I was very excited about our CSR client as our project has a very deep rooted business value attached to sustainability and CSR. The goal of our project is to influence customers to design sustainable products using our client’s product.

The primary problem which is not limited to CSR is how to get your customers to change behavior? Today, people are designing products and then layering sustainability on top of the design as opposed to designing with sustainability in mind. This is very important because once the product is designed there are limited options available and the product is not optimal as far as sustainability is concerned.

We realized that to change behavior we would have to educate the customer. Our research showed us that there was a definite lack of material available around how to design sustainable products from scratch despite interest among the target customer. Our recommendations are segmented in to the following buckets:

1. content creation,
2. content delivery and
3. marketing initiatives.

The content creation recommendations will help our client educate their customers and create awareness about the problem. Content delivery are the channels of communication the client should using to reach out to their customers. And, finally marketing initiatives (the hardest!) is how to get customers to these various channels of communication.

Despite the tough task ahead the emphasis that our client is putting on sustainability has given me a glimmer of hope. By creating content around sustainable design they are not only being responsible but most importantly they are being strategic. Something most companies forget to do!

—Sole Bearer

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