An Overview Of Our Solution
Our future relies on solutions that eliminate single use products. Our solution, USEFULL, is an app-based, circular economy solution providing custom-designed returnable stainless steel to-go cups and containers to consumers. We partner with cafes and restaurants, corporates, and colleges to provide consumers a guilt-free service that ensures cups/containers are returned, cleaned and sanitized, and ready for when needed. Through our tech, we're able to monitor and measure impact while using the data to refine our system. We are changing the paradigm of the on-the-go convenience culture, starting with single-use plastic cups and containers.
We have set a near term target of removing 20 million containers from the waste stream annually. While aggressive, this target is achievable by making the transition easy for consumers via behavior change.
- Population Impacted: 4,500,000
- Continent: North America
Nama depan
nama keluarga
Tipe organisasi
Surel
Analisis Konteks
Using Boston as an example, we use more than 2 million disposable cups and containers daily, most of which (>95%) end up on our landfills, in our oceans, and on our city sidewalks. Most people (~75%) claim to want to mitigate waste by sending less to the landfill and recycling more, it is often inconvenient to carry BYO products. Meanwhile, recycling can be problematic due to rigid guidelines and lack of capacity. However, this isn't only an issue in Boston, but is a global pain point.
COVID has been a unique time - a period when our partners have been really struggling, as 1 in 6 restaurants and cafes have had to close since March and offices/schools also have cost and safety concerns. This is an opportunity for us to continue to support them by providing our products at a lower cost than traditional single-use options. Similarly, this is an opportunity for us to work with across our community, the local industry and our consumers to push the needle on sustainability.
Jelaskan solusi teknis yang Anda inginkan untuk diadopsi oleh audiens target
At our core, USEFULL is a technology & marketing solution enabling a circular economy. We provide safe and sustainable stainless steel products as an alternative to the disposable, single-use products; We monitor usage across our ecosystem to measure the waste removed by USEFULL users - meaning as our program grows, so does the impact we make together!
We have developed a proprietary app, an administrative/logistics backend, and custom-designed cup and container inventory, all to protect the health and wellbeing of our users while removing plastic and mixed paper waste in the environment. The data collected can be analyzed to align our product suite, refine our solution and create opportunities to further influence behavior.
We estimate our inventory to get 600+ uses in each unit's lifecycle, at the end of which, we can fully recycle it, so we can further minimize waste.
Jelaskan intervensi perilaku Anda.
To effect behavioral change, we leverage a three-fold strategy:
- Education. We've partnered with UPSTREAM Solutions to provide educational media (reports, articles, statements of health, etc) via their Learning Hub and virtual content. We also use our social media platform to highlight publicly available articles, reports, factoids and insights on topics directly related to ocean pollution, waste mitigation strategies, circular economy principles, reusability concepts, plastic bans, etc.
- Policy Promotion. We have aligned ourselves with various stakeholders in policy development to help influence behaviors of our consumers, as well as the local industry and municipalities. We are currently providing insight on the potential impact of tax systems for retailers and consumers that can drive behavioral change without creating perverse incentives toward greater use of disposables. Additionally we are engaging with nonprofits and state/municipal legislators to highlight the effectiveness of single-use bans, as well as other ways to stimulate use of circular economy systems.
- Influence. We are currently interacting with high-impact local businesses, visible nonprofits & activists, food & beverage industry leaders and some social influencers to help inform the community, not only of circular economy in general, but of the USEFULL program in particular. We aim to increase this engagement in the future
Pengungkit Perilaku Digunakan
Jika diperlukan, jelaskan bagaimana Anda menggunakan tuas secara lebih rinci.
In addition to above, we also use other levers, including:
- Emotional Appeals. We provide users and partners with metrics & reports to highlight the direct positive impact they make by using our solution, generating a sense of joy & pride.
- Choice Architecture. By incentivizing food retailers to make our solution the default, we nudge the consumer's decision process toward behavior change
- Material Incentives. Our pricing model for B2B frames the solution as "at least cost neutral" to incentivize adoption. We are also supporting a consumer tax on single-use products at the retailer. Lastly, we have aligned various incentives & rewards as part of our premium subscription model.
