Crowdsourcing solutions for corporate social responsibility challenges

Occasionally your business gets in a bit of a rut. New ideas might be hard to come by. Perhaps any new ideas that do come through just do not work. At these times an outsider, usually a consulting firm, comes in to help. Well, has your business ever tried crowdsource the problem?

Reaching out to the masses and soliciting their support is another option that organizations have utilized more and more the last few years. Crowdsourcing helps a company solve some of its biggest issues. Crowdsourcing gives opportunities to other businesses in a different industry to contribute as well as creative individuals to bring alternative ideas.

Crowdsourcing

"the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers."
Merriam-Webster

​First, the Carlsberg Group​ is looking for ideas to improve its environmental impact with its "Cheers to Green Ideas" campaign. The initiative is looking for solutions to in three high-impact areas: eco-friendly packaging, recycling, and less water & energy consumption when brewing.

Image credit: Carlsberg/Sustainia

Earlier this year, the Carlsberg Group announced that it is working on a biodegradable bottle made from wood-fibers. The three year project wants all attributes of the bottle, including the bottle caps, to be biodegradable. By crowdsourcing, the Carlsberg Group can learn of other techniques or processes that could help with this biodegradable bottle or other projects.

The brewing industry is a very collaborative industry and breweries have done some pretty innovative ideas to improve its impact on the environment. Through a crowdsourcing campaign though, an organization receives solutions or input from different industries. These types of collaborations of different industries are difficult to find because the fit between the two may not be as apparent at first.

The second Sustainable Brands article around crowdsourcing aimed to tackling food system challenges that address business practices. In 2014, Unilever launched "Unilever Foundry," a crowdsourcing platform for small businesses to partner with Unilever.  Unilever has already used the platform for tackling sustainability challenges. For the upcoming food system challenge, Unilever is looking for ideas regarding:

• Obesity
• Under-nutrition
• Food waste
• Food chain sustainability
• Heart Health

By Unilever and the Carlsberg Group using crowdsourcing, they are accessing new talent, tools, and ideas that may have taken their internal teams possibly longer. In addition, they are using crowdsourcing to address some of the top environmental and social challenges our world is facing. Through these unique collaborations, new innovations and unique solutions may help solve these challenges.

Sustainable Brands​ recently shared two great articles about businesses currently looking to the outside community for solutions related to corporate social responsibility strategy.