Session VII “Plastic Waste Accumulation and Behavioral Economics”

GII Booklet Series, PART VII

1

DATE LECTURE WORKSHOP TEACHER SESSION

Oct 30

4 - 6 PM

PROGRAM LAUNCH

Introduction to Excessive

Plastic Waste Accumulation

How does Excessive Plastic

Waste Accumulation relate

to you?

Challenge Expert Q&A

Speaker: John Robinson

Interim Work Challenge Background Readings

Nov 13

4 - 6 PM

SESSION I

World Vision Canada:

“Solutions to Plastic Waste

Accumulation”

Causal Model Secondary Research

Resources: Suzie Choi

Secondary Research leveraging UofT Resources

Dec 4

4 - 6 PM

SESSION II

Content Expert Interviews/Inquiry

Interview Strategies:

Speaker: Angela Vemic

Inquiry: Students research Excessive Plastic Waste Accumulation issues and interview

solution-providers in their communities

Jan 15

4 - 6 PM

SESSION III

Technical Solution: Pyrowave Sharing Interview Insights

Interview Teacher Share &

Exemplars of Devastating

Fact Video

Prototyping a Solution – Students Prepare a 1 min. Pitch

Feb 26

4 - 6 PM

SESSION IV

Technical Solution:

Greenmantra

Student Pitch Session Student Pitch Sessions

Idea Iteration – Business Model Canvas

Mar 5

4 - 6 PM

SESSION V

“REACH” Business Model Canvas

GII Q&A

Speaker: Joe Wong

Idea Development using the Business Model Canvas

Mar 26

4 - 6 PM

SESSION VI

“Behavioural Economics:

Considering the User

Perspective”

Mapping the Stakeholder

Journey

GII Q&A

Speaker: Dilip Soman

Idea Development using the Business Model Canvas

Mar 26–Apr 12

At Schools

4 - 6 PM

SESSION VII

Polishing your Pitch Working

Session – Mentors on

Location

Pitch Prep Working Session

Final Pitch/Final Symposium Deliverables

Apr 12

8:30 - 4:30 FINAL SYMPOSIUM

+light snacks and refreshments will be served at each monthly lecture

GII Roadmap 2018 – 2019

2

Dilip Soman’s research expertise lies in: Bottom of the pyramid, Behavioural Economics, Consumer and Managerial Psychology, Public Policy, Spending and Saving Behaviours, Decision-Making, Marketing Strategy and Pricing. In addition to teaching at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, Dilip has Also taught at: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Indian School of Business, University of Chicago, National University of Singapore Dilip served as an associate editor of the Journal of

Marketing Research, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology and Marketing Letters. He was recently named as one of the “professors to watch for” by the Financial Times (London) newspaper. He is the recipient of several teaching and research awards. Dilip’s current research focuses on “helping people help themselves” using insights from mental accounting and the psychology of time. In this work, he used informational (e.g. financial literacy), facilitative (e.g., budgeting tools, communication devices like mobile phones and the Internet) and behavioural (e.g., self-control guidelines) interventions to help people achieve financial sufficiency. This research is being done in Canada, India, China, and Thailand, and is partially funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Desautels Center, and the AIC Institute at the Rotman School. He also does similar research in the area of health behaviours, energy conservation, garbage and recycling, and time management. He is also interested more generally in using interventions from psychology, technology and the management sciences to help develop the bottom-of-the-pyramid market.

GII Speaker: Dilip Soman

3

Company Overview: In 2013, the world’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks Coffee Company (Starbucks), introduced a US$1 reusable cup in its stores in the US, Canada and in the UK. The company came up with the idea of a plastic reusable cup to reduce its environmental footprint as it often faced criticism from environmental enthusiasts for generating 4 billion single-serve cups as trash each year that ended up in landfills or as litter. More than the offerings, the company focused on selling a ‘third place’ experience, and the stores became places for relaxing, chatting with friends, reading the newspaper, holding business meetings, or browsing the Web. The ‘experience’ brought spectacular success for the store. Starbucks was considered an iconic brand and most of its customers were passionate about it. Of the customers, 8% were repeat customers. For the year ended September 30, 2012, the company had earned revenue of US$ 13.29 billion and net income of US$ 1.38 billion. As of 2013, Starbucks operated in 62 countries, employing around 200,000 people worldwide whom it called partners.1

Starbuck’s cup problem:

When plastic straws became a symbol of environmental destruction, Starbucks swiftly came up with a plan: Get rid of them. The company redesigned its cold cup lids so they won’t require a straw at all. By 2020, Starbucks said, it will eliminate single-use plastic straws at its more than 29,800 locations around the world. It was a remarkably quick fix, considering the company has spent 30 years trying to come up with a greener alternative to another object: its iconic paper cup. Cups are Starbucks’ billboard. They’re a canvas for the Starbucks logo, for your order, your name and for

1 Wiener-Bronner D., (2019). CNN Business News. Forget Plastic Straws. Starbucks has a cup problem. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/02/business/starbucks-cup-problem/index.html

Case study: Behavioral Economics and Starbucks cups problem

4

cheerful graphics that signal the holidays are here. As long as they make customers feel good, they’re a big asset to the company. Starbucks used 3.85 billion paper cups for hot beverages in 2017 alone. If a similar backlash were to happen to the single-use coffee cup, which is lined with plastic and not recyclable in most places, the company would suddenly have a big problem on its hands. Why the paper cup is hard to recycle? While technically, Starbucks’ cups can be recycled under the right circumstances, they usually are not. Most facilities don’t recycle paper cups because to do so, they would have to separate the cups’ plastic lining from the paper. Many recyclers find that process to be more trouble than it’s worth. If recycling facilities try to recycle paper cups without separating out materials first, the plastic lining is likely to jam up their machines. That makes the cups effectively non-recyclable at most facilities. Instead, the cups usually end up in landfills or the environment, where the plastic lining can break down into microplastics that may harm marine life or enter the human food chain.

