Week 4: Defining Users
A Continuation
📌 Introduction
If this is your first time here: Welcome! My name is Claudia, and I am doing a thesis on wastage. My areas of focus are around food waste, recycling, and education.
Last week, I started interviewing potential user groups and shared insights from these sessions. However, I didn’t include a summary of who they might be — my bad! Since climate change affects anyone on this Earth, I have outlined different generations and their needs below.
As you will notice, some of their needs overlap, and others are particular to a user group. Keep in mind that these profiles are quite rough and still going through development.
Now that this has been clarified let’s take a look at what I did this week.
🤔 Assumptions Were Made
But, in a good way. I took the time to reevaluate last week’s interviews and came up with a few ‘basic’ assumptions, like how difficult and more expensive it must be to become sustainable.
The ‘Basics’
- We are not helping the planet, not seeing change.
- Everyone is generating more food waste now because of the pandemic.
- Younger generations will be more educated on climate change and sustainability than us.
- Older generations (Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers) don’t have time and space to compost.
We usually write these down before the interviews, so they serve as validation. However, I realized that my brain was so fixated with the new information gathered that I couldn’t stop thinking of new assumptions. Once I came up with a new one, my brain just wanted to connect the dots: Maybe we, as women, tend to take on more sustainable habits because we contribute to it substantially? Men don’t use menstrual pads or liners. Does this mean men don’t feel the need to do something about it?
- Women tend to adopt more sustainable habits than men.
- To be sustainable, you have to go to extremes. (Changing the focus on religion and economy)
- If we get rid of packaging in the future, graphic/packaging design might disappear.
- Younger generations (Gen Z & below) don’t cook nor generate food waste.
🎤 The Interviews
You probably want to see how I came up with these. I won’t dive deep into each separate interview, as I did last week — I don’t want to bore you. But, I will keep you posted with persona overviews, so you have a clear idea of who these people are.
Each interview was quite interesting and informative, especially the one with William. He is the first Gen Z I interviewed so far and had so much information to share. Karen was the first to bring up the political aspects of climate change seen in this country. Nicole surprised me with her background, and how far she would go to solve a problem she was facing.
Key Takeaways:
- It seems like women take more sustainable habits than men, especially after becoming ‘empty nesters.’
- Some believe sustainable companies in social media are very money-driven.
- Some took their issues and turned them into a business opportunity.
- Some struggle with other people’s political views.
- There is a pattern in the desire for equal health, wealth, and opportunities for underserved communities.
- Younger Generations agree this government needed to be disrupted.
- In big households, cooked portions are double for convenience.
- The accumulation of recyclables can get out of hand pretty quickly.
🏁 Food Waste Competitive Research
I took some time also to evaluate services that are doing something in this space. In food waste and composting, I researched GROUNDCYCLE, BK ROT, Reclaimed Organics, WasteNot Compost, and Too Good To Go.
Cost -vs- Offerings Matrix
If we take a look at these companies’ business models, GROUNDCYCLE leads in providing users more offerings, as they offer food waste pick-up, produce bins swapping programs and sell compost.
By contrast, Too Good To Go leads at a much lower price, using a different strategy that provides users with a surprising meal at a great cost. The remaining brands do mainly food waste pick-ups and/or compost.
Users -vs- Location Matrix
When comparing who has more users, Too Good To Go gets the highest position, as it has over 25 million users. However, they recently just launched in the U.S. (NYC).
GROUNDCYCLE and BK ROT have significantly more users than Reclaimed Organics, since the latter only applies to Manhattan, while the first two only accept addresses in Brooklyn. It is worth pointing out that WasteNot Compost is a company that currently only works in Chicago. Hence, being the one with the least amount of users.
🏁 Recycling Competitive Research
In recycling, I found TerraCycle, a big company with interesting offerings, and ReCollect, a B2B or B2G (government) company with online tools.
Cost -vs- Offerings Matrix
ReCollect focuses more on providing tools that can be branded to other businesses' needs. I do not know the cost of their system, but I placed them in a lower cost category because part of their offerings can be found online. A great example of this is their search engine Waste Wizard that can be attached to any website.
TerraCycle, on the other hand, leads with multiple offerings and programs. They partner with companies through their Loop shopping experience and allow customers to refill their products with the same packaging. But, their business model is more expensive, as you have to pay a deposit per item beforehand and a substantial mailing fee for the pick-up/drop off tote bag.
Openness -vs- Impact
As I mentioned, TerraCycle’s offerings vary. Therefore, they can tackle different countries and more problems than ReCollect. Also, their resources and tools are open to the public to see.
By contrast, ReCollect keeps a more low-key approach by not providing detailed visuals of their tools. However, they are impacting different communities in the U.S. by partnering with governments.
💭 Final Thoughts
There’s definitely more work to be done. It feels like I have only scratched the surface. I will keep looking for other companies and adding them in the following weeks. So, stay tuned for what’s to come!
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time of reading through my post.
To connect and share your opinion, please reach out to me via email at crussoherrera@sva.edu
See you soon.
