Sustainable solutions for a greener campus “Project Green Light”
Sponsor: Irene Henriques, PhD (
[email protected]) Prepared by: Abid Imam (
[email protected]) Mikael Thakur (
[email protected])
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What was once regarded as a passing trend has now become a business imperative. Students care about the impact they have on the environment, but their actions at school are not always aligned. Universities that can tap into this passion and cross the divide between eco-awareness to eco-actions, stand to reap sizeable benefits. Launching “Project Green Light” (PGL), a sustainability marketing program is proposed to bridge this divide. The initiative creates triple bottom line gains; namely economic, social and environmental. The PGL Program would also push reduction (a consumption issue) over recycling (a disposal issue) where applicable. The challenge rests in finding ways of creating transformational change incrementally: By encouraging people to mobilize small but significant "15-percent initiatives" (Shawn, 2005) that can snowball in their effects. When guided by a sense of shared vision, the process can tap into the self-organizing capacities of stakeholders. In the proposed pilot project, our “15% solution” is to first focus on coffee vendors and consumers at the York University campus by encouraging the use of re-usable mugs, a campaign we have aptly dubbed “GoMugs” under the Project Green Light umbrella. If York's entire student body of 50,000 strong were to use reusable mugs over a single year, almost 17.9 million paper cups1 would be diverted from landfills (Mackenzie Mohr & Associates). The “GoMugs” campaign also works in conjunction with the City of Toronto’s proposed ban on paper cups and its increased monetary incentive to consumers who use their own mug. Currently, many coffee vendors already provide a rebate for consumers who bring in their own mug, however only a handful of coffee-drinkers actually do. The city, through governance, plans on doubling the current rebate by 2011 (Hanes, 2008) in hopes to increase mug adoption. The “GoMugs” campaign differentiates itself from other reusable mug campaigns because the strategy addresses questions that the other campaigns would avoid: (1) What shapes consumer behaviour initially? (2) What shapes consumer behaviour on an ongoing basis? A community-based social marketing framework provides answers to these questions as it is a cost-effective approach which aims to understand human behaviour and provides a set of implementation strategies that are measurable and actionable. The following document outlines our proposal for the TD Go Green challenge by defining our “15% solution”. As current studies have revealed that monetary rewards alone will fail in shaping new behavior (Deloitte, 2008), we need to go beyond generic incentives to relevant ones. If the pilot is proven to be successful, we will piggyback on its success with other initiatives under the PGL portfolio, while leveraging the increased awareness and infrastructure initiated by “GoMugs”.
1 Using the same ratios used by John Orpe, Senior Procurement Specialist and chair of University of Calgary's Supply Chain Management and Sustainability Advisory Committee; http://www.haskayne.ucalgary.ca/haskaynefaculty/centres/cpia/fair_trade_forum_2008
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.................................................................................... ............2 Table of Contents........................................................................................ ...............3 1. BACKGROUND....................................................................................................... ..4 Band-Aid Solutions…............................................................................................4 Hope Through Diversion…....................................................................................4 2. PAPER CUPS............................................................................................. ...............5 2.1 THE BASIC PROBLEM WITH PAPER CUPS............................................................5 3. “PROJECT GREEN LIGHT” (PGL) .............................................................................5 4. STRATEGY..................................................................................... ..........................6 4.1 PHASE 1: SHAPE BEHAVIOUR ............................................................................................................ ....................6 4.2 PHASE 2: REINFORCE BEHAVIOUR....................................................................7 4.3 IMPLEMENTATION.............................................................................................. 8 4.3.1 Create Governance / Get Buy-in..................................................................8 4.3.2 Identify & Remove Internal Barriers............................................................8 4.3.3 Identify & Remove External Barriers...........................................................8 4.3.4 Communication & Prompts..........................................................................8 4.3.4 The Green Portal: Transparency, Feedback, Norming, Rewards & Competition................................................................................................... .......9 4.3.5 Bar Code System: The Enabler..................................................................10 4.4 VALUE EXTRACTION.........................................................................................10 5. FORWARD LOOKING.................................................................................. ............10 REFERENCES.......................................................................................................... ..12 APPENDICES............................................................................................................13 3
