As part of the actions for the 15th anniversary of its CSR Programme, ICMIF member Sancor Seguros (Argentina) developed a playful proposal through which it could share the concepts of its innovative “Sustainable Citizen” programme. The result is a virtual game called “Ser Sustentable” (“Be sustainable” in English), and it is hoped that playing the game will give long-lasting results in terms of influencing people to live more sustainable lives. It is also hoped that the game will help Sancor Seguros to reach a wide range of different interest groups.

Back in 2015, the cooperative group presented its “Towards a Sustainable Citizen” Programme, to highlight the ways in which sustainable management was present throughout all the organisation’s operations. As part of the actions for the 15th anniversary of its CSR Process in Argentina, the company worked on the development of “Being Sustainable”, a virtual cooperative game for web and mobile devices.

The game, which is free of charge, starts from the hypothesis that we can all be agents of change. The five axes of the Sustainable Citizen programme (insurance awareness, prevention, health, ethics/integrity, and environment) guide the logic of the game, which also has a cooperative theme. This means that players do not compete against each other but instead work together to jointly propose solutions to the problems that arise, thus reinforcing the cooperative message. Therefore, relationships based on qualities that make a sustainable citizen, such as ethics, cooperation, respect and solidarity, are proposed through the game.

The aim of the players who act as citizens in the game is to make the city featured in the game sustainable again so that future generations can continue to live in it. To do so, game play involves the participants having to “reactivate the Fountain of Sustainability in the central square, after recovering the trophies linked to four of the five axes of the programme, ie, the Shield of Prevention, the Tree of the Environment, the Medal of Ethics and Integrity, and the Potion of Health”.

The fifth element of the Sustainable Citizen Programme, the insurance culture, is provided by the possibility for the players to insure the different locations.

To solve the problems or secure the locations, players/citizens will have to manage their resources and agree to solve such situations in the most sustainable way possible, in order to obtain each trophy, keeping in mind that the resources are scarce. As they strive to achieve their goal, new needs will arise in the different areas of the city in the game. The only way to win is to unite and think together about what moves and actions to take.

Betina Azugna, who heads the CSR department at the Sancor Seguros Group and also chairs the ICMIF/Americas Sustainability and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Working Group, summarises the game as follows: “in addition to the interrelation between people, this game allows us to promote significant learnings around the concepts we are interested in transmitting. Playing is one of the best ways to use the mind because it allows to test knowledge and experiences in a simulation framework, where risks are controlled and their consequences are virtual, so it is possible to learn even from mistakes, without suffering the real effects of them.”