Politecnico di Milano: Master’s Final Project
Building Sustainable Behaviour With Food Waste In The Middle East
September 2023 - January 2024
Frameworks Used
Desk Research, Interviews, Surveys, Competitor & SWOT Analysis, Archetypes, Behaviour Change Matrix, Business Model Canvas, Ecosystem Mapping, Service Blueprint
Role
Service Designer | Design Researcher | Brand Designer | Product Designer | Video Editor | Illustrator
Context: Achieving Circular Economy In A Desert
UAE residents have the desire to be more sustainable in their lives. However, they lack the motivation due to the cost of sustainable brands, the lack of immediate incentives and “too much narrative” around the idea, without proof of execution.
Solution: Facilitating Sustainable Actions With Food
The Conscious Collective is a B2B company that brings various stakeholders together to facilitate sustainable behaviour from an individual level, to a governmental one. It aims to provide residents and restaurants an outlet to channel food waste, turn it into a valuable resource, and get rewards for their actions.
But first, how does it work?
Discovery
The Challenge: Who really wants to be more sustainable? And how?
76%
of residents find it difficult to live sustainably in UAE despite having the desire to.
42%
Of companies value CSR initiatives, even though they have gained immense benefits from them that add to their bottom line.
39.9
UAE spillover score based on its ability in affecting countries' abilities to achieve the SDGs.
Approach: Interviewing UAE residents
Interviews were conducted to understand what are the current pain points residents have engaging with sustainable brands, how they source their information, and general understanding of sustainable (and ethical) consumption of products and services.
Here are some memorable quotes and insights on challenges to sustainable and ethical consumption:
“Too much of a narrative but no implementation.”
“There’s no incentive for a person when investing in these brands.”
“It is easier to use the other services because of income.”
From the Interviews: Laying Down The Facts
50%
of interviewees gave a 2 out of 5, in terms of how much they valued sustainable consumption in their lives.
70%
of interviewees mentioned that food is something they would like to be more conscious of in their everyday lives.
$$
Price was a key driver in people’s decisions to be more sustainable in everyday life.
And more data: Insights on food consumption
More primary research was gathered to understand how people behaved with food consumption through surveys.
The survey was conducted to understand that if we cannot change people’s ability and desire to buy sustainable brands, foods or experiences, what other ways can we build sustainable behaviour within food consumption & wastage?
-
Online Dominates
More than 50% of surveyors were more comfortable with buying groceries online than in convenience or grocery stores
-
What Gets Wasted is Important
Cooked items as well as fruits and vegetables were cited as the most wasted food items
-
Cautious Behaviour Takes Precedence
71% of people did not want to share food with another person at all and 80% of surveyors did not want to buy discounted foods from restaurants and grocery stores.
What already exists?
A SWOT analysis was also done to understand whether existing global services could work in the UAE and if not, why? What were the opportunities that UAE could take advantage of? It was also important to look at the local efforts that were being done in order to help with food waste to understand where in the ecosystem this service design could fit in.
Insights:
Cultural differences: Many western countries were interested in buying discounted foods and sharing foods between each other
Environmental impact companies and organisations were not taking advantage of online delivery platforms
Many local initiatives are already underway to help in sustainability.
Define
The Opportunity
Facilitate ethical and sustainable behaviour through accessible channels. “Accessible” means that it is cost effective, digital and easy to find.
The opportunity lies in UAE residents not having to purchase sustainable or ethical brands; if they can use existing channels of services, they can be rewarded in the short term and gain sustainable value from their actions in the long term. Companies, on the other hand, can prove and commit to their long term sustainable goals and achieve a better bottom-line.
There are many initiatives that have started in the UAE to help reduce food waste, both publicly and privately. However some of these initiatives are currently being developed or are currently handled in isolation.
People are more comfortable buying foods through digital means than through physical ones since a lot more services are accessible digitally than physically in Dubai.
UAE residents do not have enough motivation or drive to find ways to be more sustainable, neither in their consumption nor in their habits. Therefore, they are resistant to take big steps in leading sustainable lifestyles.
Deliver
Evaluation
Project
Testing, Testing, 123…with some iterations
WattWise could have been evaluated further by testing how many people would adopt an IoT device and use it to compare themselves to their community. However, due to time constraints, this could not be put into the scope of service plan.
Additionally, our team could have considered other deployment strategies to carry out this service besides piggy-backing on the existing policies that Italy has.
Lastly, the team could go more into details on the device itself in terms of how much research and investment would cost going into that to differentiate from other competitors from the market.
Key Learnings
Different Dimensions to Consider
This was my first foray into service design. And, I quite loved handling so many different aspects of deploying a service. From the social aspect, to the public policies available to help carry out the service, it was enlightening how we had to consider multiple layers of penetration.
I also learned how to use a wide range of tools to uncover pain points of various stakeholders, various brainstorming techniques to ideate and work as a team, how to implement the business model canvas in a practical and realistic scenario and how to apply service design concepts and principles into a real case study, with real-world implications