"Change in context brings changes in the content" - Prof. Anil Gupta
Toss-It
A service to tackle the global plastic waste crisis. Toss-It aims to buy plastic from its consumers at a meaningful value and impact the environment.
As part of the Sustainable Business Models course at Parsons, we were challenged to visualize and build a business case for a
for-profit business with sustainability at its core.
TEAM
Soumil Panwar, Juilee Narkar
COURSE INSTRUCTORS
Roxanna Zarnegar
DURATION
6 Weeks
Design Process (THINK THIS THRU)
We followed the double diamond model to propose a strategic recomendation to the client partner.
IMMERSION
SPRINT 1
SPRINT 2
SPRINT 3
Dove into secondary research to build context around healthcare and break down goals into actionable research strategy
Interviewed various stakeholders to find insights, pain points and motivations of the users to formulate opportunity statements
Conducted ideation workshops with stakeholders to break biases and set grounds for innovation in patient journeys
Developed low to high fidility prototypes and tested with patients and caregivers leveraging usertesting.com
Hypothesis
A viable business can be built by buying back plastic waste for $3-4 per plastic bottle from consumers in urban cities like New York by leveraging a reverse supply chain.
The Plastic Waste Chrisis
1.3 Billion
Plastic bottles are used every day
8 Million
Plastic bottles are taken out of the oceans everyday
8.7%
Of global plastic is recycled
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$45.1 Billion
Is the value of the global recycled plastic market
Intended Impact
Consumers simply throw the coke bottle after drinking because they see no value in the single-use plastic bottle.
What if we could switch in this temperament and build direct value in the plastic bottle?
Consumers would start to look at plastic waste as a currency and bring mindfulness into their temperament around handling plastic waste. We intend to bring exponential awareness among consumers of plastic to lead a mission and work toward a sustainable consumerism.
Design Sprints
With the goal to test our hypothesis and build a viable business case, we conducted sprints of 1 week each to develop and test various aspects of the solution.
SPRINT 1
SPRINT 1
SPRINT 2
SPRINT 3
Dove into secondary research to build context around healthcare and break down goals into actionable research strategy
Interviewed various stakeholders to find insights, pain points and motivations of the users to formulate opportunity statements
Conducted ideation workshops with stakeholders to break biases and set grounds for innovation in patient journeys
Developed low to high fidility prototypes and tested with patients and caregivers leveraging usertesting.com
Design Sprints
With the goal to test our hypothesis and build a viable business case, we conducted sprints of 1 week each to develop and test various aspects of the solution.
Week 1
The Service
A waste collection network to collect plastic around housing complexes and food outlets.
The Service
A vending machine network to collect plastic around housing complexes and food outlets
The Platform
A standalone marketplace app for sustainable brands and products along which can consume the incentives from the waste collection
Revenue Streams
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Partnerships with sustainable businesses for the marketplace
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Sale of plastic raw material collected to brands using recycled plastic
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Physical and digital marketing space rental on vending machines and the application
Toss-It
Name of Course: Sustainable Business Models, Fall 2021
Faculty: Roxanna Zarnegar
Duration of Project: 6 weeks
Team Members: Soumil Panwar, Juilee Narkar
Challenge: To build a sustainable, for-profit business that is built upon our interpretation of sustainability
Approach. With an intent to solve the plastic waste crisis in modern cities, we aimed to leverage the consumers of plastic to contribute to recycling plastic by creating inflation in the value of waste and build a viable operations business.
Opportunity
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Consumers buy 1.5 million plastic bottles in the US
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In the US, only 8.7% of plastic waste is recycled
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The global recycled plastic market was estimated at USD45.1 billion in 2019
In order to test this hypothesis, we built a preliminary business case to start our research with an approach to refine and develop the solution through iterations and feedback structured as sprints.
Each sprint had a goal and a development in the solution in the form of an MVP. Based on feedback and insights from research, we created 3 iterations of the MVP and developed the concept further.
Preliminary Business Case
Validation Through Research
Target User Profile/ Personas
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Interview Insights
Sample Size: 12 people
Demographics: Indian and Italian immigrants in the US (mostly students)
Goal: To understand and analyze consumer behaviour around incentivisation and waste
The Lean Canvas
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Product vending machines would be a point of sale store for sustainable brands with a plastic take back mechanism to consume plastic waste and establish a sustainable story as a marketing and brand association component.
