By Volvo Car Corporation
As reported by Volvo
How well connected are you? With the contest “DRIVe around The World” Volvo Cars takes another step towards harnessing the power of social networking. The contest challenges people to virtually drive a Volvo C30 around the world in 80 days, using only their Facebook friends. Volvo Cars will donate 15,000 Euros in the winning team’s name to a carbon offset project promoted by myclimate.

Facebook is a meeting place where at least a hundred million people log on every day. And this 80-days-around-the-world contest can be seen as a type of social experiment; a challenge for the participants to see how well connected they really are.

“DRIVe Around The World is based on the philosophy that any given person is connected to the rest of the world’s population by only six degrees of separation. Our idea is to create a compelling experiment that encourages people to get in touch with one another in a new and unique way,” says Lukas Dohle, who is in charge of Live Communication and Social Media at Volvo Car Corporation in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The contest will begin on November 16 and ends on February 5. It can be accessed either by logging on to VCC’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/volvo) where you can also read about it, or by logging on to the contest directly at http://apps.facebook.com/drivearoundtheworld .

Put simply, the purpose of the contest is to drive the economical, fuel-efficient Volvo C30 DRIVe round the world, using a network of contacts. The Volvo C30 DRIVe has a fuel consumption of only 3.8 litres per 100 kilometre. That enables it to cover 1,333 km (825 miles) on a tank of fuel. This means that each participant drives the car for 1,333 virtual kilometres before passing it on to a Facebook friend, who in turn does likewise. The circle is completed when the car returns to its original starting point.

The various teams’ routes round the world can be followed on Volvo’s Facebook page.

The winning team’s reward will be in the form of a donation of 15,000 Euros to a carbon offset project through the organisation myclimate for the purpose of reducing global warming. Myclimate works according to the Gold Standard, which is certified by the U.N. and has been formulated by, among others, WWF International and Greenpeace International. The donation is enough to neutralise the amount of carbon dioxide generated by the average person during a long lifetime.
For each additional driver Volvo Cars will contribute funds that are the equivalent of 99 grams of carbon dioxide, which is the level of a Volvo C30 DRIVe’s emissions per kilometre.

“This challenge ties in with Volvo’s new campaign ‘There’s More To Life Than A Volvo, that’s why you drive one.’ by highlighting how vital our personal connections are in making the world a better place. And when the competition is finally concluded, Volvo will have found in the winning team the world’s arguably most well-connected people,” says Lukas Dohle.