An Overview Of Our Solution
We desire to make our planet, our world a better place by discovering the like-minded who care about our environment. The ICARE Platform and subsequent projects dedicate to make our targeted groups and stakeholders who identify the vision of “I Care” to choose a sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle and a whole new consumerism by publicities.
“If we can change the world by every single purchase, then why not do so?”
Our solution is striving to recommend and provide environmentally sustainable and healthy products for consumers who care for our plane. For all individuals, businesses and society stakeholders who care for the environment, we expect to inspire every citizen to use and to consume products and services that meet the ICARE certification standards.
- Population Impacted: 5,000,000 people
- Continent: Asia
Last name
Organization type
Context Analysis
Over consumption of natural resources and unsustainable growth pattern has caused are undermining our world. Moreover, the subsequent social and economic issues are threatening especially the prosperity of developing countries.
▶ Rapid development of catering industry and enormous market for take-out food in China has made the overuse and irresponsible disposal of disposable tableware a serious environmental issue including marine plastic pollution which is threatening the ecosystem of China’s coastal regions;
▶ Meat oriented eating habit and enormous red meat consumption market in China lead to massive GHGs emission and overweight issue which aggravate global warming and threaten well-being of Chinese next generation;
Responding the environmental issues resulted from plastic-oriented economy, although China is making a long-term commitment of plastic litter prevention, bottom-ups are profoundly useful as a supplement. In other words, we need to change our own behaviors.
Describe the technical solution you wanted the target audience to adopt
Our primary objective is to foster a sustainable lifestyle and responsible consuming behaviors by supporting emerging catering enterprises and by popularizing the significance of good diet and disposable tableware reduction to the public. We built an e-commerce platform called “ICARE”, which the trial-run stage has been taken for 4 months, to support behavior change by linking up consumers with environmental responsible catering enterprises, NGOs and renewable materials manufacturers. Specifically, users participate in NGOs' activities/projects and consume ICARE labeled products/services. The data generated can be used for credits rewards or other products/services exchange. Blockchain technology is integrated to secure and supervise PWAs operation and transparency. A certification system is also introduced to rank and guarantee products/services quality. Incomes generated will be used to support basic operation and further investment (tech-upgrading & publicity).
Type of intervention
Describe your behavioral intervention
We advocate sustainable consumption behaviors – that is 1) to purchase environmental friendly products and services; 2) to encourage consumers in giving a higher purchase priority on energy saving products and 3) to encourage merchants to apply innovations and to produce eco-friendly products. Our target groups are young people and high-incomes for which they have strong recognition of environmental issues. During the trial-run stage, more than 25 catering enterprises have built long-term cooperation with the Platform. To popularize the idea of ICARE and low-carbon products/services to public, firstly, another long-term offline campaign called "Meatless Happiness" was launched at the beginning of this year. The campaign advocates GHGs emission reduction and climate mitigation by providing consumers vegetarian diet and renewable tableware. Up to now, more than a dozen of thematic activities were completed. Secondly, the Platform is serving as the only food supplier of the MIDI Music Festival, one of the most influential music events in China, to provide healthy food and convey the ICARE idea to young people. Official data collected by MIDI shows that our Wechat advertisement of Taihu (China) Concert have been watched for more than 1.24 million times, in which 530,000 people signed an online petition to refuse plastic food containers. In addition, the hashtag of #ICARE# on Sina was top-listed for 2 days on Public Welfare panel, the viewership went to 2.175 million.
As needed, please explain the type of intervention in more detail
Traditional NGOs tend to conduct publicities through individual and disconnected activities or projects from a single dimension. This operation mode desires to motivate targeted groups and individual with emotions and the sense of responsibility. Whereas, the disadvantage is obvious too – the high efficiency and sustainability for publicity could not be guaranteed. Besides, there are more problems for traditional NGOs to cope with:1)Lack of operating transparency; 2)Defaults resulted by certain donors to execute their donation contracts; 3)Frequent failures for continuous funding, especially for small and medium sized NGOs; 4)Over-single donations and poor PWAs participation.
Describe your implementation
Our ICARE platform is still on the stage of trial-run in which more than 25 emerging catering enterprises have been cooperating with us to provide public low-carbon diet and renewable tableware. Another long-term offline campaign (a series thematic activities) called "Meatless Happiness" was launched to further our social impact. We anticipate initiating an online program called "Think Blue" to gather innovative ideas to support further operation of the platform. To secure a better project performance, a comprehensive working team will be built to conduct operation, supervision and research & development. Our ambitious objectives rely mainly on both internal and external success factors. On the one hand, the operation of ICARE platform is dependent on accurate market positioning and analysis of consumer demand. The research section of the team takes charge of behavior analysis and market investigation to determine consumers' orientation. The technical section specializes in platform maintenance and data supervision. On the other hand, the prosperity of the platform and the business pattern requires impeccable market mechanism and vibrant atmosphere. Considering the rapid development of Chinese E-business in recent years and good performance of the platform during the trial-run, the ICARE project will obviously thrive. However, the operation costs are fairly high, we have to broaden the financial channels to construct hematopoiesis for future charitable projects.