APPENDIX A: DEMOGRAPHICS AND STATISTICS.....................................................13 APPENDIX B: PAPER CUP PROBLEMS:.....................................................................13 APPENDIX C: BENEFITS OF PAPERCUPS..................................................................14 APPENDIX D: SPECIFIC REASONS FOR USING YORK AS A PILOT SITE ARE MANIFOLD .......................................................................................................... ....................14 APPENDIX E: INFORMATION STRATEGY.................................................................15 APPENDIX F: SAMPLE PROMPTS.............................................................................16 APPENDIX G: SAMPLE INCENTIVES................16 APPENDIX H: GoMug DESIGN.........................17 APPENDIX J: TRANSFORMING GREEN SPACES – “GREEN LOUNGES”........................................18 APPENDIX K: SURVEY RESULTS......................19 1. BACKGROUND Toronto produces a lot of garbage - almost 1.2 million tons every year (City of Toronto, 2007). 60% of this substantial quantity was sent to landfills in 2006, a fact which calls into question the long-term sustainability of any land-filling operation. No landfill can be truly sustainable if 700,000 tons of waste is being dumped in it annually. Currently, the city transports its garbage to Michigan’s “Carlton Farms” landfill but in September 2006, American officials announced that, effective 2010, they will no longer accept any of Toronto’s garbage (Greenberg, 2006). Band-Aid Solutions… The approximate 150 trucks that deliver Toronto’s waste to Michigan every single day would have to find a new destination in one years’ time. The 700,000 tons of garbage Toronto used to send to Michigan every year would have to be disposed of somewhere else (City of Toronto, 2007). The tremors of a powerful corporate earthquake reverberated all the way to Toronto’s City Hall. On the heels of Michigan’s announcement, The City of Toronto decided to purchase the “Green Lane” landfill near London Ontario and commenced land-filling part of the city’s waste there in April, 2007. Hope Through Diversion… Alternatives to land-filling are clearly necessary and the City’s recycling programs are a good example of such initiatives. The Blue/Grey Box programs have been in place for several years and help recycle metal, glass, plastics and paper. More recently, the Green Bin program has been implemented for organic waste. This initiative has been very successful, boasting a participation rate of 90% (City of Toronto, 2007). Overall, the city’s efforts to
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divert garbage away from landfills have been relatively successful: Toronto’s 2006 residential diversion rate was 42%, up from 30% in 2003 (Weeks, 2004). To build on this success, the City of Toronto on Nov 2008 proposed the ban of paper cups and plastic lids by 2011 and mandated that coffee vendors offer a $0.20 discount to consumers who bring in their own mug.
2. PAPER CUPS Paper cups are used primarily for three main beverage types: coffee, tea, and specialty beverages (i.e.: hot chocolate, lattes, etc.), and this hot beverage market is immensely popular (see Appendix A). 2.1 THE BASIC PROBLEM WITH PAPER CUPS The problem with paper cups is threefold; the enormous waste that the cups create when they are disposed of, the plastic lid which is not recyclable2, and the environmental impact of the manufacturing process (see Appendix B). The City of Toronto is moving in the right direction with the proposed ban of these cups. Pundits against the ban have suggested recycling the cups as an alternative, however recycling of any nature involves the creation of new greenhouse gases and poses potential health risks to consumers. The Canadian Health Board as well as the Federal Drug Administration (US) strictly regulates the use of recycled paper pulp in direct contact with food and beverages. Currently no recycling firm produces a paper cup from 100% recycled material, and recycled paper is not strong enough to hold liquid thus the need for additional pulp and therefore the use of trees. These cups also do not insulate sufficiently, making the cups undesirably too hot or to cold - therefore requiring an additional cup – the dreaded concept of “double cupping”. The eventual hidden environmental impact such as transportation of recycled materials, energy use etc. are rarely audited. The only truly long term sustainable solution would be to deter the use of paper cups altogether (see Appendix C– Benefits of Reusable Cups).
3.
“PROJECT GREEN LIGHT” (PGL)
The PGL is an overarching sustainability-driven marketing program. It is or will be composed of a portfolio of campaigns that, for now, attempt to achieve social, economic and environmental gains. The GoMugs campaign attempts to use community-based social marketing tools to promote the initiative while ensuring that an infrastructure is supportive of the desired behaviour. Because PGL targets the full student body with varied motivations, interests and, its campaigns’ goals have to be simple and understandable. Measurability is also an important criterion as it impartially defines what success means for each objective while allowing for fact-based decision making and communications throughout the campaign. The objective of the GoMugs campaign is to achieve an adoption rate of at least 80% of the use of resuable mugs at campus coffee retailers. With a population of over 50,000 students, York Univerity (“York”) is the ideal community for this pilot project. 2 Paper cup lids are considered “recyclable 6” however Toronto does not have the means to recycle this material.
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York’s size, relative isolation, and its global reputation of being leaders in sustainability make it an ideal candidate for GoMugs (See Appendix D).
