It’s A Wonderful Mob — Carrotmob To Change Climate One Corner Store At A Time

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. The fictional character Gordon Gekko once described America’s zeitgeist with three words.

“Greed is good,” said the stockbroker played by actor Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone’s 1987 film Wall Street.

Two decades later, the zeitgeist has sort of shifted some to reflect the times: “Greed is green.”

Last year, a 27-year-old corporate team-building game coordinator in San Francisco, Calif. creatively tapped into that idea like a judo master: if the federal government won’t help curb the nation’s contributions to global warming, maybe businesses will with a little coaxing.

“The problem is that corporations will do anything for money,” said Brent Schulkin. “But what if the solution were that corporations will do anything for money?”

To test his theory, the Stanford graduate ran with a plan, which was a total win-win situation in his mind; first, he contacted 22 convenience stores in his neighborhood, the Mission District. He then promised to deliver consumers to the store that in turn promised to devote the highest percentage of that day’s sales to improving its own energy efficiency. After negotiations, the strongest environmental commitment (22 percent) came from K&D Market. As promised, San Francisco Energy Watch audited the store to identify possible energy-saving, environmentally-friendly solutions.

By word of mouth on the street and through social networking websites, hundreds of people miraculously showed up at the market last March, waiting as long as an hour to purchase goods. At the end of the day, store manager David Lee recorded a profit of $9,400, $1,840 of which was earmarked toward green renovations after state and local taxes. The San Francisco Food Bank also got a little of the action from participants donating K&D-bought goods. To show love for the participants, an afterparty was also thrown at a local park financed in part by gifts.

The consumers overall seemed to have a good time shopping, too; one Nina Luttinger told San Francisco magazine, “It’s like a party in here.”

Thus was born “Carrotmob” consumers rewarding businesses that improve the environment. It’s kind of like if you combined Saul Alinsky community organizing with Frank Capra feel-good charm with Al Gore climate change crusade where we’re all George Baileys rallying our communities to shower everyone with collective environmental security.

“They did a favor for us, and Carrotmob knows how to return a favor,” said Schulkin of K&D owner in “Carrotmob Makes It Rain” a video about the inaugural event.

Lee told Wired.com, however, that the Carrotmob sales were less than the cost of a complete renovation on his 23-year-old refrigerators, yet enough to change to more efficient light bulbs.

“It’s not exactly saving the earth, but it’s a start,” noted Wired’s Mary Catherine O’Connor.

Another commenter on Wired.com was more critical.

“I wonder how many of the environmentalists are checking out the special on cigarettes?” wrote rainman86 sarcastically.

Still, cynicism hasn’t stopped the Carrotmob method from taking root in other parts of the globe. A Carrotmob-inspired magazine, Strawberry Earth, recently launched in The Netherlands, accor