale, modest maintenance and additionality can create material healthy-life value. That claim still depends on retention and verified exposure—shown by the dashboard sensitivity tornado.
06
Value-partner proposition
Four partner types, four different definitions of return
The same app should not be sold with the same promise to every organization. The partner case becomes credible when the outcome, time horizon and budget owner match.
Prevention engagement + evidence
- Reach inactive members who ignore disease-specific programmes
- Measure incremental MVPA and diet quality
- Test claims, retention and longer-term utilization
- Offer CTOK-funded partner benefits without exposing health data
Wellbeing + commuting decarbonization
- Active commuting, stairs, plant-forward food and team challenges
- Absence and productivity outcomes only at aggregate level
- Inclusive equivalents for remote, disabled and shift workers
- ESG reporting linked to verified activity
Workforce activation + community benefit
- Healthy workforce programme with climate co-benefits
- Community referral or “green prescription” pathways
- Institutional challenges for food, travel and energy
- Research partnership and trusted content governance
Population health + climate participation
- Connect public-health, mobility and climate budgets
- Localized challenges and safe-infrastructure feedback
- Neighbourhood equity and community-connection measures
- WHO HEAT-compatible active-mobility valuation
Recommended acquisition offer
12-month Health Co-benefit Evidence Partnership
- Co-designPrioritize 20–30 safe health-positive actions for the partner population.
- IntegrateAdd baseline health-behaviour survey, device/phone activity option and consent separation.
- RunRecruit 1,500–5,000 participants with a randomized encouragement or stepped-wedge design.
- EvaluateMeasure 90-day and 12-month activity, diet, wellbeing, equity, retention and costs.
- ScalePre-agree thresholds for expansion and a partner-specific value-sharing model.
S
Strengths
- Existing working product and action library
- Social, local and incentive mechanisms
- Multi-tenant partner architecture
- Immediate climate + health narrative
W
Weaknesses
- Self-report and placeholder impact factors
- Catalogue breadth dilutes health specificity
- No observed clinical or utilization outcomes yet
- Health governance not embedded
O
Opportunities
- Climate-health prevention partnerships
- WHO HEAT-compatible municipal evaluation
- Workforce and insurer engagement
- Research-grade real-world evidence
T
Threats
- Green/health overclaiming and double counting
- Digital attrition and selection bias
- Privacy or employer-trust failures
- Unsafe or inequitable action design
07
Model methodology
A transparent prospective model with deliberately conservative boundaries
The dashboard is intended to support partnership design and value conversations. It does not estimate individual diagnoses, replace WHO HEAT or establish additionality for a Contribution Claim.
Reach × enrollmentenrolledactivation × retentionretainedmaintenance × additionalitycausal maintainersexposure dose × disease burdenDALYs avertedvalue / DALYsocietal health valueTraction
Addressable population → enrollment → first meaningful action → 12-month retention. Active user-years approximate linear attrition using the mean of activated and retained participants.
Maintenance
The share of retained users sustaining the exposure long enough to matter. It is separate from app retention: someone can stop opening the app but maintain a behaviour, or remain active without meaningful change.
Additionality
The fraction of maintained change caused by the programme rather than background trends, self-selection or another intervention. It must come from a comparison design, not a survey asking users for credit.
Active-mobility health
The model starts from Swiss inactivity burden: 60,900 DALYs across an estimated 24% insufficiently active population. It then applies profile-specific eligibility, added MVPA dose and a conservative dose multiplier.
Diet health
Base yield is 0.0035 DALY per sustained plant-forward user-year—an explicit modelling assumption, not a trial result. It represents a small fraction of global dietary-risk burden and is varied in uncertainty analysis.
Carbon
Illustrative average kgCO₂e/completion: mobility 3.2; nutrition 4.5; consumption 5; energy 3. These are scenario placeholders and must be replaced by versioned Swiss lifecycle factors and action quantities.
Direct cost
CHF 1.668bn / 60,900 DALYs = roughly CHF 27,400 of inactivity-attributable health cost per DALY. Only active-mobility DALYs enter the direct-cost proxy, multiplied by a partner-capture share.
Value & time
USD 50k–150k per DALY, 3% discounting, and benefit realization of 40%/70%/100% in years 1/2/3+. CHF converts at USD 1.22, a planning rate observed on 28 July 2026.
700-draw Monte Carlo
The range is more important than the point estimate.
The dashboard uses a seeded, reproducible triangular simulation around activation, retention, maintenance, additionality, MVPA dose, DALY value and carbon value. It shows P10/P50/P90 distributions. Correlations are not yet modelled, so this is a scenario uncertainty display—not a statistical confidence interval.
Safe now“Designed to support climate-positive behaviours with established health co-benefits.”
Test in pilot“Participants increased active minutes and plant-forward meals versus comparison.”
Needs longitudinal validation“The programme improved health-adjusted life expectancy or reduced care costs.”
Avoid“Each completed climate action saves X healthcare dollars.”
08
Evidence & product roadmap
What must be built next to earn a health-sector partnership
The shortest route is not a broad clinical study. It is a staged evidence programme that first proves exposure change, then persistence, then economic outcomes.