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Operations for the vending machine would be a customer acquisition cost and a source of raw material to the brands
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This generates a business opportunity for small businesses and individuals with access to locations to make additional money, own and manage their own vending machine operations business
Target Customers:
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Sustainable brands
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Vending machine business owners and networks
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Businesses consuming single-use plastics- Starbucks, delis, grocery stores, etc
Value Proposition Canvas
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Value Proposition: Businesses
Position your brand in the sustainable space closer to your users
Sell to aware customers where they need
Value Proposition: Consumers
Make a rightful choice in sustainable consumption while recycling your plastic waste mindfully
Use plastic waste to buy better
MVP 1: Collaboration with Grocery stores
Toss It will launch as a plastic takeback service in collaboration with retail stores in the neighbourhoods and buy plastic waste from consumers in exchange for direct and indirect incentives.
Key Assumptions:
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Aware customers would give back plastic waste as an incentive
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Toss-It will be able to provide an inflated value on waste plastic
Task Flows
Service Map
Business Model Canvas
Key Takeaways and Feedback
1. Partnerships with grocery stores is a challenging key partner
2. Large chain grocery stores in the US have high standardisation and strict policies. These policies would make it difficult and time-consuming to capture the space for Toss-It bins within their stores
3. To test the key assumptions effectively, reducing liabilities of partnerships and cost structures was advised.
MVP 2: Collaboration with housing complexes
Toss-It will launch as a plastic takeback service in collaboration with residential complexes within low-cost waste collection. Using Toss-It Bins, Toss-It will buy plastic waste from consumers in exchange for cash vouchers on our app.
Opportunity:
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Residential complexes in NYC give additional facilities in exchange of building a better- high paying community of residents
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StreetEasy has 7,716 listings and 5,652 of them include a doorman today
Task Flows
Service Map: Value Exchange
How might we create additional social impact using Toss-It?
The Waste-Art Innitiative
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The Toss-It Bins would have an installation space
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Art installations would be placed in these spaces made of plastic waste
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Children would take part in a competition to make art using plastic waste, the winner would receive a cash prize and their artwork would be installed within the collection unit
Community Engagement
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After 10 paid unit installations, we will install Toss-It Bin in a park for the homeless to sell us plastic for Venmo credit proportional to the weight of plastic
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An open challenge to the creative community (students, designers, artists) to send us their trash- art pieces as a yearly contest to promote awareness about the plastic waste crisis. This would create market expansion potential into different commercial spaces.
Social Business Model Canvas
Factoring the social impact factor in the business model canvas
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Impact and Future Steps
A business model has to operate within current and future market scenarios. We looked into various factors that impact this market space and looked at future trends. These trends could give direction to the business model towards becoming resilient and future ready.
Impact of External Factors on the MVP
Risks:
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Real estate markets are investing in building experiences as amenities. Coffee kiosks, co-working spaces, recreational spaces, etc
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Buildings already have a general waste collection (tie and dump in a shoot) system
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Building lobbies are getting smaller by the day and are being taken over by essential service providers like food delivery
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Residents want to pay lesser rent and plastic waste incentives might not be the amenity they might want to pay for
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Apart from plastics, Buildings in the US do not follow sustainable practices. How effective would the sustainable scores be as a hook?
Opportunities:
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Toss-It could place itself alongside essential services by partnering with them
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The aggregator businesses could also associate with our mission and share space with Toss-It
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The Toss-It bins could be redesigned for a partnership model wherein these bins act as a point of sale counter for the essential amenity brands like AVO and Amazon Hub
Impact of Current Affairs on the MVP
Risks:
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Aggregator businesses are turning operational control to customers with apps
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These businesses are raising high capital, giving heavy incentives for customer loyalty
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Supermarkets have partnerships with these aggregators and are crushing local stores
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First to market businesses have a tendency to build a much larger customer base
Opportunities:
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Toss-It could be placed in the delivery apps of various aggregator platforms as 'Toss-It Sustainability Rewards'
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Buildings could be the catalysts to encourage Toss-It sustainability scores
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Toss-It could sit back and become a point of sale manufacturer for the aggregator businesses
Key Learnings
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MVP's are often an essential tool to test various assumptions within a business model in reality
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Pivoting is essential in order to build a robust business
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MVP's with minimum key partners and cost structures are faster and give more effective returns
Other Projects: Strategic Design
We had to pivot and move towards a less risky and higher revenue model
Key Assumptions
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Creating inflated value on plastic waste is possible
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Consumer behaviour with plastic waste disposal will change and they would be willing to give us raw material