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A new trend in the corporate pursuit of sustainability has emerged: crowd-sourcing via social media. While adoption has been easy, gaining useful ideas has not. By looking at three recent efforts -- GE's Smart Grid challenge, eBay's Green Team, and a leading European retailer's green customer foray -- three rules for companies considering crowd-sourcing of sustainability ideas are coming into focus.
Recently one of Europe's leading retailers launched an online campaign which sought ideas from its customers as to how the company could further its sustainability efforts. I spoke with the company's sustainability lead under the condition of anonymity to learn how the drive for ideas went. She noted that "the response rate was higher than expected, but the ideas were either generic or impractical." A sampling of the ideas included "use less energy," "recycle more," and "eliminate packaging." They have since closed the campaign with minimal to-dos stemming from the campaign.
Compare the retailer's experience with crowd-sourcing efforts at GE and eBay. GE launched the "GE ecomagination Challenge: Powering the Grid" in July 2010 with much fanfare. After all the company, along with four prominent venture capital firms, put up $200 million to fund ideas from society writ large to accelerate the development and adoption of a smart grid. GE created a new website for the effort, incorporated aspects of social media, and installed a committee to decide which ideas to fund.
Between July 13 and September 30, 2010, nearly 4,000 ideas were submitted; collectively these ideas garnered over 70,000 comments from nearly 70,000 registered users. Every idea was publicly available to both review and support. Jeff Immelt publicly announced the winners of the ecomagination Challenge on December 2nd.
Like GE, eBay created a Green Team program and website to tap into the wisdom of crowds. The program's mission is to "inspire the world to buy, sell and think green every day." To date, over 300,000 sellers -- individuals who sell goods on eBay's platform -- have signed up to share ideas and views aimed at making eBay a greener sales partner.
Crowd sourcing helps us to
Crowd sourcing helps us to exchange ideas and learn from the opinion of other people as well. So just as much as crowd sourcing through social media helps the growth of business, it also benefits people from other fields as well.
Crowdsourcing of ideas can
Crowdsourcing of ideas can make the selection of projects somewhat easier for the potential funder but does it not run the risk of funding that which is easy, above where there's greater involvement required. One consequence is the impact on those who are constantly being asked to "vote for me, my daughter or my pet", to the point of voter fatigue.
An illustration though not an example of funding was a campaign I'd submitted which has since terminated, where I'm calling for the British Prime Minister's attention to extreme neglect.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/the_abandoned_children_of_ukraine
When dependent on the ability of the instigator to raise a crowd, tackling some of the most intractable social issues may simply never be attempted.
Also agree with Mr. Adler ,
Also agree with Mr. Adler , the post was excellent. One of the main challenges facing firms and businesses looking to hedge, adapt or compete in the field of Sustainability is educating through involvement. As a consultant in the field of Sustainability, I am constantly looking to expand the input and breadth of our knowledge base to better be able to deliver cost efficient and sound advice to our clients. Engaging college students, governments and NGO's who otherwise feel detached from the movement will be critical to future success, and projects like those implemented by GE and Ebay can go along way towards educating and reducing our net impact.
Great post! I think its worth
Great post! I think its worth noting that small companies can take advantage of crowdsourcing sustainability ideas as well. Brighter Planet has had great success tapping people's passion for fighting climate change with their small grant program, the Project Fund, http://projectfund.brighterplanet.com/.
The program was successful because it embraced the work of individuals and community groups, who in turn eagerly evangelized to their network about their submission, exposing thousands of people to Brighter Planet's work and mission. Thinking through how to give users a sense of agency is important for driving buzz and excitement about your program.