- Social Influences. We use social cues and influences to bring behavior change as well. We'll use social media and in-office/in-store signage to promote solution and partnerships in the public sphere. Also have "invite a friend" & "intro us to your cafe" incentives
Jelaskan implementasi Anda
USEFULL directly replaces and removes wasteful single-use disposable products with a circular economy solution, which also bypasses the need for recycling capacity buildup as well. Our technology is key to the implementation, as it allows us to monitor inventory and capture and analyze various data points to calculate impact metrics with precision.
To promote adoption of our solution, we designed our Standard Subscription to be free, so that it is not cost-prohibitive and is accessible to all, regardless of socioeconomic status. Additionally, we have engaged with key corporate entities to further expand the solution's scale and rate of adoption, which also incentivizes food retailers and other entities in proximity to adopt the solution. All of this is to drive critical mass adoption and scale the change in consumption behavior to be the norm rather than the exception.
Interestingly, we are at an inflection point where the enabling political environment is changing to our benefit, due to legislative and regulatory activity at the federal, state & local levels. Given the recent passing of a broad-based climate bill in MA Legislature, the progress of the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act and an increasing number of local bans and taxes on single-use products, we see the writing on the wall. Consumers, businesses and governments are ready to move to a less wasteful, more sustainable future. We think the next 2-3 years will continue along this trajectory, despite the COVID disruption (which is our main obstacle).
Plus, we see some other promising signs, such as:
- the return of reusable bags replacing disposables in the grocery stores
- the increase of corporations committing to carbon/plastic neutrality, low waste, etc.
- the promotion of ESG investment strategies by institutional investors like BlackRock, Wellington, etc.
- the increase of funding aligned to impact growth areas (e.g. circular solutions)
Jelaskan kepemimpinan untuk solusi Anda. Siapa yang memimpin pelaksanaannya?
The leadership of USEFULL comes from the Management Team, plus our Advisory Board. While there is a lot of diversity in expertise & experience, we are all driven by environmental stewardship and a love of the water. We are woman-owned and also have BIPOC, veteran and immigrant representation on our Management Team.
- Alison Rogers, our CEO & Founder, is a competitive sailor and a self-proclaimed "water rat" with management consulting background and experience at the EPA.
- Derek Neilson, our Impact Officer, is a former competitive swimmer and is an agribusiness specialist with experience in sustainable food systems.
- Dave Tully, our Operations Director, is a 20+ year veteran of the US Navy with a background in supply chain and logistics.
- Igor Belagorudsky, our CTO, is some-time diver and full-time tech entrepreneur and consultant.
For more on our leadership, the Advisory Board and the inspiration behind USEFULL, see the About Us page on our website.
Bagikan beberapa mitra atau pemangku kepentingan utama yang terlibat dalam pengembangan dan implementasi solusi Anda.
Based on our revenue model, we have four main sets of "customers" - subscribers; cafes/restaurants; corporates and lastly, colleges & campuses. Ultimately, our impact is driven by usage, so the more subscribers and users we get, the better.
We also engage with several nonprofit entities (including UPSTREAM, Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental League of Massachusetts) to assess and develop policies and strategies toward increased environmental stewardship, as well as a means to highlight educational content for our partners & consumers.
We connect with governmental bodies, such as the MA Department of Environmental Protection, Zero Waste Boston and various municipal departments to promote our solution to their constituencies. We also have presented on panels at UPSTREAM's Government Reuse Forum, which is a group of ~130 government leaders across the country.
We connect with key restaurant industry organizations as a means to learn about their obstacles, constraints and innovations to understand where we can be most useful and impactful.
We've engaged with a number of accelerators, including Babson's WIN Lab (early-stage) as well as been a MassChallenge Finalist in 2020, in addition to introducing ourselves to several financing organizations focused on impact.
We are also active in developing a coalition of global circular foodware solutions toward building an industry alliance.
Siapa yang mengadopsi perilaku yang diinginkan dan sejauh mana? Sertakan penjelasan tentang bagaimana Anda mengukur perubahan pe
Pre-COVID Traction
- Launched beta in Oct 2019 as Coffee Cup Collective
- Began rollout in Jan 2020 - Launched in 6 cafes, 2 corporates
- Began business development in Feb 2020 - in talks with 5+ cafe chains, 3+ corporates
- At our pause, we had ~1500 cups in inventory at 6 cafes and 2 corporate partners. We had ~500 people download the app and ~75 monthly paid subscribers.
