Walking more than 11 kilometers to work for almost two hours sounds crazy, but that was what Zhang Mingyao did for three successive days.

The 26-year-old coder from Carbonstop, a provider of carbon management software and consulting services in Beijing, thought the trek would help him outpace his colleagues in the number of daily steps taken.

Instead, he discovered that there were always colleagues who walked farther.

The competition arose after the company launched a carbon account app in October with the aim of encouraging low-carbon activities — including Walk & Win, a program that logs users' steps.

Developed by Carbonstop, the app is accessible by companies that want to use it to encourage their employees to embrace low-carbon lifestyles.

The top three Carbonstop employees in the ranking in November were each granted one day of annual leave. Employees were also divided into different groups.

Each group member with the largest average step count received rewards, such as skylight tents and gym access cards.

The incentive mechanism of the application is "certainly effective", Zhang said.

"My colleagues made all-out efforts to take as many steps as possible, and they all wanted to be the champion," he said, recalling the first few days after the app was launched.

Sometimes, he thought he would be the daily champion, only to find that he had been overtaken after 11 pm, he recalled with a smile.

He soon gave up walking from home to the office because it left his legs fatigued. However, he continues to use the application, and he has unconsciously developed a far greener lifestyle. Now, he always walks if his destination is only 2 to 3 km away.

For example, he always used a taxi for the 2-km journey to a pet salon where he takes his dog for a bath every weekend. Now, though, he walks there instead. He also refuses all single-use cutlery when buying takeout food.

Wu Qiong, who works for Carbonstop's human resources department, has also seen notable changes in her lifestyle thanks to the application.

Like Zhang, her enthusiasm for walking ran high initially. Instead of going straight home from the subway station after work, she often walked for a while to narrow the step count between her and her colleagues. Sometimes, she asked her husband to join her for an evening walk.

Though she often walked 20,000 to 30,000 steps a day, she still failed to win any rewards.

Despite that, she believes she has gained a lot from the activity, which was popular not only as a result of a competitive spirit, but also because of the low participation threshold.

"As I participate in the competition, I feel I have become healthier because I do more exercise," she said. "There have been positive changes in my physical and mental health."

She also emphasized that the main purpose of the application is to encourage low-carbon lifestyles.

"Now, I choose to go on foot whenever possible," she said.