mymizu: How we built a movement of conscious consumers in Japan
Go to any convenience store in Japan and you’ll find an astounding amount of single-use plastic packaging. That’s why we launched mymizu in 2019 — a circular economy initiative to tackle single-use plastic waste and encourage people to think and act on the environment in their everyday lives.
Even then, there was a growing recognition that plastic consumption in Japan was unsustainable, but as a society, we were stuck. The companies we spoke to recognised that they needed to reduce the amount of packaging they produced, but in the same breath bemoaned a ‘lack of consumer demand’. On the other hand, more conscious consumers were complaining that they couldn’t find companies or products that offered sustainable alternatives.
There was clearly a gap, which meant there was also an opportunity.
How might we find a way to tap into the energy and influence of a growing population of conscious consumers? Could we both grow interest in sustainability and the opportunities for brands and businesses to serve this growing market?
Borrowing an idea from systems thinking, we saw a ‘leverage point’.
We saw the potential for a creative way to hook people into the sustainability movement, and a first step towards a larger transformation of consumer behaviour that would have a significant and lasting impact.
This leverage point was refilling water bottles. Everyone needs to stay hydrated, and Japan has drinkable tap water. Yet we consume millions of plastic water bottles every day, in a mindless act of environmental destruction.
Our solution was two-fold — make it easy for people to stay hydrated using a reusable bottle (crowdsource a network of refill spots), and create a social movement supporting a behavioural shift away from single-use.
Thanks to our active community, we’ve built a platform of over 205,000 crowdsourced refill spots worldwide to date. We have had over 225,000 people use our mymizu app to find a place to refill their bottle and have welcomed over 2,300 Refill Partners (shops and businesses where anyone can refill their water bottle for free) across all 47 of Japan’s prefectures to the platform. And we’ve worked with some of the world’s leading brands, as well as city governments and educational institutions across Japan, to do so.
We haven’t yet entirely replaced single-use, but we’re certainly a step closer.
Learnings about driving consumer behaviour
Pull, don’t push
If you want people to join you, focus on what you have to offer, not on making them feel bad.
Invite them to imagine what their future could look like if they chose to engage.
Invoking feelings of guilt might be one way to get people’s attention (and tempting, given the severity of the environmental crises we face), but it can often lead to disengagement and polarisation. As seen in the research study “Sustainability in Japan 2022: How conscious consumers are driving brand futures, with food systems leading the way” (referred to as “Sustainability in Japan 2022" hereafter), 77% of people say they would switch brands to avoid excessive packaging, and 29% report feeling proud when they buy a sustainable product.
In the case of mymizu, we highlighted the problem of single-use plastic starting with PET bottles, and then helped people to connect it to their own choices, and realise how a small change on their part could contribute to solving it. No shaming. No talk of ‘sacrifice’. Just an invitation to choose a solution that is better both for them and the environment.
And ensuring that the value proposition for mymizu goes beyond the environmental benefits has also helped us to reach beyond the highly engaged, and target those who are only just starting to become conscious of sustainability issues. For a refiller: staying hydrated conveniently, for free. For a shop owner: an opportunity to connect with new potential customers and increase footfall.
Even as a tiny operation, this approach has helped us to gain over 225,000 users of the mymizu app across some 50 countries, and have many more join us through collaborations with brands and local governments.
Not just a ‘user’ — the power of co-creation
Individuals encouraging their local cafe to sign up to mymizu; shop owners who are proud to promote themselves as a mymizu Refill Partner; a whole team of volunteers checking and translating every spot that is added to the mymizu app; journalists coming to us on a personal mission to tell our story and promote our cause. These are all examples of the mymizu ‘community’ that has played (and continues to play) a key role in building and growing the platform and movement.
We’ve empowered people to go above and beyond the role of a ‘user’, and become ambassadors for, and even co-creators of mymizu. We’ve grown a movement by offering our community the chance to join us in co-creating our future.
Extending an open invitation to be part of creating the solution has also helped us to collaborate with the likes of Audi, Nike, Columbia, LUSH and IKEA, creating win-win partnerships to engage their customers in meaningful ways, from plastic-free running campaigns to the creation of co-branded videos that promote a more attractive lifestyle aligned with nature. Every one of these brands — even the most ‘sustainable’ — is in part responsible for the environmental degradation we face today through their business practices. However, they also hold the power to influence customers in a way that no government or NGO ever could alone. That the public has been incredibly receptive to our collaborations suggests that they are keen to support the brands that are taking the initiative to create change, even if they are not yet perfect.
And it’s not just us taking this co-creation approach — mymizu reportedly served as the inspiration for a Presidential Hackathon in Taiwan in which Digital Minister Audrey Tang combined the concept of mymizu with that of Pokemon GO, to create a gamified, plastic-free tea service!
As the data in the Sustainability in Japan 2022 study shows, there is a still small but growing part of the population that is highly engaged on the topic of sustainability, and by inviting them to co-create the solution with us, we have been able to turn their individual energy and frustration into real results.
From students creating their own mymizu posters and rallying local businesses to join, to partner shops spontaneously creating large mymizu branded banners to display in their shopfronts, we’ve been fortunate to harness this potential in a meaningful way.
It may have only been a few hundred people to start with, but those highly engaged individuals who were willing to adopt and advocate for an alternative helped us to take mymizu from an idea to a platform that has now reached millions of people. Don’t underestimate the power of a minority of motivated individuals, united behind a shared vision for a better future.
Increased awareness = a major opportunity
The data in Sustainability in Japan 2022 shows a dramatic increase in awareness of the issues surrounding single-use plastic and a growing consciousness of social and environmental impact more generally.
Our own experience of tapping into the energy of a minority of conscious consumers to build and grow mymizu suggests that, as a growing number of consumers try to figure out where to start, there is a major opportunity for brands, entrepreneurs, and activists to identify them, communicate with them in a genuine and positive way, and build lasting value through co-creation.
Those who can harness the power of this growing cohort of consumers will be the ones who lead the charge and generate social, environmental, and economic value that can benefit us all in the long run.
This is an edited version of an article I originally wrote for the research study “Sustainability in Japan 2022: How conscious consumers are driving brand futures, with food systems leading the way” by Fabric. Edits include adding up-to-date information as of June 2023.
For more on social and environmental issues in Japan, check out 7 Surprising Facts about Plastic in Japan, If plastic is the problem, is bioplastic the solution? and ‘Closing the Loop’: global case studies and the Circular Economy in Japan
