Edenbee is a social network working to tackle climate change through better personal choices (with a little encouragement from like-minded souls). It went into an invitational beta* earlier this month. It has all of the essentials of a social network — ways to build a network with friends, and groups and discussions — but on Edenbee, personal profiles get a unique spin with “Lifestyle Profiling” and “Carbon Logbooks,” and a framework for setting goals against the two.

After signing up, you’re asked to work through some questions about your lifestyle, to gauge where you are now, and where you can make an impact. This creates your Edenbee “Lifestyle Profile.” Edenbee immediately recommends some goals (”Take your next holiday close to home,” or “Use public transit whenever you can”) and then invites you to find more that match the changes you’re hoping to make.

This social goal-setting system is particularly interesting because it encourages discussions that are purpose-driven and relate directly to the environmental impact of “Lifestyle” and “Logbook”. People can tell stories and ask questions about any goal; for example, on the “I’ll compost all my food waste” page, people might trade tips on best practices in backyard composting. One can imagine even finding potential compadres who are working on making some of the same changes (And of course, groups provide a tried-and-true avenue to finding others). Like 43 Things, a pioneer in social goal-setting, Edenbee encourages not only information-sharing, but a way for people to cheer each other on.

It will be interesting to see how Edenbee puts the carbon calculator & log integrated with the site to new uses. When you combine a social network with familiar tools you can get some pretty neat things. From the synthesis we might see emergent behaviors, like a little friendly competition: the footprints of group members are averaged to create group footprints, and with a little flourish those can turn into teams, and tournaments. Throw in some collective goal-setting, and carbon footprinting’s a whole new ballgame.

If you’d like to try it out, comment here and I’ll send you an invite. Or, if you’re signed up already, let’s be friends.

*or as they like to say, “Beeta”.