An Overview Of Our Solution
The vision for Find Green is to create a virtual world of sustainability where green-minded customers can find green-practicing businesses. Like a "Green Yelp", Find Green will enable users to both locate and promote businesses that demonstrate sustainable practices (e.g. recycling, energy efficiency, organic and local food, etc.), starting with coffee shops, cafes and restaurants where customers can easily observe green practices. The Find Green app is modeled after the user-interface based rating systems for restaurants and other businesses such as Yelp and Google Maps. The key innovation is that businesses will be assessed by users through short surveys of targeted questions reflecting observable environmental practices. The survey responses will contribute to a database which will in turn drive the rating system, reflected as 1 to 5 green leaves.
- Population Impacted: Unknown. Currently in pre-testing phase
- Continent: North America
Last name
Organization type
Context Analysis
We are all making purchasing choices frequently over the course of any given day, often with little thought to the environmental consequences of these decisions. If an increasing segment of these choices can be directed towards products and services that incorporate sustainability or “green” thinking into their business practices, we can begin to bend the curve of current consumption and production patterns towards environmental sustainability. Fortunately, there is also growing demand for products and services that incorporate environmental responsibility into their business model, and mounting evidence that individuals are increasingly willing to go out of their way, and in some cases pay a premium, for goods and services that are environmentally friendly and which conform to their world view. Growing interest in eco-friendly businesses is critical to shifting to a global green (circular) economy that minimizes carbon emissions, pollution, and non-renewable resource extraction.
Describe the technical solution you wanted the target audience to adopt
Find Green is an app that will help to create a virtual world of environmental sustainability, where “green-minded” individuals can more easily find green-practicing businesses. Like a "Green Yelp", Find Green will enable users to find and promote businesses that demonstrate sustainable practices (e.g. recycling, energy efficiency, organic and local food, etc.). Businesses are presented spatially with basic information (e.g. location, hours) as well as the ranking of their observable environmental practices and further information on their sustainability efforts. The Find Green app is modeled after the numerous user-interface based rating systems for restaurants and other businesses. In contrast to these platforms, Find Green will provide a rating of sustainability based on user responses to a series of simple questions tied to observable sustainability practices. Responses will form the basis of a combined rating for the business that will be viewed as one to five green leaves.
Type of intervention
Describe your behavioral intervention
As with many environmental challenges we are facing today, society is collectively bearing the costs of purchasing decisions which do not sufficiently internalize the environmental consequences of the choices we make. With every purchase, however, we are essentially voting for the goods or services we prefer – where price is obviously a key motivating factor. Increasingly, however, there is growing awareness that these choices, collectively, have a profound impact on achieving environmental sustainability. A key challenge is that there are few information resources available to assist individuals to direct purchasing decisions towards businesses that actively incorporate environmental sustainability practices into their business models. The key behavioral intervention Find Green is addressing is to drive ever increasing levels of adoption of environmentally sustainable practices among retail businesses through publically available ratings of observable business practices that have an impact on the environment. Individuals who frequent these businesses are able to participate in this process through a quick survey which provides an objectively verifiable basis to define the degree to which businesses are environmentally friendly.
As needed, please explain the type of intervention in more detail
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Describe your implementation
Find Green has developed a prototype app, currently in the early testing phase before a beta test in the latter part of 2018. Like a "Green Yelp", Find Green is creating a virtual world of environmental sustainability. Businesses are presented spatially with basic information (e.g. location, hours) as well as the ranking of their environmental practices. The Find Green app is modeled after the numerous user-interface based rating systems for restaurants and other businesses. In contrast to these platforms, however, Find Green will provide a rating of sustainability based on user responses to a series of simple questions tied to observable sustainability practices. Responses will form the basis of a combined rating for the business that will be viewed as one to five green leaves.
The initial phase of the app development is focused on coffee shops and cafes. However, as this effort grows this will be expanded to other retail business sectors that allow for crowd-sourced ratings (e.g. hotels, restaurants, dry cleaners, etc). Eventually, public services and other resources that facilitate a green lifestyle will also be mapped, for example car and bike sharing services, compost/recycling drop-off stations, consignment and second hand stores, etc.
In short, the Find Green app is a means of locating and demonstrating market demand for environmentally sustainable practices, thereby helping to drive greater demand for these practices. This app will help to empower individuals to promote businesses that employ sustainable practices through the objective rating system. In doing so, the public will have the ability to help drive and encourage widespread shifts in business practices, thereby incentivizing more green businesses and promoting broader awareness of how our daily purchasing choices can help shift our society to a more environmentally sustainable pathway.