Post-COVID
We have strategically continued our COVID pause to refine our operations, design & manufacture custom inventory, enhance our business model, grow our team and focus on business development. We are relaunching in 2021 with our new model. We have entities looking for onsite service as well as potential opportunities to sponsor service within a cohort of restaurants & cafes (~25 per neighborhood). We also grow our social media followership and email lists. Plus, we're getting requests for thought leadership and potential business building at the local, national and international levels
Bagaimana dampak pencemaran air? Harap spesifik dan sertakan metodologi pengukuran jika relevan.
Our impact on water pollution is based on the removal of waste created by implementing our solution. We estimate that each cafe or restaurant will remove an average of 5 tons waste annually. We calculated the types of impact by type from the removal of waste, based on the average usage of products during COVID. We also have a simple calculator on our website to provide an indication of the type of impact and cost savings the average cafe or restaurant could expect.
We have also calculated impact at various scales within the community. These are conservative estimates based on COVID usage, but highlight potential to scale.
Bagaimana solusi Anda berdampak pada tantangan kesetaraan (termasuk ras, jenis kelamin, etnis, kelas/pendapatan sosial, atau lai
Social impact and social equity are topics we are passionate about and we were deliberate about how we could use our business and platform to make positive change here.
We designed our pricing model to be as inclusive as possible. We wanted to move away from the deposit model to make in-store interactions as easy as possible, and we wanted to provide a free option as to remove economic barriers to adoption.
We have been very targeted in our geographic strategy to ensure we introduce the solution equitably. We leverage our platforms and presence to highlight some of the issues, as well as the successes, that pertain to social impact and environmental justice. For example, during the onset of the BLM activity in 2020, we highlighted the perspectives of our Impact Officer (BIPOC identifying).
We will continue to use our service and platform to influence social, economic and behavioral changes and to promote sustainability as means to do so.
Apa sajakah manfaat tambahan lingkungan?
Systemic waste removal has multiple effects, esp. when looking at Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions.
- Reduces waste via Introduction of circular program onsite and in the community (Scope 2 & 3)
- Accrues impact from individual users and food establishments as a means to offset plastic use (Scope 3)
- Lessens potential for ocean litter by removing plastic waste from the system
- Reduces H2O use in supply chain
- Mitigates CO2 emissions via product lifecycle, supply chain, etc. (Scope 3)
Apa sajakah manfaat tambahan dari pembangunan berkelanjutan?
By removing waste from the overall ecosystem, the USEFULL solution enables several SDGs including:
- more sustainable cities via collaboration with municipalities (11)
- responsible consumption via our core principle (12)
- removal of litter and chemicals in landfill to push the sustainable use of water and land (14 & 15)
- build partnerships across stakeholders in private, social & public sectors (17)
We aim to provide a roadmap for to change the paradigm of consumption at scale
Keberlanjutan: Jelaskan keberlanjutan ekonomi dari solusi Anda.
USEFULL is a market-based revenue solution, with opportunities to become more economically sustainable as we scale. Once we relaunch, most of our revenue will come from the core operations via cafes & restaurants, as well as onsite solution implementation in corporates and colleges. We also have revenue opportunities via non-core activities including zero waste events, product branding and consulting services. The remainder of the revenue will come from our premium subscription (Steward), fees and investor contributions toward driving our scale. 
Pengembalian investasi: Berapa biaya untuk melaksanakan kegiatan ini? Bagaimana hasil Anda di atas dibandingkan dengan investasi
Our costs to date have stemmed from app development & refinement, inventory design & production and labor. However, as we have been on operational pause, we do not believe these costs represent the entire breadth of costs; nor have we seen the true scale of impact realized due to this pause. We are currently in process of developing pro forma numbers to reflect potential income and cash flow upon relaunch and at scale. That said, we expect a favorable ROI.
Bagaimana kita bisa berhasil mereplikasi solusi ini di tempat lain?
There are some similar efforts globally, however not exactly like our solution.
As stated before, at our core, USEFULL is a technology & marketing solution enabling a circular economy. Our technology is simple and seamless and our inventory has been designed to meet the unique needs of our stakeholders. As such, we believe our solution is scalable across several verticals in any geography.
Funding required would be dependent upon desired scale of the solution, app development, and complexity of the inventory designed to replace the single-use product.
Key stakeholders would include industry players, local corporate & college partners, municipal officials, consumers, investors, etc.; plus any supply chain players to develop the products.
A key component is consumer education as well as an appropriate marketing campaign. Also, alignment of policy and political influence is also useful.