Buycotting to sprout sustainability

Three Bristol engineering graduates have come up with
the idea of encouraging local businesses to become more sustainable, by harnessing the latent power we all have as consumers – via smart phone technology.

Bristol Sprout – so named because of its green, wholesome properties – is a project that purports to use ‘buycotting’ to persuade Bristol’s small business community to embrace sustainability. Co-founder Tom Mallett explains the concept: “It’s the opposite of a boycott. In other words, you like what a company does and support it deliberately. You provide them with additional revenue and encourage them to go down this route further”.

Mallett was inspired by the craze of ‘carrot bombing’ that was briefly fashionable in US activist circles around a decade ago. “A collection of people would agree to go to a particular establishment on a day if the business agreed to donate a certain percentage of their takings on that day to a cause that the group supported.”

This conjures up images of scores of activists turning up en masse, confusing small business owners, but Mallett intends Bristol Sprout to be a less ad hoc, longer-term affair. “Over a monthly period, Sprout members will go to a certain business and we’ll log how many use that establishment via an app. If we reach that target of, say, 100 members, we’ll say ‘we use you, would you like to make your business more sustainable? If you do we will bring in, say, 500 Sprout users’.

New shoots of growth

The changes Sprout hopes to encourage will bring both environmental and social benefits. “It’s important the changes we bring about cover the three pillars of sustainability – so they bring environmental and social benefits but also help the business economically. For example, we could propose a waste programme that reduces their waste but by doing so also saves them money. Another could be providing a better working environment for their employees.”

“We’re looking to start with independent businesses around Bristol like bars, restaurants and fast food outlets. We figure that it’s easier for a local bar to change work practice than, say, a clothes outlet that might have a long supply chain.” The main Sprout organisers – Mallett and other co-founders Harry Garstka and Ryan Pugh, will decide which businesses to target and which changes to suggest.

There is the danger that this could come across as a little heavy-handed but Mallett stresses that in many cases they are likely to be pushing against an open door. “The ideal situation for us is that they want to do something but don’t really know how or don’t have the revenue or cash flow to do it. So, we can be there to support them.

“I see there being some sort of negotiation – what does the business want and what can Sprout do to help that? We don’t want to force a business into doing something they can’t or don’t want to achieve. It’s all about promoting a positive change.”

Sprout have already signed up more than 200 members to the project, which is scheduled to be launched, alongside the app (which is currently being designed), in September. If it all goes according to plan, it could go a long way to making Bristol an even more sustainable city, and, perhaps, turn thousands of us from passive into active consumers.

For more information, or to become a Bristol Sprout member, go to sproutbristol.co.uk.