How might we motivate students to use reusable coffee cup?

BLOG: THIRD AND FOURTH DAY

Group members: Alicia Aguado Montero, Jana Vivet, Yuying Tang and Surabhi Gupta

INTRODUCTION

In order to further our exploration by following the instructions for the various tasks provided by the lecturers, we began the day by idealizing various questions and concepts. Together with identifying the how, why, who, and what we wished to accomplish, we started to construct the general notion we had.

#DEFINE

Change? Change!

Based on the gathered insights from yesterday, we have written down 5 key challenges and/or opportunities for improvement at PoliMi.

Chosen insights:

1. Using non/less disposable coffee cups.
2. Having a place and system where material prototypes and models could be stored, and reuse the material for other things (fabric, plastic, cardboard, etc.)
3. Reduce the machines that offer plastic water bottles. And implement maybe the possibility of buying reusable bottles at the campus.Also increase the number of refilling water machines. There are only 2 in B2.
4. Polimi Advertising: Physical Posters. If done, try to made them of reusable materials. Try to digitalized the ads. Maybe in Polimi App (notification) or at Webeep/ Polimi Account. (Events at campus, etc)
5. Try to change the ticket / receipt system when purchasing something. Option of not waiting for it. Cafeteria ordering system.

For doing this, we have followed the Theory of Change relating it to this questions:

What kind of change do we want to achieve in…?

1. The short-term
2. The medium-term
3. Long-term

Among all the highlighted challenges and opportunities, we have focused on one and classify it in the “control diagram” and “effect/ease diagram”:

1-CUPS ISSUE

• Short-term: Create awareness about the impact of disposable cups.
• Medium-term: The habit of using reusable cups.
• Long-term: Stop using disposable sup forever.

(control diagrama and effect/ease diagrama)

#EXPLORE

How Might We… (1/2)

With this defined, we have individually started exploring with the How Might We… questions method, to get some innovative solutions and to turn the five selected challenges into opportunities.

While creating the questions, we have followed the seven basic principles:

1. Explore positive effects
2. Focus on emotions
3. Take it to an extreme
4. Explore the opposite
5. Question an assumption
6. Create an analogy from insight or context
7. Focus on an element/detail

How Might We… (2/2)

Once we have had all the HMW questions about each insight, we have shared the results in group and voted for the top three HMW questions. After, we have re-discussed the three HMW questions that were more voted, and voted again for the top one.

As a final step, we have selected one insight to develop as an idea.

(Choosen insight)

#IDEATE

Crazy 8’s

Crazy 8’s is a core Design Sprint method. It is a fast sketching exercise that challenges people to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. The goal is to push beyond our first idea, which is frequently the least innovative, and to generate a wide variety of solutions to the challenge which in our case is about the disposable coffee cups.

How did we do it?

Each member of our team took an A4 piece of paper and folded it into eight sections. Individually, each of us sketched one idea in each rectangle until the time went off, and then shared and discussed all the ideas until we ended up choosing one of them.

#PRESENT

My Green Nudge

On a vertical sheet of paper, we have explained and presented our green nudge of the topic and problem chosen.

At the end of the poster, we left a white space so our class-mates wrote their thoughts about our idea; and while they were commenting on our project, we shared our opinion with theirs.

The feedback we got from the other groups were:

1.Some more details about the target:

Let students practice sustainable behavior when buying coffee. The reusable mug is also a souvenir of their study in Polimi. It is also a powerful spread of the school reputation for Polimi: “ Polimi is doing its best to advocate sustainable behavior and even giving students free coffee cups!”(Polimi promotes green, free cups to uplift!) In this way, students and Polimi benefit from such actions.

2. Change all the vending machine:

We are not replacing all the vending machines, we will adjust the internals and some of the settings of the current vending machines so that it will allow students to put in their own cups.

3. The cost of providing each student a cup:

Polimi sometimes gives Polimi thermos mug to new students during welcome week of the new semester, for example in September 2022. Moreover, the colors of cups presented by different campuses are different. Although this action is not implemented on every welcome week, maybe because of the cost. However, Polimi still gives other shopping discount vouchers to freshmen. We think that Polimi can afford the small cup we designed, and when it is bought wholesale it will cost much less than the normal price. It would not be a huge cost for Polimi. In addition, if Polimi really cannot afford this cost, it could add a small fee to the student registration to give the student a mug. Since students obviously don’t care about a few euros more when paying the registration fee.

4. Cleaning method of the reusable cup:

Because Polimi’s coffee machine is next to the bathroom, students can go to the tap to wash the cup after drinking coffee. We assume that the internal material of the cup is very smooth and easy to clean. So the cleaning process will not be very complicated, it only takes a few seconds. And with the box, you won’t have any problem with the remaining water drops!

5. Communication strategy:

Our strategy is gradual and constitutes a complete system, which is divided into the following steps:

1. The action starts with providing reusable cups for freshmen in Polimi welcome week.
2. A poster will be posted next to the coffee machine to remind students every time they buy coffee.
3. After students buy coffee from using their own cups, the points will be uploaded to Polimi’s personal account.
4. Students can check and continue to use their own reusable cup at any time to get further rewards.

6. Distribute method and solution for losing and breaking:

Polimi only provides one free reusable mug per student. If students lose or break it and want to use it again, they can purchase it from the Polimi shop.

We created a personal QR code in each reusable mug that contains personal information and data. The personal data cup cannot be used after losing the old one; you must rebind the QR code of the new cup to Polimi’s personal account, but the previous data and points will remain valid in their personal account.

7. Cup material:

The whole cup is made of silicone (smooth and easy to clean) and the cover and spoon are recycled plastic.

8. Personalization option of the cup:

Because Polimi provides these cups for free, they cannot fully reflect everyone’s personality; additionally, a more complicated design means a higher cost. However, the cup comes in four different colors so that students can select one of them. Furthermore, if students truly want to design their own cups, they can use some DIY methods, such as purchasing stickers to stick on the cups or creating a beautiful package to carry their cups in every day.

CONCLUSION

When we finally got to the question that helped us figure out what we wanted to do, it was really helpful to think about the five distinct challenges and opportunities we had seen so far related to using less material and come up with more intuitive questions that would help us reach our goal. Then, the short 8-minute ideation sprint gave us time to think about more difficult ideas. When we talked and combined these ideas, our solution became more interesting. Then, making the posters and getting feedback from other groups forced us to look at things from different angles, which really helped us figure out what we wanted to do with our designs. We are now very interested in the idea of a portable, reusable cup.