Case Questions:

• What are the issues and challenges in convincing consumers to adopt reusable cups?

• How is consumer behaviour and behavioural economics relevant to this case?

• What is the consumer’s optimal choice under budget constraints?

• Explore ways in which Starbucks can address the issues related to the cups effectively.

5

Circulate Capital and Ocean Conservancy publish first-of-its-kind investment guide to help solve South & Southeast Asia ocean plastic crisis2

Last week at The Economist World Ocean Summit in Abu Dhabi, Circulate Capital — the investment management firm dedicated to incubating and financing companies and infrastructure that prevent ocean plastic in South and Southeast Asia (SSEA) — in partnership with Ocean Conservancy, released "Investing to Reduce Plastic Pollution in South and Southeast Asia: A handbook for action," a guide aimed at catalyzing investment around immediate solutions to SSEA's ocean plastic crisis. Culminating more than a year of research and building on Ocean Conservancy's seminal Stemming the Tide report, the handbook is a first-of-its-kind, open-sourced guide to investment opportunities in SSEA's municipal waste management and recycling infrastructure sectors, the two sectors in the region identified by Circulate and Ocean Conservancy as having the most solutions ready to scale. It lays out a variety of factors impacting the entire plastics value chain to help investors evaluate opportunities and deploy assets in the region. The handbook also provides valuable insight for the many other actors who will play critical roles in scaling these sectors and developing a circular economy in SSEA — including governments, NGOs, entrepreneurs and academic institutions.

Key findings from the handbook include:

• Leveraging support from national governments and establishing an appropriate policy enabling environment while working at a very local level with cities and municipalities are both critical to success

• There are larger investment opportunities downstream (processing and reuse) in the plastic value chain, with smaller early stage opportunities upstream (collection and sorting)

• We need systematic investment within a specific wasteshed, as well as discrete investment approaches along the plastic value chain

• India and Indonesia currently provide the most readily available investment opportunities in the region

• Implementation challenges remain despite comprehensive national solid waste management legislation

2 Sustainable Brands (2019). Trending: Collaborations Continue to Fuel Solutions to Plastic Pollution. Retrieved from https://sustainablebrands.com/read/collaboration-cocreation/trending-collaborations-continue-to-fuel-solutions-to-plastic-pollution?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletterweekly&utm_campaign=mar14

Collaborations Continue to Fuel Solutions to Plastic Pollution

6

Science Article: L. Brooks A., et Al., (2018) Science Advances, Environmental Studies. The Chinese import ban

and its impact on global plastic waste trade. Retrieved from

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaat0131/tab-pdf

News and general articles:

Eco Business, (2019). Circulate Capital and Ocean Conservancy publish first-of-its-kind investment guide to help solve South & Southeast Asia ocean plastic crisis. Retrieved from https://www.eco-business.com/press-releases/circulate-capital-and-ocean-conservancy-publish-first-of-its-kind-investment-guide-to-help-solve-south-southeast-asia-ocean-plastic-crisis/ Greenbiz, (2018). How Dow Chemical and Boise are taking aim at plastics. Retrieved from https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-dow-chemical-and-boise-are-taking-aim-plastics Katz, Cheryl., (2019). Yale Environment 360. Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling. Retrieved from https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-importing-waste-has-stalled-global-recycling Trudel R., (2016) Harvard Business Review. The Behavioural economics of Recycling. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-behavioral-economics-of-recycling World Economic Forum (2019). 5 Steps that could end the plastic pollution crisis and save our oceans. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/5-steps-that-could-end-the-plastic-pollution-crisis-and-save-our-oceans-eb7d4caf24/

Video: Crash Course Criticism. (2016), Behavioral Economics, Episode #27. Retrieved from http://www.crashcoursecriticism.com/2016/05/05/behavioral-economics-episode-27/

Session VII: Recommended reading material

7

Venue School

FE025 Bayview Glen School

Bishop Marrocco Thomas Merton CSS

FE137

Bloor Collegiate Institute

Branksome Hall

Don Mills Collegiate Institute

FE326 East York Collegiate Institute

Havergal College

FE327 Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute

LAWS - Harbord Collegiate Institute

OI7192

Malvern Collegiate Institute

Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute

North Park Secondary School

OI8180

Northern Secondary School

Pickering College

Pickering High School

OI8200

Sandalwood Heights Secondary School

St Clement's School

TFS - Canada's International School

OI8214

The York School

University of Toronto Schools

Upper Canada College

FE114 Teachers

Breakout Rooms

8

Please remember to follow GII on twitter

@GlobalIdeasTO

for more links and resources!