Upcycling by Crowdsourcing: Leveraging Pro-Environmental Behavior as Corporate Strategy Taylor Caldron, Grant Hughes, Nicholas Lange, Elizabeth Matzen, Raina Rahbar Advisors: Thomas Gladwin, Joseph Trumpey April 2012 Abstract This report provides a critique of Company X’s strategy of reliance on volunteer organizations and makes recommendations to support and improve its collection operations. We used focus-group interviews and a national email survey of volunteer leaders to determine the motivating factors for joining and participating in the program. Our results show that 68% of collection sites are located in schools and that schools are the most productive sites. Most non-school collection sites are primarily female. There are two leading motivational factors for sites: financial rewards and concern for the environment, and site officials would like to be able to share best practices with each other. Anecdotally, collection site officials are frustrated by Company X’s customer service and by the long waitlists for the more popular waste items. We recommend that Company X focus in the short-term on increasing its volunteer productivity through improved customer service, by providing volunteer groups a platform with which to communicate with one another, and by sharing specific volunteer demographics with CPG brand partners. In the medium-term, Company X should focus on enhancing its environmental message and diversifying volunteer demographics, and in the long-term, should consider how best to modify its business model in moving forward to find alternative ways of financing Squads.
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