SWITCH-Asia Network Facility
European Union

Workshop 1B: Mainstreaming Sustainable Consumption: Filling in the box of solutions for mainstreaming sustainable products (Part 2)

In collaboration with IGES and Consumers International

In Part 1 of the Workshop, profiling of consumer group personas was completed, and major barriers and motivating factors were identified. Part 2 focused on the solutions in response and lessons learned so far to make the switch to happen.

Visual summary of the workshop: A toolbox of solutions to break the barriers and to leverage the motivators for consumer groups to switch

Labels and standards guide the way

Mr. Mangotra, Director General of Supplies & Disposals of the Government of India talked about his experience regarding implementation of green public procurement (GPP) in India. The major principle followed is 5Rs going beyond 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and adding 2Rs i.e. Re-imagine and Re-design, for example as it was done for the airport lighting in Delhi. There are many green procurement initiatives in India including mechanical items, automobiles, buses, lighting systems and paper. Product labelling, specifically BEE Start Rating Systems showing energy efficiency ratio is used as a major tool for guiding the purchasing of energy using products. Public procurement is also a vehicle for implementing the law. For example, due to the implementation of the order to use CNG as fuel instead of diesel, India has become the largest operator of environment friendly CNG buses. For paper, government launched Eco-Mark label is used as a benchmark (despite quite limited overall response to Eco-Mark within India itself). When it comes to lessons learners, one of the big threats to expand the implementation is the development of standards driven monopolies. The way forward would be firstly to continue creating awareness among leaders and managers, public servants, industries and common public. Secondly, capacity building on technology up-gradations, technology transfer, life-cycle cost analysis and environmental accounting should be done. Thirdly, South-South collaboration and partnerships between various government institutions can fasten the process of mainstreaming. Mr. Mangotra pointed at the strategic importance of public procurement and said that GPP could in fact be instrumental in aligning related policies of various ministries. It is a tool and aid to move or advance areas of national plans.

Affordable solutions targeting bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers

Mr. Diaz, Executive Director of MyShelter Foundation, Philippines talked about how to lead innovation to find affordable solutions for low-income consumers. His foundation is working on recycling water bottles in a unique way by turning them into solar bottle light bulbs. He said donation lead strategies and absence of community engagement in product development hinder innovations. He then shared several lessons learned on how to make a grass-roots social business happen. Use of resources available in the community, making it easy to assemble and maintain, allowing for feedback and reinvention and use of local labour as much as possible would be his tips for affordable solutions for the poor. Mr. Illac Diaz said such technologies should be kept open source for them to get viral.

Consistent messaging is key

Mr. Muralidharan gave the participants a general overview on the tactics they are using to address middle-class consumers. Middle-class has low awareness about Fair Trade and there is limited presence of Fair Trade products in markets. To address both challenges their strategy was first to create a domestic Fair Trade India brand in collaboration with their partners Fair Trade Forum and International Resources for Fair Trade. Second they immediately got some branded products demonstrated in Fair Trade shops. Shop for Change initiative also joined the consortium for the promotion of Fair Trade concept. He said in order to increase public awareness they are doing a wide range of activities from exhibitions, organizing youth outreach programmes to lobbying with government. Shop for Change initiative also uses celebrity endorsement, does intensive media campaigning and uses new media like Facebook to communicate the core message behind Fair Trade. Major lesson learned from ProSustain project is that for a switch a wide array of tactics from branding, labelling, media engagement, college campaigns need to be applied with a consistent message.

Practical steps of getting there

Mr. Chandrarathna from Sri Lanka said that hotels as corporate purchasers might be motivated to purchase green and local products as they like to reduce cost, offer fresh ethnic food to their guests and manage waste but their major handicap is not knowing how to do it. For this in the project they conducted awareness raising seminars, developed good practice guidelines, and facilitated creation of incentives and recognition for their efforts. Mr. Chandra said that going green is a joint effort, not an undertaking of one single company. Encouragement of authorities, co-operation of suppliers, support of the community and recognition and acceptance of the end-user e.g. the Travel Foundation are necessary for the switch.

Linking purchasing companies with clean and green producers

Mr. Thinh referred back to what he said in Part 1 regarding the barriers and motivators for retailer companies in the West to make a switch to clean and green rattan value chains. “Retailers did not recognize the most significant environmental aspects of rattan products such as use of chemicals. They simply focused on one part of chain i.e. forest management” he commented. Besides awareness raising, they needed to cater many business concerns from export license to logistics. He suggested the first step should be a good market analysis, in order to identify the potential buyers and their needs. Further they organized study tours to clearly demonstrate environmental and social issues within the value chain and uniqueness of their products. They also did extensive communications via print and visual media and at exhibitions. They also took their producers to trade fairs where company profiles were presented. A major lesson learned of their SWITCH-Asia project was that North-South design exchange could be very helpful to close the gap with retailers and get them interested in products made in Asia. However, building enough volume with such quality and attributes take a lot of time.

Touch the consumer - customize communications

Mr. Crul talked about effective tactics they use to ‘touch’ middle-class and lower-middle class consumers. Their SWITCH-Asia project team uses ‘personas’ just like done in this Workshop. He said, “Finding out what individual consumers are interested in and designing specific information concepts accordingly would be crucial, if you like consumers to make a switch”. Good packaging could be a simple and an effective start for consumer communications. For more advanced strategies a ‘green line’ could be set up through the shop focusing on ‘green products’.  For low-income consumers, they are orchestrating ‘Brand TouchPoints’ to make switch happen. They simply follow the customer at all places and times where the new brand can ‘touch’ the consumer i.e. pre-purchase experience, purchase experience and post-purchase experience. Hew showed an example from Vietnam how they are following their customer in this journey.

 

Gathering more input for the toolbox

During the workshop a short group work was done to harvest participants’ perspectives. As a result of a quick brainstorming on what tactics, tools and strategies would be important to address the drivers and barriers for switching consumer behaviour, we gathered these points:

 

  • When targeting middle-income consumers, incentives (e.g. eco-points through purchase of green products), could be effective in shifting behaviour. Labels need to be easy to grasp based on clear indicators. Messages should be ‘hip’ to attract particularly this consumer group’s attention.
  • For lower-middle income consumers, use of popular media could be an excellent instrument. For example, TV and drama shows could be utilized to promote and exemplify sustainable ways of living. Another effective tool for this more price sensitive consumer segment would be encouraging design for reuse.
  • Concerning low-income consumers, starting from the community could be key. Low-tech incubators can be established in communities. The concepts of design for the poor versus poor people as designers could be blended. Open source sharing should be encouraged for fast replication. Environment friendly resource use issues could be integrated into family planning programmes e.g. garbage management. Local leaders e.g. principles of religious groups could be approached as partners in the endeavour.  Economic instruments i.e. tax incentives and subsidies could still be effective.
  • For switching corporate purchasing behaviour, the participants suggested factoring in award and recognition systems. Good practice guides as part of capacity-building were mentioned several times as an instrumental tool. For long-term changer, working on supplier corporate partnerships was suggested. One participant wrote tax reductions to greener products as an encouraging factor for companies.
  • To support public procurers make the switch in their public procurement, development of clear green criteria and standards were mentioned to be essential by participants.  If eco-labels are not available, identification of available BATs/BAPs should be done.