Traditional funeral practices in the U.S. are not sustainable. They are designed to interrupt the natural process of death and decomposition. Traditional burials involve filling the body with synthetic preservatives and encasing them in wood or steel coffins that are then buried in concrete vaults. Instead of utilizing space for the living, thousands of acres of land are used every year for new cemetery grounds to house the dead. Each year 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid are used to preserve remains. An average embalming requires a minimum of three gallons of embalming solution. This fluid eventually seeps into our groundwater supplies. 1.6 million tons of concrete is produced each year for burial vaults. Production of concrete is responsible for 5% of the global CO2 footprint. 90,000 tons of steel is used each year for caskets. Steel is one of the most expensive metals to produce in terms of carbon footprint and toxicity (high cost to extract, refine, manufacture). Casket manufacturers are on the EPA’s l…
At the point of sale, people don’t choose sustainable products - even people who believe in sustainability. Through analyzing various stakeholders, Team Greendigo sought to explore consumer purchasing behaviors, the moment of decision-making at the shelf and how it’s influenced by individual values. We conducted secondary research focused on the consumer demographics and trends in their behavior for sustainable products. We enriched our findings through primary research by observing customers, conducting street intercepts, as well as surveying family and friends. Can we change consumer behavior? We believe so. By developing several different prototypes, Team Greendigo investigated multiple ways to explore how to get people to choose sustainable products when faced with the choice at the point of sale. We propose “GoodGuide+” as a cohesive ecosystem to provide consumers with the opportunity to source information on sustainable products, ability to navigate to those products in-store or online and the motivat…
Our mission is to teach anyone how to cook and become more confident in the kitchen, while encouraging the love of cooking. Our vision is to save the home kitchen from obsolescence, bring people and families together and impart life-lasting skills. Our values are fun, learn by doing, and our favorite mantra: “give a man a MEAL and you feed him for a day; teach a man to COOK and you feed him for a lifetime.” The Cookery is a fun and casual at-home cooking school that delivers ingredients and equipment right to your door. Building on the momentum of the currently exploding food delivery space, we will — as a baseline — provide the convenience of fresh dinner ingredients without the hassle of grocery shopping. However, what truly distinguishes us is our rich emphasis on cooking education: each meal is part of a program, tailored specifically to one’s skill level and objectives, which is professionally designed to improve culinary skills and develop the confidence every chef needs to own the kitchen for life. …
You pay for every kilowatt of energy, every gallon of water and every therm of natural gas you use in your home every month. You feel the pain when you leave the lights on, take extra hot showers, or forget to fix a leak when your bill spikes as a result of your excesses. Even the people who claim to not care about sustainability feel the financial pressure to reduce their energy and water use. So why don’t we treat trash, recycling and compost waste the same way? If we want people to reduce their waste, we need to bring awareness and financial incentives and consequences, to our waste disposal system. We can no longer rely on the “toss it and forget it” model we are using today. According to the The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, plastics amount to 13 percent of the municipal waste stream and unfortunately, only about 9 percent of plastics are recycled. The EPA also estimates that each American throws away 1.3 pounds of food waste every day and that these compostable items, along with yard …
It takes money to make money. Businesses need varying amounts of funds at different stages and for almost every process. In fact, the flow of funds itself is a process that needs money to maintain. In our study we looked at both sides of the coin -- what entrepreneurs/businesses can do to raise money, and what kind of investments might be valuable for investors to explore. An investor is a person who allocates capital with the expectation of a future financial return. On the flip side, an entrepreneur is an individual who runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture. An entrepreneur/business looks to the market to raise funds. The market will part with funds only if the risks are offset sufficiently by the potential of the business. Investors leverage their capacity to lend money to satisfy the demand with the intention of collecting returns. While the approach of each varies, the purpose -- making a profit -- doesn’t. We looked at a number of traditional routes ent…
