June 5th 2014 - PRESS RELEASE
Coca-Cola Enterprises unveils shortlist of crowd-sourced ideas to improve household recycling habits
- - Coca-Cola Enterprises and OpenIDEO.com is running an online challenge to explore, generate and launch ideas to help improve recycling habits at home.
- - To date, over 205 ideas have been submitted, with the top 25 chosen to enter refinement phase
- - The challenge follows the results of a pioneering six-month study with the University of Exeter which observed recycling behaviours in 20 households in Great Britain and France to help understand the barriers to at-home recycling
- - The study identified the need for people to break old recycling habits and form new ones
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) today announces the shortlist of ideas submitted to its recycling challenge in partnership with open innovation platform, OpenIDEO.com, aimed at co-creating solutions to help improve at-home recycling habits. The 11-week challenge, launched in March this year, draws on the platform's 60,000 members from across the globe as part of CCE's Recycle for the Future campaign.
Over the last four weeks of the challenge, OpenIDEO.com's global community has contributed over 205 ideas, stemming from over 300 initial research contributions. Now in refinement, the top 25 ideas have been selected by an expert panel for further development by the OpenIDEO.com community.
The challenge closes on 17th June 2014. The ideas with the most potential for impact will then be revealed, having been evaluated both by the community and an external panel, who have been providing advice throughout the challenge.
The Expert Advisory Panel includes representatives from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Forum for the Future, WRAP, FostPlus and Casino who will be looking for ideas which showcase original thinking, practical sense, and real applicability.
Joe Franses, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Director, Coca-Cola Enterprises, explained: "Recycling is something in which we all have a role to play, and as one of the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottlers we recognise we have a responsibility to address today's social and environmental challenges. While we can leverage our experience and expertise to educate and inspire consumers to recycle more often, we recognise we don't have all the answers. So, we are collaborating with other thought leaders, and the best creative minds in the OpenIDEO.com global community, to help generate ideas that could deliver real change in at-home recycling habits."
Nathan Waterhouse, Director of OpenIDEO.com, said: "We believe in the power of the community and see collaboration as the key to successful innovation for good. The innovation platform, at its most impactful and passionate, empowers participants to inspire each other and build on each other's ideas to find the answer.
"We hope that some of the ideas generated from this challenge will help to meet the recommendations that came out of the CCE study into recycling rates, by calling time on out-dated recycling habits and providing popular, straightforward solutions for households."
For more information on the challenge and to get involved in the current refinement stage, please visit www.openideo.com.
Unpacking the Household
CCE's Recycle for the Future campaign aims to identify the reasons behind the gap between people's intentions and actions, and seek meaningful solutions to increase at-home recycling rates.
The pioneering study with the University of Exeter, Unpacking the Household, observed 20 families, couples and single-person households in Great Britain and France, in their own homes, for six months. Its key findings include:
- Break a habit to make a habit - People don't make conscious decisions about recycling. Instead people have instinctive behaviour built into their everyday lives, which doesn't always include recycling, so new thinking is needed to help break bad habits - and shape new habits.
- Aesthetics are key - The recycling infrastructure in households must be adjusted. Additional physical space is needed to make recycling a more viable activity, but aesthetics are a barrier, with few study participants willing to make room for a recycling bin.
- Better information is required - The majority of households do not have an accurate understanding of what happens to their waste once it has been collected, with many not realising that their recycled items are returned to them as other products or packaging, e.g. shampoo bottles or t-shirts.
- Common misconceptions continue to exist - Households are sceptical about what happens to their recycling once collected, with many believing it is all 'sent to landfill' or 'exported abroad.'
- Harnessing the power of community - Digital communication and social media could be put to greater use, encouraging people to form new recycling habits.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For more information please contact:
Coca-Cola Enterprises Press Office
Cocacolaenterprises@3-monkeys.co.uk
01895 844 828
About Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd
Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc. (CCE) is one of the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottlers. CCE is the sole licensed bottler for products of The Coca-Cola Company in Belgium, continental France, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
In Great Britain, Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd employs some 4,000 people across England, Scotland and Wales at manufacturing sites and depots.
CCE is committed to minimising the environmental impact of its products and operations, with a particular focus on sustainable packaging and recycling, water stewardship, and energy and climate protection.
For further information please visit www.cokecce.co.uk
