Despite ambitious climate pledges, a persistent “last-mile” gap remains: individual climate actions are often undervalued within existing frameworks. Gyeonggi Province addresses this gap by converting verified citizen actions into measurable public value and rewarding participants with local currency to support local economies. By reinvesting these rewards in climate technologies, the initiative transforms citizens from policy beneficiaries into active co-creators of a sustainable future.
Innovation Summary
Innovation Overview
Millions of people take small daily actions to fight climate change—walking instead of driving, using public transportation, or recycling—but these efforts are often unrecognized and unrewarded. As a result, collective action remains fragile, and communities miss opportunities to capture the economic and social benefits of the green transition. Traditional climate policies, such as carbon taxes and emissions regulations, primarily discourage harmful behaviors rather than directly incentivizing positive action in equitable ways.
The Climate Action Opportunity Income (CAOI), launched by Gyeonggi Province, Republic of Korea, in July 2024, addresses this challenge by turning everyday climate choices into measurable public value. Citizens earn Opportunity Income in local currency for 16 verified low-carbon actions through a mobile platform linked to familiar tools, such as transit cards or smartphone activity tracking. Rewards are automatically credited to prepaid local-currency cards, eliminating manual claims and paperwork.
Following a “Beneficiary Earns Principle,” CAOI complements the traditional “Polluter Pays Principle” by recognizing and rewarding actions that generate public benefits. The initiative demonstrates how small, everyday behaviors, such as walking, cycling, or recycling, collectively drive meaningful climate and economic outcomes by linking personal effort to local economic impact.
CAOI represents a new paradigm in citizen-driven climate action and the emerging climate economy by delivering measurable benefits for residents, communities, and public governance. Participation is open to all residents aged seven and above, including foreign residents. Local businesses benefit from increased spending in local currency, while public authorities gain reliable behavioral and emissions data to support evidence-based policymaking. By recognizing citizen actions as contributors to public value, CAOI links individual behavior to the local climate economy, showing how everyday actions can generate tangible social, environmental, and economic outcomes.
CAOI follows a two-phase developmental pathway. Phase 1 prioritized frictionless verification and mass adoption. Phase 2, planned for 2026, will transition CAOI toward a fully citizen-driven climate economy, centered on the citizen-as-investor mechanism. Participants will be able to reinvest Opportunity Income in local climate-technology startups, shifting them from policy beneficiaries to active contributors to local climate investment. Complemented by group missions, personalized guidance, and digital public infrastructure that aggregates behavioral and emissions data, Phase 2 will strengthen sustained engagement, promote long-term behavioral change, and generate insights for evidence-based policymaking.
In its first 18 months (July 2024–December 2025), CAOI achieved measurable scale and impact:
- Participation: 1.74 million residents (≈12% of the provincial population) enrolled voluntarily
- Verified actions: 160.9 million climate actions completed
- Environmental impact: Estimated 414,960 tCO₂e reduced
- Economic impact: KRW 30.2 billion circulated locally through Opportunity Income
- Equity and inclusion: 355 in-person training sessions at 147 senior centers reached more than 7,300 older adults, increasing senior participation by 174%
- Behavioral change: In an August 2025 survey of 97,000 participants, 94% reported greater environmental awareness and 90% reported adopting more climate-positive behaviors
- Recognition: Recipient of the Minister’s Award for Carbon Neutrality Best Practices
CAOI’s modular design allows jurisdictions to adopt selected components or implement the full framework according to local capacity and priorities. This flexibility positions CAOI as a global blueprint for scalable, adaptable, and replicable citizen-driven climate finance and data-informed governance.
Innovation Description
What Makes Your Project Innovative?
CAOI’s innovation rests on four key features:
- Citizen-as-investor design: Rewards circulate locally or can be reinvested in local climate solutions, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of engagement, investment, and impact
- Dynamic feedback loop: Climate actions generate Opportunity Income that can be reinvested, produce data to guide policy, expand participation, strengthen the local economy, and accelerate further climate action. The system continuously learns and improves with each cycle.
- Staged implementation: Governance is tested, evaluated, and refined under real-world conditions
- Multidisciplinary design: Informed by behavioral science, political economy, and development economics
Together, these elements form a holistic public innovation that actively engages citizens, drives local investment, produces measurable climate outcomes, and provides actionable insights for evidence-based policy.
What is the current status of your innovation?
Since July 2024, CAOI has converted everyday climate actions into measurable economic and environmental value. Phase 1 is operating at scale, engaging 1.74 million participants through automatic verification of 16 low-carbon actions. Targeted inclusion efforts have increased older-adult participation by 174%. Six local governments have committed budgets to join the initiative, and four more are considering further engagement. Phase 2 is planned for rollout beginning in 2026, with preparatory work underway, including community climate missions, enhanced impact analytics, a personalized dashboard, and the citizen-as-investor reinvestment framework.
