A report on the iZindaba Zokudla Farmers’ Lab 4 May 2022
Most businesses would see inclusion, trust and engagement as “nice to have’s” but not essential for the pursuit of profit. There may be many other things that make profit possible, but the development of a sustainable and circular business needs to place inclusion, trust and stakeholder engagement at the core of the enterprise. This is due to the convergence of technologies, wastes and by-products, systems and behavior, and relationships and interests that are combined in a sustainable and circular enterprise.
Usually we use engagement opportunities to explore marketing and advertising, but we engage all the time with regulators, technologies, customers and competitors, even if it is not always directly. It pays to elevate is as an activity on its own, and this opens our minds on what we can do with engagement opportunities. What we describe here is a simple example. Here we describe how to use engagement methods as a means to develop the systems in an enterprise, and the exact ways these systems will be converging to create the complex system of the enterprise. This does not mean the systems are complicated – remember that these all flow and work on their own once set-up – but that we need to sequence the inputs and outputs of engagement processes so that they create real systems for the enterprise. They are complex because you can do very many things with one system.
An entrepreneur should organize an event at the enterprise, and this will set up a system of engagement. In this event, the entrepreneur could aim to set up a recycling facility or food-for-waste system at their enterprise. An event could be organized that would have to start with the basics of consumer education about good food. This is ‘fresh food’ and every urban farmer should realise this is the unique advantage that they have in society: to be able to sell at retail level food that is very recently harvested. The consumer education should go further and show the importance of conserving and enhancing the soil, as this guarantees good fresh food. This can be done by processing food waste into compost, and people need to be shown how this takes place. When they see the dark compost, that smells rich and hearty, they immediately see the difference with stinky rotting food. You as the entrepreneur need to start a process of them realizing how they can contribute to the improvement of their own quality of life by cooperating with you the entrepreneur. This sequence of events and incentives that you create, is in fact the core operation of your entire enterprise. You have built the enterprise based-on the behavior of your customers. You want to keep them close and secure their inputs into your enterprise, as this will sustain you over time. A food-for-waste system that would enable the entrepreneur to collect recyclable materials in exchange for discount on food sold would realise this new process in your enterprise, and this can be set up with an engagement process.
In proposing this offer, people could be organized into a workshop. This workshop could ask the following questions to your customers:
1. Is enough recyclable materials available to make this worthwhile? How much recyclable materials are available from an average household? This would include both plastics, metals, glass, paper and others like batteries, and food waste. (We think each person generates about 100g of food waste per day, and this can give you an idea of what could be available.)
2. Would people be prepared to change their behaviour and bring these materials to you?
3. What would the enterprise need to accept recyclable materials in an acceptable way? Do you have the right technology to accept these (and this would mean acceptable containers for the recyclables and the food waste).
4. What else can be “doubled-up” to ensure savings for the customer and loyalty for the enterprise? (After asking this question, you can start introducing your food-for-waste offer.)
Engagement opportunities like this is a lot like a group discussion on an important topic. Anyone can do this, and it could become a feature of your enterprise. In this way, you will always be ready to develop new products or services for the customer, and customers will become familiar with how you work, and become active in helping you developing new products and services.
This approach also shows us how an enterprise can incur savings by reorganizing people and society. In a sense the operations, like collecting recyclable materials, takes place outside the enterprise (as customer behaviour does). However, engagement methods brings this outside behaviour within the sphere of control of the entrepreneur, and this then extends the activities that enriches the enterprise.
This way of organizing the community also allows them the opportunity to shape your enterprise and the services and products that you offer. They will feel that they have a say in your enterprise, and this means you can develop further programmes like loyalty programmes and also organize events like a harvest day.
Please do take a look at the archived video on Facebook if you want to.