Upcycling by Crowdsourcing: Leveraging Pro-Environmental Behavior as Corporate Strategy

Abstract

This report provides a critique of Company X's strategy of reliance on vol- unteer 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 pro- ductive sites. Most non-school collection sites are primarily female. There are two leading motivational factors for sites: nancial rewards and con- cern for the environment, and site o cials would like to be able to share best practices with each other. Anecdotally, collection site o cials 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 speci c volunteer de- mographics 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 nd alternative ways of financing Squads.