4. STRATEGY A community-based social marketing framework will be used to drive a marketing campaign aimed at promoting the usage of reusable travel mugs. This framework is used to foster sustainable behaviour as opposed to one-time actions, which is prevalent in traditional marketing. The beauty of this type of marketing is that it is powered by the targeted masses (i.e.: communities) and not solely by the marketers themselves. Therefore information is flowing top-down, bottom-up and horizontally – which facilitates buy-in from all involved through communication and transparency between stakeholders (see Appendix E) such as the City of Toronto, the President’s Sustainability Council (PSC), the student body and on-campus retailers. The implementation is broken into two phases: (1) shaping initial behaviour and (2) maintaining the behaviour. The phases were divided in such a way as to group like-activities behind the campaign together. The first phase deals with creating the initial desired behaviour, which is to boost reusable mug usage on university grounds. Sustaining the desired behaviour is where past sustainability-minded campaigns have generally failed. Efforts within the PGL portfolio need to continuously surprise and delight the intended audience. This ensures relevance of the behaviour over time. The second phase deals with activities to sustainably maintain reusable mug usage on campus. 4.1 PHASE 1: SHAPE BEHAVIOUR Identify and Remove Internal Barriers. This deals with removing lack-of-awareness of the benefits of using reusable mugs. Identifying the internal barriers will be done through an initial round of surveys and focus groups conducted on a subset of York University's population. Members of sustainability-focused organizations such as York's Net Impact club3 may be leveraged to conduct these. Analysis of the results will aid in prioritizing internal barriers. In order to leverage limited resources, only the top offending barriers will be dealt with through signage (see Prompts and Communications below). Identify and Remove External Barriers. This deals with observing the campus environment and identifying physical barriers that make the desired behaviour inconvenient. For example, existing water fountains around campus can be retro-fitted with 'mug cleaning utilities' - making it easier and convenient for 'on-the-go' incumbents to clean their mugs. Communication. Persuasion depends on capturing attention.There are numerous environmental statistics at the individual level that can be used to paint a vivid picture. Students tend to challenge top-down authoritarian forms of communication, which is why finding a credible source to communicate to the student body is essential. Student associations would be best to spearhead communications - who better to understand students than other students? (Please see Appendix H).
3 Net Impact is a global organization who’s Toronto chapter is run by York MBA students under the mandate of driving creative positive social change while promoting business profitability (http://netimpact.schulich.yorku.ca/about.html).
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Many environmental communications tend to favour the frame of 'impending doom', painting a bleak and unavoidable future. If there is no believable positive outcome communicated from GoMugs, then this marketing campaign would fail before its implementation. Instead communications in this campaign will describe the environmental losses incurred due to inaction (through concrete statistics and images) while also describing the power of change held by a single individual if he/she were to adopt the desired behaviour. Prompts (or Reminders). Prompts will be used to combat human forgetfulness in using their mugs. Three criterions will be used for the implementation of prompts: (1) that they are noticeable, (2) that they are self-explanatory, and (3) that they are positioned as close as possible to the desired action. For example, signage can be created and placed inside dorm lobbies in order to catch students before they leave for classes (See Appendix F). “The purpose of a prompt is not to change attitudes or increase motivation, but simply to remind us to engage in an action that we are already predisposed to do.” (Mackenzie Mohr & Associates) Thus prompts will play a big role in sustaining the desired behaviour – that is Phase 2. Norming. This leverages the power of community norms. People instinctively compare their behaviour to others and tend to desire being part of a certain group and adopt its 'normal behaviour'. This campaign aims to insert the desired behaviour into the university's overall culture, therefore avoiding the scenario where reusable mugs specifically only relates to a small subset of students identified as being 'environmentalists'. Fortunately, based on the norming concept, as adoption of reusable mugs grows and approaches what is called 'normal' behaviour, late adopters of the desired behaviour will tend to adapt their actions to match those of their colleagues. 4.2 PHASE 2: REINFORCE BEHAVIOUR Incentives: In order to maintain, and continuously promote reusable mug usage, an incentives program will be developed. Each coffee shop that wants to participate will capture travel mug use frequency and upload the data to a central database maintained by the university. Access to the database will be available to the retailer so that they can run their own reward system. The availability of information also plays in with the transparency aspect of the campaign – after all, retailers are stakeholders too. Examples of incentive systems that the university can use are available in Appendix G. Feedback: The data will also be used for 'before' and 'after' metrics to refine future campaign effectiveness and to provide feedback to students and staff engaging in the desired behaviour. Therefore, not only will the ability to collect metrics benefit the campaign and the student body, but also create tangible value to the university and its retail partners (i.e.: retailers can use data to reduce paper cup orders, up-sell higher-end coffee since students are increasingly aware of the 20 cent savings, etc.). Personnel / Community Goals- Competition: Finally, competition (cross-campus, eventually cross-university) will be used leverage humans' inherent competitive nature (Deloitte, 2008) in order to sustainably promote mug usage.