External connections
Our enterprise partners are divided into 3 categories: ICARE Pioneer Enterprises, ICARE Growing Enterprises and ICARE Practice-based Enterprises.Fore the ICARE Growing Enterprises, part of services or products will get authorized certification from international industrial alliance, including vegetarian professional certification from U.S. and Europe, international sustainable fisheries certification, ASC certification, Seafood Watch sustainable fisheries certification and MSC Aquatic product certification. The V-Label certification can also be received by ICARE’s partner, ProVeg. ICARE Practice-based Enterprises refer to those who practice ICARE commercial solutions, like providing vegetarian food, low-carbon commuting, renewable productions and bio-based productions.
Who adopted the desired behaviors and to what degree?
Target groups of our ICARE project are young people and high-incomes for which they have strong recognition of environmental issues. Since the establishment of GoalBlue in the middle of 2016, we have conducted more than 25 projects (including initiatives and campaigns). The majority of our projects were held in Chinese domestic mega cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, which led to tremendous social influence. For example, GoalBlue's 2017 Smart Eating Chinese New Year Online Campaign was designed to encourage people to eat less red meat and more vegetables for personal health and climate change mitigation. The project was launched from 23rd to 30th Jan. 2017 on Sina Weibo. Within only 32 hours, the #GoalBlue Smart Eating# topic ranked as the Top 1 on the Weibo's Public Welfare penal with 15.294 million overall viewership. Considering our outstanding publicity, we anticipate 5,000,000 people in Chinese domestic developed cities could be influenced by the ICARE.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
The ICARE platform aims to change consumer behaviors with environmental friendly commercial behaviors. We believe irresponsible commercial activities should account for unsustainable consuming behaviors. The vision of ICARE is to establish a symbiotic ecosystem for consumers and sustainable business solutions. Products and services circulated on the platform require an ICARE Certification. In other words, qualified catering enterprises must commit to provide consumers with healthy diet (vegetarian food or white meat diet), renewable tableware or other eco-friendly daily consumptions. Enormous studies revealed a shift toward plant-based foods would be even better for the environment: beef production is 20 times as land- and GHGs intensive as beans, for example. Thus, plant-based and white meat oriented eating habit can lead to considerable greenhouse gas emission reduction.
What were some of the resulting co-benefits?
The ICARE Certification will be constantly under a dynamic correction according to socio-economic condition of the target country. Therefore, it is certain that the products/services provided on ICARE platform are eco-friendly and sustainable. Plant-based and white meat based diet contributes to a better dietary balance. Limited red meat consumption reduces GHGs that generated during the processing and transportation. Responsible takeout services can decrease the overuse of plastic tableware, plastic bags and plastic straw significantly. Considering the embarrassing plastic pollution recycling condition in China, it is wiser to conduct a strict management and limitation from the very beginning. Furthermore, the marine plastic debris issues might be improved in some way.
Sustainability
In order to implement and supervise PWAs better, the ICARE platform will releases corresponding tokens, called ICARE coins, which are based on decentralized digital currency of Ethereum. The intention of creating ICARE coins is to framework a sustainable “ecosystem” in which PWAs could be launched, activity participants and practitioners could be awarded, college graduates entrepreneurship could be supported, low-carbon technology could be developed, global environment could be monitored and the operation costs of PWAs could also be paid.
Return on investment
The operation cost of the platform in the initial stage would be enormous, In addition to various fund-raising channels, we expect to utilize the digital currency of Ethereum generated during the consuming process to support platform operation, technology update and charitable investment. The total number of ICARE coins will be limited around 10 billion in which 1 billion will be released in the first year and then 1 billion will be released each year until the overall ICC coins are all in circulation. We decided to use a dynamic auction mechanism after the private sale phase to guarantee the value. The overall digital currency are expected to appreciated after several years' operation.
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The project is designed on the concept of e-commerce platform like Amazon, E-bay and Taobao. Thus, the case can be replicated to target areas where the development of e-commerce could be ensured. What needs to note is that the mechanism of incentive and supervision must be highly improved to support further operation.