SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

A blog by Charlotte Squire

Consumer power makes a statement for the planet.

I know an exciting grass roots initiative when I see one.  Very recently, during a fantastic conversation about our Golden Bay Buy Local food campaign, Tasman District Council Environmental Educator – Claire Webster – introduced me to Carrotmob.  Carrotmob is described as “a new way for people to change businesses. In a boycott, everyone loses. In a Carrotmob, everyone wins.” So we’re talking positive all the way baby!

Carrotmob – which has taken off worldwide – is a fun way of inspiring businesses to implement green change within their workplace.  The act itself can be quite the celebration, as you’ll see in the video below.  New Zealand embraced it warmly back in April this year, setting a world record; and word has in on the ‘street’ (well actually I read about it in an email) the next Carrotmob in New Zealand is being planned for November by Conscious Consumers.

“On Saturday 9 April Memphis Belle Coffee House hosted the first NZ Carrotmob. They competed with all of our Wellington-based cafes and won the right to be mobbed by pledging to use the highest % of money spent at the mob on energy efficiency.

Their bid of 201% was a world record and meant that from the $1,396 that was spent by the +300 customers they will invest $2,792 in energy efficiency improvements such as a new coffee machine energy-saving switch, replacing two old fridges and sealing their chilled cabinet.” Conscious Consumer’s.

You have really got to see this video about the first Carrotmob of a small supermarket in San Francisco (warning, it will inspire you to make it happen in your community).

So just to give it to you in black and white, here’s how Carrotmob works:

“Carrotmob, founded in San Francisco, gets a group of business owners to pledge an amount to reinvest back into their businesses to make them more efficient. The business with the highest bid wins, and is then mobbed by hundreds of customers.” NZ Herald.

Here’s another nifty cartoon video made by the Carrotmob team, giving us the basics:

If you organise a Carrotmob action in your neighbourhood, I want to know about it!

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Charlotte Squire

Tags: carrotmob, green business