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4.3 IMPLEMENTATION Implementation is to be tightly based on the marketing strategy in order to mitigate 'strategic drift'. Therefore a form of governance will be necessary to ensure that the implementation is sound and focused; while course correcting if necessary. Timeframe for implementation is not dependant on any particular event. That is, the University can literally start tomorrow if desired. 4.3.1 Create Governance / Get Buy-in Before any campaign work begins, it is necessary to create a panel in which interested faculty members can act as a single point of contact in governing the initiative. Fortunately, York already has such a panel – PSC. Because many of the decisions will directly effect the student body, transparency is essential to ensure their (and any other stakeholder's) buy-in. Therefore an online portal, 'The Green Portal' will be created to communicate and discuss the operations of the campaign. 4.3.2 Identify & Remove Internal Barriers Conduct a survey to capture potential student misconceptions in regards to the benefits of using reusable mugs. Secondly, analyze and prioritize issues that need to be addressed. In order mitigate costs while promoting involvement, the survey, analysis and prioritization is to be conducted by students in a relevant class as an assignment/project. Removal of internal barriers will be done through communications and prompts (please see Communications and Prompts Section below). 4.3.3 Identify & Remove External Barriers Again, this can also be conducted using students, however the campaign will use the consultancy of an industrial designer to leverage current university infrastructure to render the usage of mugs convenient throughout the campus. The engineer will provide an analysis followed by recommendations, which will in turn be vetted by the PSC. Once the PSC has vetted the recommendations and decided upon which ones will be implemented, the appropriate persons will be contracted in order to carry out the change. Initial GoMugs recommendations:: Mug availability: Distribution of reusable mugs during events with high participation rates. Surveys reveal that 25% of the student body does not own a reusable mug (Appendix K). This is a major barrier to adopting the desired behaviour; therefore every student will receive a free at the earliest point of their university career, that is, frosh week via 'frosh kits' & YorkFest 4. Additional mugs may be purchased through not only bookstores but also available at each outlet that sells coffee on campus as well. York’s current Mug Program has worked with on-campus retailers to sell mugs made out of recycled plastic for $5. Mug procurement: GoMugs mugs will be sourced locally, made out of recyclable material and incorporate convenient features such as the ability to be clipped onto backpacks (see Appendix H).
4.3.4 Communication & Prompts Campaign communications will be coordinated through collaboration between York's Net Impact Club and York’s Marketing Association. Signage will be used at key advertising real 4 York Fest is a two-day annual festival held by the York University allowing students to interact amidst concerts by headlining Canadian artists: http://www.yorkfest.ca/history.php
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estate across the university and each will communicate dual messages: (1) the loss due to inaction and (2) benefits due to action at the individual level (see Appendix F). The following implementations will be carried out for communications and prompts: Media: York University also uses LCD monitors and projectors to advertise school and current events. These are located in high-traffic areas and are a low-cost means to deliver communications. Communications will also be distributed through advertisements in student newspapers. The newspapers will also be used as a platform to communicate the purpose, progress and impact of the initiative - and will subsequently direct readers to the campaign's online forum (see The Green Portal Section). Reminder Prompts: Reminder signage will be used at key points where there is only minimal degree of inconvenience to retrieve one's mug if forgotten. Dormitory lobbies near exits and parkades will therefore be locations of choice.
