Flow Charts
People or Producer?
So the main and most confusing question we had was, How has more power to drive the change, The people or the producers? Whom should we target and concentrate on?After talking to the Experts, visiting the malls and shopping malls and reading more about it, we felt that maybe a User-Pulled approach would be best. Our understanding was based on the fact that, if we could bring about a behavior change, and people start demanding things, the business and producers would be forced to change their design and supplies for that. We were convinced and decided to go forward with that when out of nowhere Sameer Shukla popped into our cubicle. We briefed him about our topic and our approach and he gave us a totally different approach.
He said a User driven approach maybe be permanent and a long term approach, but it might take around 4 to 5 generation for the effects to be seen.While Business on the other hand have a fast impact and implementation. Similar to a democracy and a dictatorship, the business power being a single entity, its easier and faster to make a change and see it happen. Users on the otherhand, being a fragmented entity, have a diverse random group which might become difficult to decide as a whole.The executive power would be incremental in people but more direct in a business.
So should it be a Pull system(user driven) or a Push system(Business driven)?or can we find a way out in between?
A talk about Laws
Tanya had a question; what about policies? Who makes them? Who enforces them? Who impacts them? Eileen, a Law student, had some answers for us.
The constitution governs environmental laws; mostly enforced by the central government. Smaller, state governments or municipalities can do a better job at enforcement and implementation.
But who monitors what companies produce? ” As long as a company is registered, they can make anything”
So, if you want to know more about anything in India, you can go to the ‘Right to Information Act’. It is taken pretty seriously in India. Plus, it is anonymous.
But there isn’t a government body that monitors all products. There is a Bureau of Indian Standards though, the one that has an ISI mark. But beware, if ii is not accompanied by a 7 digit code, the claim might be fake.
We asked her if she can help us contact someone who knows more about Indian standards. That is one lead.
But what about government policies? I remembered Shubhra Verma, an Environment management professional working in the e-waste sector. She told us a few things
-E-waste is an unorganized sector. Most of it is illegal work. Many groups are trying to get into legalizing and organizing.
-70% of waste in India is CRT, Cathode Ray Tubes. It follows a 3 step process
-MEiT, Karo Sambhav, Reverse Logistics Group are a few organizations looking into this.
-Different countries have different laws, some are strict, some are lax
Talk to Experts #4
Kavitha Aravind- Lets talk to kids
Tanya had another idea, why not use children as the next generation army for the environment? We approached Kavita Arvind, who happened to be visiting NID and teaching in foundation.
How do we work with kids? How do we understand their perspective?
First of all, she started,” Don’t look at them as a resource. Don’t go there with an agenda. Go there asking for collaboration, to treat children as the changemakers and thought leaders of the future. Don’t go to preach, go to make some mischief together, Try to work on an issue together. Change your words and you will find your attitude changing”
She asked us a few fundamental questions that we were not clear with yet, like what would be the age group? Each age group would have a different approach.
Mainstream schools seem to be a problem. For us to walk into a school like that and expect them to be receptive is a bit difficult. It would be easier in an alternate school.
Mainstream education also disregards children’s opinion and if this continues, slowly they lose the ability to question. When we ask them for opinions in such an environment, they would look to their teachers to validate their response, rather than fearlessly answering or experimenting. But this is also why, us going to a mainstream school is important.
Each age group will require a different approach. The younger ones will require a playful multisensory approach, the older ones will be more argumentative and questioning.
Maybe schools may not be the best approach.. maybe try workshops conducted during holidays when they are free and parents want to keep them engaged. Include activities that can be conducted over weekends . Dont see them as resources, do things with them- co create and define the problem and look at it together.
Lets make mischief together, Lets try to understand these creatures we have heard about so much about.
Golden Rules for Sustainable Living
So, we decided, lets break it all down. Make it simple. If a person had to live sustainable and make the shift,what are the things he could do? What are simple easy interventions on the user side we could think of? So we came up with the Golden Rules for Sustainable Living and we wrote down everything, from something as simple as planting trees, owning a pet to something as vague as Increasing Quality of life. The next step would be to branch it out, What are the next level actionable step in each point? (Written in dark blue) and that led to a series of interventions that would help make each point executable.
The idea was to come up with Mushroom Projects that are
- Local
- Context based Multipliable
- Robust
- Adaptable and flexible
- And not necessarily Scalable.
One major Insight we got from the people we talked to was that
1.Going back to the roots, Going Local was one major point in the success of the idea.
2. The idea was to have small projects at different levels which would be part of one big project in the bigger picture.
3.To Advertise the idea of sustainability through Products and not just through words.
4. It was easier to maintain and implement an idea in a small and local level. Also going Local increased interaction among people,leading to better human connect and quality of life.
You will find the online map on “How to live better below
Field Visit: Alpha One
27.3.19: We decided to visit the big bazaar store to check out the offer. The offer said, ‘The Great Xchange’. In reality it was just a marketing gimmick. They simply gave it all away to scrap.
