(Fourth in an occasional series on the discipline of developing social innovations.)
In a special report on social responsibility in America, TIME announced that "there is a new social contract evolving between many Americans and businesses about what goes into making the products we buy." TIME called this "ethical consumerism" and described 25 businesses, nonprofits, and activists who are "changing the world." Those from the U.S. included:
- The for-profit Recyclebank, which gives recyclers points they can redeem at 1,500 retailers.
- Starbucks, which pays above-market prices for coffee beans purchased from small-scale farmers in the developing world.
- LaDonna Redmond, who opened Graffiti and Grub, an organic-food market on the south side of Chicago staffed by inner-city youth who work on urban farms.
- Interface, the carpet company that uses natural, recyclable fibers.
- General Electric, which is focusing on energy-efficient technologies.
- Melissa Schweisguth, a consultant who helps companies shrink their carbon footprint and who "can fit an entire year's worth of [her] garbage in one coffee can. What little trash she accumulates gets composted, recycled or reused."
- Walmart, which is pushing to green its stores and 100,000 suppliers.
- CleanFish, a firm that advises eco-conscious fish farms and wild fisheries on how to improve their operations.
A nice list--a few items are the usual suspects, a few are unfamiliar. But should we trust this information? In previous blogs about hunting for social innovation, we've looked at awarding prizes for social innovations and tracking and publicizing the batting average of social innovation funders and brokers. What's evident is that there's an audience for ideas/information about social innovations. But there's next to no consumer information out there. Case studies, yes. Blogs and news media articles, yes. Marketing/propaganda from social entrepreneurs and investors, yes. But there's nowhere to go to get critical, comparative insights about a particular innovation or set of innovations. So how can you know if Starbucks' version of "fair trade" is as good for Mexican coffee growers as the versions of others? Or whether the urban agriculture model of Graffiti and Grub is replicable and sustainable elsewhere? Or whether RecycleBank has an economic model that works or will peter out after a while? And so on.
Without this sort of information, social innovation as a field remains remarkably inefficient and a void of learning. Finding out what works--with what results and under what conditions--requires an exhaustive search in a universe of information without any trusted navigational tools. And learning how to improve what you're working on can't happen without deep information that allows you to compare with what others are doing.
Who in the field of social innovation will step up to this challenge? |