Health-safe product layer
- Assign every action a health pathway, directness and contraindication
- Replace generic completion with measurable exposure units
- Create a 20–30 action partner portfolio
- Add clinical/content governance and adverse-event reporting
Measurement foundation
- Baseline: activity, mode, diet quality, WHO-5, demographics and equity
- Optional phone/wearable steps and active minutes
- 90-day follow-up and app-event exposure table
- Versioned emission + health coefficients with uncertainty
Comparative partner pilot
- Randomized encouragement, wait-list or stepped-wedge design
- Pre-registered primary outcome: MVPA or active-travel minutes
- Secondary diet, wellbeing, retention, equity and cost outcomes
- Independent analysis and negative-result publication commitment
Economic validation
- 12-month maintenance and subgroup effects
- WHO HEAT active-transport valuation
- Opt-in claims/utilization or absence linkage with privacy controls
- Partner-specific cost-effectiveness and budget-impact model
| Domain | Primary measure | Instrument / source | When | Success threshold to pre-agree |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reach & equity | Enrollment by age, sex/gender, deprivation, language, disability | Minimal profile + partner denominator | Launch | No widening of participation gap |
| Activity | Incremental MVPA minutes/week or steps/day | Phone/wearable + validated questionnaire | Baseline, 90d, 12m | ≥30–55 MVPA min/week vs comparison |
| Active travel | Car trips/km replaced and access walking | 7-day travel diary; sampled GPS only with explicit consent | Baseline, 90d, 12m | Partner- and place-specific |
| Diet | Plant food groups and red/processed meat substitutions | Short diet-quality score + 24h recall subsample | Baseline, 90d, 12m | ≥0.5 produce servings/day or predefined score |
| Wellbeing | WHO-5 and social-connection item | Validated self-report | Baseline, 90d, 12m | Non-inferiority plus exploratory improvement |
| Safety | Injuries, disordered-eating signals, cold/heat issues, distress | In-app report + governance review | Continuous | No excess serious adverse events |
| Economics | Delivery cost, direct medical cost, absence (where applicable) | Finance + privacy-preserving linkage | 12–24m | Pre-agreed cost-effectiveness frontier |
| Climate | Additional kgCO₂e with uncertainty | Versioned Swiss LCA/action engine | Continuous | Independent method review |
09
Source catalogue audit
Explore all 187 actions through a health lens
This rule-based classification is an audit aid, not clinical validation. It was
generated directly from the canonical SQL seed in ../bigblueplanet.
Filters reveal where the current catalogue is health-specific, indirect or primarily
an engagement mechanism.
187
actions in view
42 mobility · 54 nutrition · 46 consumption · 45 energy
10
Evidence library
Selected sources and interpretation notes
Priority was given to WHO, Swiss federal sources, IPCC, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and large trials. Association does not by itself prove that the app will reproduce a study effect.
- WHO. Physical activity fact sheet (2024).Global prevalence, recommendations and health-system cost of inactivity.
- Swiss BAG. Health costs and healthy life-years lost through inactivity, Switzerland 2022 (2025).Core Swiss burden and direct-cost anchor.
- Singh et al. eHealth/mHealth lifestyle interventions, npj Digital Medicine (2024).Umbrella review: 47 meta-analyses, 507 RCTs, 206,873 participants.
- Fan et al. BE ACTIVE randomized trial, Circulation (2024).Gamification and incentive effects in high-CVD-risk adults; clinical outcomes inferred, not tested.
- WHO Europe. HEAT for walking and cycling, 2024 update.Preferred next-step model for active travel.
- Garcia et al. Non-occupational physical activity dose-response meta-analysis, BJSM (2023).Nonlinear dose-response across mortality, CVD and cancer outcomes.
- GBD 2017 Diet Collaborators. Dietary risks in 195 countries, The Lancet (2019).11m deaths and 255m DALYs globally; not a Switzerland-specific effect coefficient.
- Scarborough et al. Observed diets and environmental impacts, Nature Food (2023).55,504 EPIC-Oxford participants linked to 570 LCAs.
- Grummon et al. Simple dietary substitutions, Nature Food (2023).Supports incremental substitution rather than all-or-nothing diet change.
- Digital interventions for healthy and sustainable eating: systematic review and meta-analysis (2025).Small pooled effect; wide prediction intervals.
- WHO. Ambient outdoor air quality and health (2024).Air-pollution burden and disease pathways.
- WHO. Climate change and health (2023).Conservative 2030–2050 mortality and cost estimates.
- WHO Europe. Urban green spaces and health (2016).Nature, stress, cohesion, activity, air, noise and heat pathways.
- WHO Commission on Social Connection report (2025).Social isolation and loneliness as health issues.
- IPCC AR6 WGIII Chapter 3.Health and wellbeing co-benefits in mitigation pathways.
- IPCC AR6 WGIII Chapter 5.Demand-side mitigation and wellbeing; active mobility has broad benefits.
- WHO. COP26 Special Report: the health argument for climate action (2021).Cross-sector health recommendations for transport, food, energy and nature.
- Swiss BAG. NCD costs in Switzerland (2025).CHF65.7bn, 72% of 2022 Swiss health costs.
- Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Health statistics / physical activity (2025).2022 activity prevalence and equity gradients.
- Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Swiss Health Survey 2022.Fruit/vegetable consumption and health behaviours.
- Swiss ARE. VOSL/VLYL update.Swiss willingness-to-pay valuation benchmark; not a cash saving.
- US EPA. Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (2023).US$190/tCO₂ in 2020 at 2.0% near-term discount rate; jurisdiction-sensitive.
- Swiss FOEN. CO₂ levy for private individuals (2026).CHF120/tCO₂ policy benchmark for thermal fuels.
- CHF/USD history, accessed 28 July 2026.Planning conversion only; dashboard calculations should be updated for external use.
Use statement
This report is for partner acquisition and programme design. Before any external statement of avoided disease, healthcare cost or verified CO₂e, ClimateActions needs partner-specific denominators, validated exposure data, approved coefficients, uncertainty intervals, a comparison strategy and independent scientific review.