Carrotmob: Sustainability on a stick.

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I have just been part of the first Carrotmob in Canberra and loved it.  It is a bit like a flashmob only less of the Beyonce-style syncronised dancing and more of the people-coming-into-the-store and buying groceries. It is the sort of positive community action that is more yes than no.

There was music, carrot juice, people in a little bit of orange (not too much to be confused with a cult gathering), chat, dogs, a hotted-up electric bike and a general feeling that people really want to put their money into something that makes a difference. 

Carrotmob was started in San Francisco and has now gone global – there is bound to be a mobbing near you. It began as a way of encouraging business, big and small, to change to more sustainable ways. As it’s name suggests this is done not with a stick, beating it into sustainable submission, but with a carrot, providing an incentive to go green by attracting customers to the business, and hopefully getting some of them to stay. It's a buycott rather than a boycott. 

So the Carrotmob Canberra team, a bunch a motivated, enthusiastic folk from love40percent, got together and asked local businesses to put in a bid as to what they would do, sustainability wise, if Carrotmob bought customers to their businesses. The highest bidder, Ainslie IGA supermarket won, offering 100% of extra sales (that is above and beyond their normal Saturday sales) to go into improving energy efficiency at the store. Not 100% of profits. 100% of all cash through the tills.

At the end of the day when the tills were all tallied up, this amounted to $12,000 – a really great start to get some serious changes made to make the store an energy efficient machine – well, as energy efficient as it can be when you have open fridges, open doors and heaters all competing with each other!

It was such a positive approach to change. Rallies and chanting have their place, but for action, all in a days grocery shopping, and putting your money where your mouth is, this is a great event.

I’ll be back to Ainslie IGA and be ready to mob the next business that is up for the mobbing.