4.3.4 The Green Portal: Transparency, Feedback, Norming, Rewards & Competition. The Green Portal is an online site that facilitates transparency throughout the campaign's implementation and ongoing operations. Through the benefits of Web 2.0 technology stakeholders can discuss and develop ideas for current and subsequent initiatives. The PSC will use this portal to communicate details about Project Green Light while welcoming feedback concerning campaign effectiveness. Aggregated data gathered through the bar code system (see next section) will be made available through this portal. This will allow stakeholders to gauge the progress of the campaign over time. For example, portal users will be able to determine the number of paper cups that have been offset since the project's inception (by taking the difference of overall sales volume of coffee and subtracting the number of transaction in which travel mugs were used). As mug usage grows, the portal's statistics will help the norming phenomenon (since individuals will have a consolidated view of the behaviour of their colleagues and if they fall below the ‘average usage’, they will increase their own). The portal will also be leveraged to establish an incentives system where the campaign will reward 'eco-points' based on frequency of mug use, which in turn can be translated towards online purchases of select eco-friendly products agreed upon by the PSC (Appendix I). This will ensure that the desired behaviour promotes further positive actions; thus promoting the credibility of the overall project. Research and sustainability initiatives conducted by Deloitte and Environmental Psychologist, Doug McKenzie-Mohr, discovered that friendly competition is another powerful way to motivate desired behaviour. Because the database driving the portal is collected at the individual level, a rankings page can be developed spotlighting the top 10 travel mug users on campus. Competitiveness coupled with a rewards system creates a powerful pull factor towards the desired behaviour. Thus the recommendations for the Green Portal are:
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Forums and blogs to promote top-down and bottom-up flow of information Online display of paper cup usage data Online display of personal eco-points attained Display of rankings at the individual level 4.3.5 Bar Code System: The Enabler A bar code system will be used to gather data on travel mug use. All venues serving coffee will be retro-fitted with a bar code scanner where students will scan their student cards at the end of every transaction that involves the use of reusable mugs. Once scanned, a central database maintained by the University is updated with the desired data. Back-end logic will subsequently run and reward the student's record with the appropriate number of 'eco-points'. The bar code technology was chosen due to its ease of installation & use, accuracy, speed, relatively cheap hardware (each hands-free scanner costs approximately $200 CDN (TigerDirect)) and because it does not significantly hinder retail operations. The scanner will be 'ready to scan' only after a reusable mug related transaction has occurred. 4.4 VALUE EXTRACTION If each of the 11+ on-campus retailer sells a conservative 200 coffees a day, this will result in 2200 cups sold. On average, the cost of a paper cup, complete with its own cardboard sleeve, store artwork and plastic lid costs 15 cents5. This results in $30 in costs incurred by each retailer. The 20 cent incentive would negate these profits, but GoMugs has facilitated other ways for retailers to benefit the triple bottom line from their participation: Profitability: Increased mug usage will save students $0.20 cents per coffee as mandated by Toronto City Council; eco-point incentives to students: Data from Green Portal contributing to sounder business decisions for retailers; reduced university waste management costs. Societal: Less visual waste on campus and landfills; sense of positive contribution Environmental: Less cups will be needed, reducing carbon emissions due to coffee cup sourcing; less waste
5. FORWARD LOOKING The future of “GoMugs” will go as far as campaign objectives and marketing strategies are re-visited, updated and made relevant. Every facet of the campaign is deliberately designed to be scalable: Savings from lowered coffee cup waste can be routed to fund additional marketing campaigns under the PGL portfolio; the Green Portal can be used to spur creative and innovative ideas to further green the university; the barcode scanners can be extended with minimal effort to gather additional transaction information; third party sponsors can be tapped to provide additional online incentives etc. In order to mitigate costs and ensure the continued effectiveness of past campaigns, synergy must be created within the PGL portfolio. The following forward-looking recommendations aim to achieve this: 5 This varies between stores greatly. Higher-margin coffee retailers such as Second Cup may pay upwards of 20 cents per cup whereas more commoditized coffee providers such as Tim Horton’s pay 8 cents per cup.
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“Green Share” Campaign: This campaign espouses the sharing of GoMugs’ results and key learnings with other universities striving for a greener campus in hopes to spur similar campaigns. As free markets have continued to demonstrate the virtues of competition, the campaign aims to route metrics from initiatives across universities into each version of the ‘Green Portal’ to promote intra-university competition. “Green Space” Campaign: By transforming antiquated and unused common areas around campus and creating an atmosphere that provides students a place to enjoy their hot beverage. Materials for these “Green Spaces” will use the sourcing policies designed in the “Source Green” Campaign (see Appendix J) “No Barrier” Campaign: This campaign takes a more holistic approach at removing barriers to any campaign’s desired behaviour. For example, 43.8% of respondents did not bring their mugs because of the hassle of having to wash their mugs (Appendix K). A suggestion of removing this barrier while leveraging university infrastructure would be to retrofit water fountains close to existing campus coffee retailers with washbasins. The scorecard generated from the previous campaign would help in determining whether washbasins would be a viable option. The opportunities are endless; which is why framing ideas in terms of realism, relevance to the student body and acceptable return on investment are essential to maintain a selfsustaining portfolio of campaigns. Campaigns in turn need to maintain strategic-fit with the organizational body running it and its environment. For example, the success of the GoMugs campaign not only depends on the number of people using mugs, but on how often each of individual brings their mug to school. These constraints drove the adoption of a marketing campaign that promoted sustainable behaviour while leveraging the sense of community naturally found on university campuses in order to increase the number of mug users. The GoMugs campaign is an example of leveraging a relatively small change and turning it into an opportunity that can be used to create a broader sustainability marketing platform across campuses. Finally, sharing learnings to subsequent pilot sites and ultimately to the City of Toronto will add scale to the triple bottom line gains rendering the name ‘Toronto’ synonymous to ‘Environmentally Progressive’ – all it took were mugs!