External connections
Find Green is an initiative hosted by PCI Media Impact (https://www.pcimedia.org/), an organization which focuses on media and social engagement solutions to global environmental, health, and social justice challenges. This effort has been fortunate to have received grant funding during 2018 from the North American Partnership for Environmental Community Action – NAPECA (http://www.cec.org/napeca/what-napeca), which has been instrumental for the initial app development and supporting a business and marketing strategy. Equally, Find Green is fortunate to have received technical advice from staff at Conservation X Labs, which also connected Find Green to key experts in business planning and entrepreneurship through the Digital Makerspace (https://conservationx.com/). Important guidance has been volunteered from an expert in organizational development and social outreach (http://emotusoperandi.com/overview/), as well as from key scientific advisors on the most relevant environmental issues with the greatest impact to address in the survey. Staff of the Oceans Foundation, Sierra Club, and UN Environment have also provided advice to this effort. Key informant interviews have taken place with representatives of the Green Restaurant Association (http://www.dinegreen.com/) and individual café and restaurant owners, a process which will widen and expand to other sectors as this effort grows.
Who adopted the desired behaviors and to what degree?
The Find Green initiative began in early 2018 and has so far completed work to develop a functioning prototype app combined with a user survey of environmental practices. Pre-testing is underway, and once anticipated improvements have been made a beta version of the app will be tested in the last quarter of 2018. Given the current stage of development, Find Green has not yet had measurable impact on behavior change amongst the key target audience of retail business owners, and specifically on decision making with regard to observable practices within these businesses with an impact on the environment. It is known, however, that businesses will modify practices based on general satisfaction reviews and ratings on other platforms (e.g. Yelp). It is anticipated that as usership grows, this target audience will progressively adopt environmental and sustainability practices that will have a positive effect on their Find Green ratings.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
As noted above, at the current stage of development Find Green has yet to have measurable impact on emissions or natural resource consumption levels. The focus on observable practices with an impact on the environment across retail sectors, however, entails that once the app clears the current testing phase and is publically launched this effort will begin to have measurable impacts on materials consumption levels, particularly plastics, and also on energy and water consumption. These impacts will grow and accelerate as new users come on board, and more businesses are repeatedly surveyed.
What were some of the resulting co-benefits?
We expect that the growth of Find Green will also lead to measurable co-benefits across the supply and value chains associated with the sectors reviewed. For instance, a shift towards more vegetarian options and less meat consumption in restaurants, included in the Find Green user survey for this sector, will lead to a corresponding drop in the demand for feed and improved outcomes for biodiversity in tropical areas where a rapidly growing segment of the global demand for livestock feed commodities is now being produced. Reductions in single-use material consumption such as plastic will have multiple effects across supply chains, such as shifting demand towards reusable (or biodegradable) products. This shift will drive benefits such as reduced consumption of oil and the chemicals associated with oil production, and help to slow demand for new oil production and the physical impact associated with this type of industrial development on the landscape.
Sustainability
Find Green is initially being developed with grant funding in order to create and test a working prototype, as well as to gather and assess data on user experience. Ultimately, however, this effort must shift to a market-based revenue model in order to ensure financial sustainability as well as the levels of growth that must be achieved in order to have substantial impact on environmental sustainability. Initial growth and marketing will be driven through private investments in exchange for company equity. Revenue streams will be based on selected advertising, as well as use of the unique data set that will be developed from this effort. Longer term development includes possible incorporation into a broader rating platform such as Yelp.
Return on investment
Given the stage of development of Find Green, it is not yet possible to provide data on financial returns. When the testing phase is complete before the end of 2018, the final cost of development of the beta version of the app will be approximately $35,000 which was financed through grant funding. During 2019, the app will be further refined to expand to multiple sectors and multiple locations, which will also include a robust marketing effort. It is expected that revenue streams described above will come on board by the end of 2019, and that financial sustainability will be achieved in the first half of 2020.
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The popularity of general customer satisfaction rating platforms such as Yelp or Trip Advisor, the nearest proxies to Find Green, provide an indication of the replicability and scalability of the solution being developed. An important element missing from these platforms, however, is an environmental or sustainability layer able to provide information to users on retail businesses in a particular sector making efforts to lower the environmental impact of their operations. Market surveys have so far revealed that there is no similar initiative to Find Green, indicating an important niche. Engagement with many individuals and test users to date has indicated a high degree of interest with regard to the Find Green initiative. Additional needs to publically launch the app include business & marketing skills, along with ongoing design and app development expertise, estimated at 25k to 30k. Full development with extended market coverage and multiple sectors is estimated at 170k to 195K.