Message on a desktop

São Paulo – A new screensaver app is forcing people to think about how much they use the office printer.

• Thousands of trees are cut down every day to make paper used in offices across Brazil
• The app aims to bridge this disconnection and to help people think about how much paper they use unnecessarily

Deforested Desktop, by Grey Brazil for environmental group Green Nation, features an intuitive screensaver that changes with every print. A user who doesn’t print that often will see a luscious and fully stocked forest on the screensaver, whereas someone guilty of overprinting will look on as the forest gradually starts to disappear, leaving a wasteland behind. According to Green Nation Deforested Desktop already runs in 50 companies across the country and by the end of 2015 will be running in more than 1,000 companies, reminding millions what they easily forget – what happens on your desktop happens in nature.

‘By helping companies and their employees to understand that instead of being part of the problem they can be part of the solution, we believe we will greatly reduce the impact of business on nature,’ Federico Russi, creative director at Grey Brazil, tells LS:N Global.

The Big Picture: People are increasingly recognising the effects of their consumerism, and are looking to brands to do the same. Check out our Whole-system Thinking macrotrend for more on how your brand needs to think on a planetary scale.