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REFERENCES
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. (n.d.). Agri-Industries. Retrieved December 27, 2008, from The Canadian Tea and Coffee Industry: http://www4.agr.gc.ca/AAFCAAC/display-afficher.do?id=1172237152079&lang=e Canadian-Universities.net. (n.d.). Canada's Education and Career Guide. Retrieved 12 23, 2008, from Canadian-Universities.net: http://www.canadianuniversities.net/Universities/York-University.html Deloitte. (2008). Crossing the Green Divide: Ways to channel your team's p(Lewington & Jeff, 2008)assion for greening into actions for your bottom line. Case Study, Deloitte, Detroit Chapter. Energy Information Administration. (n.d.). Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government. Retrieved 01 01, 2009, from How Many Years to Disappear?: http://usasearch.gov/search?input-form=simplefirstgov&v%3Aproject=firstgov&query=paper+cup&affiliate=eia.doe.gov&x=0&y=0 Euromonitor International. Coffee Canada. Euromonitor. Euromonitor. Hanes, A. (2008, November 4). National Post. Retrieved January 1, 2009, from Bye bye paper coffee cups, helo styrofoam: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2008/11/04/bye-byeplastic-water-bottles-hello-reusable-containers.aspx Lewington, J., & Jeff, G. (2008, 02 12). Council set to vote on rules to curb packaging waste. Retrieved 12 18, 2008, from Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/subscribe?user _URL=http://www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fservlet%2Fstory%2FLAC.20081202.COU NCI02%2FTPStory%2FTPNational%2FOntario%2F&ord=30178301&brand=theglobea ndmail&force_login=true Mackenzie Mohr & Associates. (n.d.). Prompts: Remembering to Act. Retrieved 12 21, 2008, from Fostering Sustainable Behavior: http://www.cbsm.com/Chapters/prompts.lasso Shawn. (2005, January 20). Anecdote: Putting stores to work. Retrieved January 3, 2009, from Gareth Morgan's 15% concept: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2005/01/gareth_morgans.html TigerDirect. (n.d.). Barcode Scanners. Retrieved December 28, 2008, from TigerDirect.ca: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=298
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APPENDICES APPENDIX A: DEMOGRAPHICS AND STATISTICS According to the Coffee Association of Canada 63% of Canadians over the age of 18 drink coffee daily, making it Canada's favorite hot beverage. The average coffee drinker consumes 2.6 cups per day. Specialty coffees have grown rapidly in popularity in recent years. Tea and coffee together make up about 23% on a volume basis of all beverages sold in the Canadian market in 2005 according to U.S. based Beverage Marketing Corporation. Sales of tea measured by volume (hectoliters) made up 9.6% of all beverages in 2005, while sales of coffee made up 14.3% of all beverages (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada). In coffee alone, Canadian consumption has increased year over year in both on-trade (i.e.: Tim Horton's, Starbucks, etc...) and off-trade (in-home brewed coffee) channels.
Figure 1: Coffee Consumption by Volume
Figure 2: Coffee Consumption by Value
FAVORABLE MUG-ADOPTION TRENDS Off-trade grew by an unprecedented 12% in 2007. More and more Canadians have started to brew coffee at home now that premium coffee beans are available in super/hyper markets (Euromonitor International). This has resulted in a slight decline in on-trade as consumers are circumventing the high costs of premium coffee. Not only is this reducing the usage of paper cups, it is promoting the use of reusable mugs (whether they be at-home ceramic mugs or travel mugs)! Therefore Canadians already demonstrate behaviours that support the transition from paper cups to reusable mugs. APPENDIX B: PAPER CUP PROBLEMS: When the amount of natural resources and waste that comes with wide-spread use is calculated, the numbers can be overwhelming; especially when put in context of externalities. In 2006, it is estimated that paper cups accounted for 252 million pounds of garbage resting in landfills. Paper cup use in 2006 also accounted for 4 billion gallons of water wasted, 6.5 million trees cut down, and 4,884 billion BTU’s of energy used – which in turn can power approximately 54000 homes per year! Plastic lids also pose a problem. Most environmentally conscience consumers wrongly hypothesize that since the lids are plastic, they are recyclable and place them in the recycling bin. Not only are they not recyclable, but a single lid in the recycling bin taints the bin’s ‘recyclability’ (they tend to be made of a different plastic than the containers they accompanied and can contaminate the recycling stream while also jamming equipment and injuring workers) (Lewington & Jeff, 2008).