Our parks and thoroughfares are littered, our landfills are overflowing, our oceans are choking, and creatures we share the planet with are dying terrible “explosive-gut” deaths from consuming the inedible plastic bits that are becoming the lasting geological marker of our Anthropocene. -We have a Global Plastic Problem: it’s “wickedly” complex, and it’s getting bigger -Key stakeholders identified through primary research: Students, Workers, Owners -Two-month primary and secondary research led us to identify some common needs -Research focus narrowed to 1 of 3-part Plastic Cycle Problem: “Reduce / Replace” -Common stakeholder need identified: alternative disposable single-use beverage cup -Research shows both competitive space and real innovation possible in this arena Big Green Cup provides event hosts and attendees with a convenient, single-use bioplastic beverage container that fulfills all practical and social functions of Solo Red Cup while supporting growing consumer demand for environmentally sustai…
GIFTD is a service that tailors great gift ideas to take the stress, pressure, wasted time and energy out of the gift ideation and finding process. GIFTD “finding meaningful gifts for the ones you love” GIFTD is an online platform and personalized service. The online platform acts as the customer’s first touch point, where they enter information about the type of gift they are looking for, who it is for, and a few key questions to lay the groundwork for our service. The customer is then contacted by one of our GIFTD experts, via phone call, real-time online chat, or email, whichever is the most convenient. This is where the GIFTD expert gains unique insights from anecdotes and a personal conversation, to better inform and curate a selection of gifts that truly match what the customer is looking for. After the efficient and insightful chat, the GIFTD expert gets to work. Working from a bank of quality products and stores, the insights gained from the customer are used to find great gift ideas. The pers…
As a group we set out to explore the best ways to apply sustainable design to a big challenge, sex. Sustainability at it’s best provides life enhancing ways and there’s no more apt topic to apply sustainability to than sexual health. Sustainable sexual health is not a phrase in our lexicon and for some justifiable reasons, it’s a highly individualized and the stakes are high. Through our research we focused on condoms as the primary method that men and women use together that prevents pregnancy and STDs. Worldwide there are over 10 billion condoms used annually, and even the most environmentally green person doesn’t purchase with the social impact in mind and disposes of them with hardly a thought of their impact. 70% of the condom market is dominated by one brand, Trojan, but in our tireless review of other offerings we were able to find a glimmer of hope, L. Condoms. This condom met our principles of being sustainably produced (more pure latex which leads to improved biodegradability), sustainably packagi…
Hitch Hikers: Carley Jacobson, Shane Chase, Isa Harvey, Christopher Krohn “Clothes the Loop” The Reformation makes “killer clothes that don’t kill the environment”. The Reformation currently has a fantastic and well thought out fabric sourcing practice including the use of deadstock, non-toxic solvents, and reusing vintage garments. Beyond these highly considered practices, Reformation has become a success because of their desirable, bespoke, and high-quality clothing. Reformation has taken several initiatives to consider the conception and use of their clothing from cradle to sale. What Reformation has not yet accomplished, however, is closing the loop of their garment cycle, beyond the point of sale. We see a great opportunity to consider the end of life of Reformation garments by adding a new point of contact from customers to company. In doing so, the company will not only develop additional interactions with their customers, but will also create a new channel of material sourcing, and incentivize addit…
I’m Here is a public service cultural sustainability project. I’m Here’s mission is to provide people the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of their lives in San Francisco through our digital mapping project. We do this to build and strengthen connections between people and place, and to weave into the fabric of our city the understanding that everyone’s story matters. Each resident’s footprint is an integral part of the San Francisco ecosystem. Social and cultural sustainability are just as important as environmental sustainability in creating livable cities. By capturing diverse stories we want to highlight the rich urban experience worth sustaining, voice by voice. We organize stories by locations plotted onto our map. The dialogue of all different types of people is the key to understanding anything of importance. By understanding the stories of the people that make up San Francisco, we can understand the larger opportunity of supporting a sustainable social system. Our mapping proj…