Melbourne

The leaves fell from the trees as Autumn passed by and now with Winter rolling in Carrotmob Melbourne is wrapped up tight and warm, ready to hit the streets for more carrot action!
 
A little post-event update – we know you guys want feedback on how Carrotmob made a difference! Since the first event in April, Hawthorn Local Food Market has made the switch purchasing a years supply of 25% Accredited Green Power! They have also purchased T5 converters and tubes to change their current lighting to be more efficient. Jimmy, the owner, has started to stock fair trade coffee – so if you live in the area and need some coffee please support his positive actions.   

 
Thank you all for taking the time to fill out our short survey last month.  Here are some top votes:
 
- Supermarkets (independent) & Bars/pubs were voted highest of places to ‘mob’ in the future. Followed by fruit & vege & electronics stores.
- Melbourne CBD had the highest votes for the area to mob next, followed by Inner North suburbs.
 
All your feedback and suggestions were valuable to us and we will use the ideas in upcoming events. We’re now going to discuss you’re ideas and explore inner suburbs  – we’ll get back to you with an update soon. Stay tuned!! 

One final thing – if you are interested in getting involved with organising the next event, please contact us. carrotmobmelbourne@gmail.com

Take our Online Mob Survey

So the first “mobbing” in Melbourne went off as a success…now it’s time to figure out what to do next and how we can make it even better!

Great News!

We had 120 people come to Mob the Hawthorn Local Food Market yesterday! In just 3 hours the Mob more than doubled this small milkbar’s average Saturday sales, raking in $1700!

Jimmy, the owner, was thrilled with the turn out. He now has enough money to change the shops light globes and switch part of his energy supply to Green Accredited Energy.

Not only that, but Jimmy is now selling Fair Trade coffee!

More photos album 1

More Photos album 2

Come join the mob at the Hawthorn Local Food Market, Saturday 17 April. Rock up anytime between 10.30am & 1pm and make a small purchase. 100% of the profits from what the mob spends will go towards environmentally sustainable changes. You’ll also be supporting a local business.

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A local convenience store in Hawthorn has pledged 100% of their carrotmob profits to go towards making positive and sustainable changes to their business!!! They can be found at 52 Church St and we’ll be mobbing (i.e. rocking up and buying something) them from 10.30 – 1pm on April 17th – put it in your diary.

The owners are keen to try and sell more locally produced food and we will be helping them test this out at the Carrotmob. A sustainability assessment has been conducted and we have identified energy efficiency improvements they can put their carrotmob profit towards.
If you think this sounds great please come along and bring some friends The bigger the mob the bigger the changes this store can make!

Besides the Hawthorn convenience store there were two other local food stores in the running to be mobbed by Melbourne’s first carrotmob. Camberwell Green Grocery, on Camberwell road offered to commit 25% of their revenue! McCoppins Food & Wine on Toroonga road were also really keen. We arranged a sustainability assessment of their business and while they won’t be mobbed they will be implementing positive changes. For example, they are planning to change all their light globes to T5 fluro tubes, which could potentially reduce their Green House Gases by 10 tonnes per year, saving them approx $3000 over 3 years!

Smart Company released an article early Feb saying small medium enterprises (SME) have no real reason to green up their business practices because consumers aren’t demanding them to do so. (http://www.smartcompany.com.au/climate-change/20100211-smes-say-customers-don-t-care-about-their-green-credentials.html)
LETS SHOW THEM AS CONSUMERS WE DO CARE!!! However, rather than demanding them (using the stick)…let use the Carrot to encourage and support SME to make some changes. And the good news is:
“The survey also looked at what would encourage companies to become greener. Consumer demand for greener products was the biggest motivator (82% of respondents), followed by tax incentives for R&D for low-carbon products and services (77%) and rising energy bills (71%).”

It’s easy!..Next time you take your green bag to your local grocery store..ask these simple questions:

- where do you keep your fair trade (product)?

- where is your organic (product)?

And the more they hear these questions being asked by their customers…the more they’ll see that their customers are interested to buy these products! But to make it really count, purchase the item so they can see the difference when it comes to stocktaking.

We have just added a few resources for both consumers and businesses to have a look at. Hopefully this will be a useful tool for you to understand how you can make a positive difference to the environment and socially..Please look on the Resource page (found on the right bottom panel.

Consumers, have a read of the ‘Ethical Consumers Guide’ and take it with you on your next supermarket trip, it will surely make you shop with a conscience. Use your dollar to create positive outcomes!! You can make a difference any day and everyday!!

We are gearing up to have a few local grocery stores undergo assessments shortly and then to start marketing our first event.

Unfortunately we might need to push the event date back to earlyApril, soorrryyyyy everyone whos been waiting for an event to happen in March…..We are disappointed as well….but we’ll definitely keep you posted!!

Carrotmob Melbourne has been busy spreading the word these past few weeks!!

Our info event on the 13th went really well!! We had Jason Cox from the Moreland Energy Foundation came to talk about case studies of some practical changes businesses can make in their business to reduce energy consumption. We also had John McRae from Revium talk about many various sustainable actions they had taken at their workplace to do their bit for the environment and the community. After hearing both the speakers, our guests and the carrotmob team were all excited and positive in the changes we can make as consumers to help businesses when we organise where we shop.  The Carrotmob team certainly became much more knowledgeable and confident to make follow ups with local grocery stores. Video and resources from the info event will become available soon on our blog site.

Those of you in Boroondara probably saw our faces in the Progress Leader 3 weeks ago. We are on the roll to get more publicity for Carrotmob Melbourne! Keep an eye out for us in more media places.

We were also present at the Sustainable Living Festival last weekend at Federation Square. We got to speak to lots of festival visitors and caught many people’s interest. Triple R radio (102.7 FM) did a plug about Carrotmob during their show at the Festival and that got a few people coming over to speak to us! We also gave a snapshot of carrotmob on 3CR radio (855AM).  Listen to the interview on podcast from Thursday on 3CR’s website (http://www.3cr.org.au/podcasts)!

So what’s Next??? We will be revisting businesses this week and stir up the bidding game! We will ask assessors to audit our top 2 or 3 businesses and whichever business offers the highest percentage of profit from the carrotmob event will get a big visit from the MOB!

Keep a close eye on this blog ’cause we’re aiming to run MELBOURNE’S FIRST CARROTMOB EVENT IN MARCH!!!! So start gettin the word out to  all your friends and family to come down to Boroondara and HAVE FUN MOBBING a local grocery store!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out our latest video…
Video

Want to participate in Melbourne’s first Carrotmob event? Follow us on this blogsite to stay tuned. Or, you can email us at carrotmobmelbourne@gmail.com and we will add you to our mailing list!

What do you think? Also, while we continue to visit local grocery stores, we want to know what you think are the most important things that grocery shops should change…Submit your thoughts via the poll on the right hand side of the website.