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During the manufacturing process, cups are laminated with a plastic resin called polyethylene. This helps keep beverages warm and prevents the paper from absorbing liquids and leaking. The plastic coating also prevents the cup from being recycled. Every paper cup that is manufactured and coated with plastic resin ends up in a landfill. Once in a landfill, the paper will begin to decompose. This process releases methane gas, which has 23 times the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide (Lewington & Jeff, 2008). APPENDIX C: BENEFITS OF PAPERCUPS Reusable coffee cups reduce the impact disposable cups have on our environment. A study by Canadian scientist Martin Hocking revealed that manufacturing paper cup uses as much petroleum or natural gas as a polystyrene cup (another name for Styrofoam®), the paper cup alternative. Plus, the paper cup uses wood pulp. The study said, "The paper cup consumes 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as the plastic cup." And because the paper cup uses more raw materials and energy, it also costs 2.5 times more than the plastic cup. But the paper cup will degrade, right? Unlikely, well at least not as soon as one would believe: Modern landfills are designed to inhibit degradation so that toxic wastes do not seep into the surrounding soil and groundwater. The paper cup will still be a paper cup 20 years from now (Energy Information Administration). Waste and damage done by green house gases are all decreased by reusable cups after only 24 uses. As an added bonus, reusable cups help cut supply costs for coffee houses. That discount is often passed on to consumers – saving everyone money. APPENDIX D: SPECIFIC REASONS FOR USING YORK AS A PILOT SITE ARE MANIFOLD Universities have always been at the forefront of research and innovation and have proven to be models for positive change within society. York University has great potential to achieve a sustainable campus through intelligent and innovative planning strategies, which is why it is the ideal site for the PGL pilot. The university is already incorporating sustainable design in the construction of new building and gaining valuable experience in doing so. In particular, some of the reasons we chose York University for this pilot are:
Size – Shaping the behaviours of a student population of 50,000 ensures that the marketing strategy is general enough to appeal to a wide set of student motivations Isolation – York is essentially a small town in its own right. Because of its suburban location, on-campus students seldom venture outwards due to a lack of a motor vehicle and lack of convenient transit. For the purposes of this campaign, this ensures that most coffee purchases will be done on campus thus maximizing exposure to PGL’s implementation Clustered – Both campuses are adjacent to one another (essentially a single location), easing the implementation of the campaign 11 existing retail coffee vendors allows the campaign to capture anomalies in coffee consumption behaviour while controlling cost of implementation as part of the costs are dependant on the number of vendors (see Implementation Section) York’s current Mug Program already has many of the stakeholders from a governance basis involved in driving mug adoption on campus: http://www.yorku.ca/csbo/groundsfleetwaste/mug.html Brand alignment – York’s Schulich School of Business MBA program is ranked #1 in Canada in Corporate Social Responsibility and #15 in the world. Any campaign (such as PGL), would only serve in convincingly building the school’s brand and getting administration’s buy-in York is also is renowned for its MES (Masters in Environmental Studies) program and thus the campaign can tap into both MES and MBA students for a sustained stream of ideas
In addition, York University is committed to sustainability and has a strong history of sustainability related activity and research, education, and application. As a signatory of the Tallories Declaration, York has a responsibility to provide leadership and dedication to sustainability on its campuses and to the greater community. York University President’s Sustainability Council Mandate:
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
7.
Develop a framework for understanding the different dimensions of sustainability as relevant to the university’s campuses; Conduct a sustainability audit to establish a common understanding and benchmarks; Provide a forum in which members may discuss sustainability challenges and opportunities and establish a pan-university approach to sustainability initiatives; Identify and review current university sustainability practices and ascertain opportunities for synergy; Through a planning/prioritizing process, identify and examine specific high priority issues and develop recommendations for the President to consider implementing; Develop a communication tool that will serve as a focal point for sustainability activities and initiatives as York; and Produce an annual report on sustainability at York relative to the councils Activity
APPENDIX E: INFORMATION STRATEGY
Figure 3: Transparency Strategy adding value to key stakeholders
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APPENDIX F: SAMPLE PROMPTS
APPENDIX G: SAMPLE INCENTIVES Incentives that are driven by the eco-points generated via reusable mug usage. Partnerships will be have to be created to procure rebates for third party products, however on-campus retailer buy-ins will be the best place to start as it is local and awareness of the GoMugs campaign will already be there.
http://www.imagengreen.com/index.htm
http://www.grassrootsstore.com/index.asp?PageAction= Custom&ID=5
Vancouver-based suppliers of promotional green products including hard goods such as markers & corn plastic pens; apparels and bags; and eco-material.
