In an attempt to support the Da Nang government’s efforts to build environmentally-friendly lifestyle in the community, two young residents of Da Nang have created an app called ‘Green Beli’ which allows users to find and evaluate environmentally-friendly locations across the city.

Employees working for the Green Beli project

After graduating from the Information Technology Major at the Da Nang-based University of Science and Technology in 2010, Nguyen Minh Khoa worked as a programmer for a city-based Japanese software company.

Khoa’s special love for nature and different types of plants inspires him to come up with a great startup idea for creating an app to help environment protection lovers like him to find environmentally-friendly places easily.

His idea has received high appreciation and active support from his best friend in secondary school Truong Duc Thang. As a result, the app Green Beli (short for Green Believers) has been developed.

The Green Beli app offers many functions, including helping users connect with suppliers of green and environmentally-friendly products, and assess the environmentally-friendly level of cafes, restaurants, and public spaces citywide.

Also, the app provides users with environment-related information, and waste treatment and recycling experience.

Khoa remarked the main function of the app is to evaluate the environmentally-friendly level of cafés, restaurants and public spaces in the city.

“We have built specific criteria to evaluate the environmentally-friendly level, including the use of environmentally-friendly items and the surrounding green spaces” Khoa added.

He explained that when a venue gains high ratings, it will climb to the top environmentally-friendly places in the city, hence capturing more attention from customers. He hoped that such rating would help these venues increase their attractiveness in the eyes of customers as well as create more motivation for the others to become more environmentally friendly in order to increase customer satisfaction and numbers.

The app is now available on both iOS and Android operating systems. Till date, Green Beli has attracted more than 20,000 users, most of them are in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. In May, Green Beli plans to introduce its glass bottles of organic coffee to market.

Khoa feels optimistic about the future of his startup project, believing that there will be an upward trend in the number of people worldwide building the eco-friendly lifestyle.

He noted Green Beli is very attractive to expats living in Viet Nam, and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Therefore, the project’s developers will work with NGOs to introduce its products to users in foreign countries in the coming time.  

By KHANG NINH - Translated by MAI DUNG