Early evidence shows CAOI is generating practical insights that inform ongoing improvements. Residents report integrating new climate actions, such as community plogging and low-waste delivery options, into daily routines, turning everyday behaviors into measurable cases that demonstrate impact and guide future policy design.
Innovation Development
Collaborations & Partnerships
CAOI is implemented through a multi-actor model:
• Gyeonggi Province leads design and governance
• Private-sector partners support platform operations and action verification
• A public institution and private payment provider ensure efficient and accountable disbursement of Opportunity Income
• A citizen-led group assists older adults with onboarding and inclusion through in-person support
From 2026, local governments will contribute co-funding and adapt climate actions to fit local contexts.
Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries
CAOI engages multiple beneficiaries:
- Citizens complete verified climate actions and earn Opportunity Income, generating the participation data that drives measurable environmental and economic outcomes
- Local small and medium-sized businesses benefit from increased local spending, reinforcing the link between citizen action and the local economy
- Governments receive real-time evidence on participation, inclusion, and outcomes, enabling evidence-based policy and informed decision-making
Innovation Reflections
Results, Outcomes & Impacts
• 1.74 million users completed 160.9 million verified climate actions
• Estimated reduction of 414,960 tCO₂e, based on conservative national emission factors and verified participation counts
• Estimated social benefits (carbon, environmental, health care, and resource savings) of approximately KRW 442.7 billion (≈USD 310 million)
• KRW 30.2 billion (≈USD 21.1 million) circulated in local currency. Using sector-specific value-added ratios, this generated an additional KRW 15.86 billion (≈USD 11.1 million) in the regional economy
• Targeted in-person training increased participation among residents age 60 and older by 174%, supporting equity for digitally vulnerable groups
• In a survey of 97,000 participants, 94% reported greater environmental awareness and 90% reported adopting more climate-positive behaviors
Looking ahead, Phase 2 is expected to increase participation and amplify environmental and socio-economic impact, with enhanced methodologies to track results.
Challenges and Failures
Operational challenges: The digital residency verification process initially created barriers for older adults, limiting equitable participation and revealing accessibility gaps. In-person support was added, and verification procedures are being reviewed to simplify onboarding. This experience underscored the need to design non-digital support alongside digital systems from the outset.
Technical challenges: Intermittent app outages occasionally disrupted the recording of climate actions, affecting reliability and user trust. Early resolution highlighted the importance of thorough testing, real-time monitoring, and contingency planning.
Conditions for Success
Reducing behavioral and administrative friction: Automation lowered barriers to participation. The mobile platform tracked and verified activities automatically, and Opportunity Income was disbursed by default, requiring no user action. This “set-and-forget” design minimized personal effort and enabled rapid mass adoption. Tangible, immediately usable local-currency rewards further reinforced the perceived value of incentives.
Leveraging familiar touchpoints: High-frequency channels, such as public transit advertisements, strengthened awareness, recognition, and sustained engagement.
Ensuring inclusion and low entry barriers: Any Gyeonggi resident aged seven and above can participate, providing broad access and sustained engagement across demographics, including digitally vulnerable groups.
Replication
CAOI offers a practical replication model for subnational and national governments seeking scalable, inclusive, and measurable citizen engagement. Built as a modular DPI-based governance system, jurisdictions can adopt individual components, such as automated verification or Opportunity Income, or implement the full framework in phases. This modularity lowers entry barriers, reduces fiscal and political risk, and supports expansion informed by operational learning. Climate-action categories, verification methods, and reward structures can be adapted to local environmental priorities.
Phase 1 results in Gyeonggi Province have already sparked domestic interest. Several provinces have expressed interest in replicating the model, highlighting strong potential for wider replication both within Korea and internationally.
Lessons Learned
Digital inclusion and behavioral engagement at scale require more than accessible interfaces. Sustained institutional support, including in-person training, dedicated staff, and adapted participation thresholds, was key to a 174% increase in participation among older adults.
Scaling to 1.74 million users showed that even minor verification friction can limit adoption, emphasizing the need to streamline core user journeys early. Delivering rewards in local currency reinforced participation while boosting local economic circulation.
CAOI demonstrates that making citizen climate actions visible and directly rewarding them can substantially increase participation. This underscores the value of designing climate policy around visibility, inclusion, and locally meaningful incentives to deliver equitable participation and measurable impact.
Project Pitch
Status:
- Developing Proposals - turning ideas into business cases that can be assessed and acted on
- Implementation - making the innovation happen
- Evaluation - understanding whether the innovative initiative has delivered what was needed
Innovation provided by:
Date Published:
4 March 2026