Toronto-based retailer of environmentally friendly lifestly products Eco-Points can be used to purschase used books. This coincides with the current “Yorkw!se” campagin of promoting the used books as a form of recycling: http://www.yorku.ca/yorkwise/index. html
http://www.bookstore.yorku.ca/index.cfm?index=Textbo oks&cfid=4502760&cftoken=48296865
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Free coffee at on-campus retailers after ‘n’ times reusable mug usage: retailer include Tim Horton’s, Second Cup, Timothy’s etc…. A complete list of coffee shops can be found at: http://www.yorku.ca/foods/locations/ coffeeshopspubs.html
APPENDIX H: GoMug DESIGN All goMugs will be standardized. goMugs will be green and branded by the PGL logo
Figure 4: Sample Mug Design
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APPENDIX I Table 1: Figures Basd on calculations by www.Papercalculator.org and the Environmental Defense Organization
Coffee cups used nationall y in 2006 Starbuc ks 2000 coffee cups used Starbuc ks 2006 Coffee cups used Coffee cups used at a large college
Number of cups thrown away / day
Tons of wood consu med
Number of trees cut down
BTU’s of energy used
Number of homes that could be powered 53, 895
Amount of water wasted
16 Billion
951,57 9 Tons
6,569,4 21
4,884 Billion
1.9 Billion
113,00 0 Tons
780,000
2.3 Billion
136,78 9 Tons
5000
109 Tons
Number of olympic sized swimmi ng pools 5,979
Solid waste create d
580 Billion
6,400
470 Million Gallons
710
30 Million lbs
944,211
702 Billion
7,747
569 Million Gallons
859
36 Million lbs
749
557 Billion
6
0.5 Million Gallons
1
28, 816 lbs
4 Billion Gallons
253 Million lbs
Based on conservative estimates, York University would throw away approximately half the amount of coffee cups thrown at a large college per day; still, looking at the graph we can get a handle on the impact that the university currently has. Table 2: York-Specific Scenario Analysis Reusable mug adoption rate % (i.e. success of campaign) 0 60 80 100
Number of cups thrown away / day
Tons of wood consumed
Number of trees cut down
Solid waste created (Ibs)
Studen t Saving s ($)
2640 1056 528 0
57 22.8 11.4 0
392 156.8 78.4 0
15215 6086 3043 0
0 316.8 422.4 528.0
APPENDIX J: TRANSFORMING GREEN SPACES – “GREEN LOUNGES” We have identified and isolated many ‘low use’ urban spaces at York University that can be used under the PGL umbrella. These spaces are located in high traffic adjacent to coffee
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vendors. By transforming these urban spaces and making them more green, they can be part of the PGL ecology. The space can be remarketed as “Green Lounges” by providing a place for “GoMug” participants to enjoy their beverage. These lounges will also shape behavior by promoting sustainability through prompts.
Figure 4: Un-used urban space at York University that can be transformed into “Green Lounges”. Location: Vari Hall, York University. Toronto, Ontario, Canada Photo by: Mikael Thakur 2009
APPENDIX K: SURVEY RESULTS Do you own a reusable mug? Yes 72.2%; No 27.8% If you answered Yes to Question 1, how often do you use it? All the time: 21.4%; Some of the time 42.9%; Almost never 35.7%; Never 0 If you answered yes to Question 1, how many times a week do you bring your own mug to school? Never 50%; 1 8.3% ; 2 8.3%; 16.7%; 4 0%; 5 16.7%; Everyday 8.3%; Once all semester 8.3% What would prevent you from using it at school? (choose as many) Inconvenience 37.5%; The need to wash the mug after use 43.8%; Forgetfulness 75%; Don’t need one 6.3%; I prefer paper cups 12.5% Are you aware of discounts offered by coffee shops for those who bring their own mugs?
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Yes 72.2%; No 27.8% Are you aware that coffee cups on campus are not recycled? Yes 22.2%; No 77.8%
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