While walking through the aisles, I felt the familiar euphoric feeling accompanied by a desperate need to own those things. So many bottles, attractive labels, delicious looking colours, textures, great promises on packages of making you healthy, of satisfying some tastebuds etc. I realised that inspite of reading about consumerism, thinking before buying, I still wanted to own those things. Of course, if you teach generations of designers to work on making people buy things, that will be the result. What if we can use the same knowledge to make users buy the right things? Consume Right? How would I be as a business person? Would I also say ‘20% free’ or urge my buyers to buy more than they need just for profit?
Here are a few ads published by them. The trap in the deal? The customer could avail the offer only on purchases above 1000 Rs/- So wait a minute, Arent we gonna consume more things just for the sake of redeeming the offer ?
Net Positive
Let’s start with a question, just a basic one “How many of you are feeling positive today ?” I hope most of you are and it feels good right; being hopeful or giving a cause for happiness to someone or something. It’s giving out from what we have. That’s exactly what Net Positive is all about; giving back more than we take. Net Positive is a new way of doing business by putting back more into society, the environment and the global economy than it takes out. It is basically doing more good than the common notion of doing less bad to the environment. So this act of balance, you’re taking something from one side and giving more on the other side, will help keep the resources replenish and restore.
The Net Positive Project launched on 7 June 2016, aims at making it a standard way for companies to quantify, assess and enhance their positive impacts. The project will also have responsibility for developing resources like guidance and tools, aligning it with parallel movements like circular economy and increase awareness. Kingfisher making forest in exchange of the timber they use as the raw material, IKEA’s PEOPLE AND PLANET strategy, Dell’s online access to degrees, SKF’s BeyondZero strategy are all some of the examples to look into.
Apart from the business point, if we look at it from the very layman side also we can contribute to this Net Positive effect and I suppose its not that difficult. Just imagine growing your own food in your backyard and giving it the kitchen and veg remnants, that we actually waste, as its food; If you eat meat, support the farmers that raise animals on pastures or in it’s habitat. So the core is nothing other than a regenerative approach to bring back the balance. It’s a give and take.
It’s all interconnected, just like natural ecosystems. That’s because we are part of the ecosystem surrounding us. The problem comes when we put us, the self declared intelligent creatures living on the planet, at the center. Instead, we are merely a part of the whole system and its all woven to each other. One part moves, everything moves; even if incremental. We affect change everywhere we go. So, let’s make that change be positive and regenerative.
Again, it’s good to be positive 🙂
A direction??
The days followed reading a lot and trying to understand the topic in depth. Praveen advised us to dive deep into our individual areas to know more , it would connect on the way of the journey. And so we did, the next 3 days were all about me trying to understand consumer behaviour, buying patterns, brand loyalty, how ads play with our mind, the psychology of buying.What was learned from that was a deep need of people to feel importance , personalize yet confirm to the crowd and social proof . Its also showed the business side of the game where these areas where tapped very beautifully to tune us to buy what they wanted us to buy.
So, Can we use their technique to propagate our idea? Instead of fighting the system, can we tweak it for our benefit?
Talk to the Expert #3
Pooja R Bhale
The Farm is a small haven in Pune, founded by Pooja, a wildlife biologist . The founder lives close to nature by creating her own environment . Her Farm is filled with animals and people living in harmony and she doesn’t believe in keeping her doors locked. For her Sustainability is a way of life. Its not only about the big big choices but its also about the small things, Compassion to our fellow species and kindness. Not having alternatives was one major hurdle in following a Sustainable life.But for her too, it was not just a shift, it was a life philosophy. Even as a child, she said, her parents carried steel dhabhas to get extra food back home, Used minimal packaging.
Sustainability was a way traditional life systems would work. It was about respecting what we have and valuing it. It was about smiling at a person. It was about choices- the choice to not throw a waste. And the biggest obstacle for that being Convenience. The more richer we get, the more we care less about the planet.
She gave us a new way of looking at the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. What if we see the triangle upside down. Does it still make sense to us? Can a person not be happy even with all the basic needs met? Is self-actualisation and happiness more important than everything else? She says, for her the Pyramid could is inverted and it still makes sense to her. Hmm.. interesting..
After talking to her I was tempted to visit her Farm one day, and I will for sure. But a great respect dawned on me for her work and a lot of clarity too.
Do follow her on Instagram :
https://www.instagram.com/thefarmandlove/
And check out her amazing work on her website:
You can drop her a message and visit her Farm to see the amazing work being done.
But for now, back to our work
Field Visit: CEX
15.3.19 : We visited the shop Computer electronic exchange in Ahmedabad One mall to learn about how their business works. CEX is a UK based company with many outlets around the world. Now, it deals mostly with mobile phones. Their shop contained so many models of electronics that were used for some time and disposed off. These were the lucky pieces though, that would get a second life. They would only take the electronics that were in perfect working condition after a 45 minutes test.
Insights:
-A good system for material complex products which are not easily recycled or disassembled? Or is it encouraging consuming newer gadgets, sooner than you require?
-Combines video games and electronics. They identified the audience
-Has in trend products
-Extends the life span of a product
-Good returns promotes exchange, which in turn ensures cycling of goods
We decided to look a little deeper into how things might work at the back end. How do such models of business affect consumption? Do they ensure a good system for material collection? Are they economically viable?
Design Less; Design Right 