Fighting Coffee Shops Waste

In collaboration with ConsumAI

MA in Service Experience Design & Innovation Final Major Project

 

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Brief 

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Every day, coffee shop managers forecast demand and order products they aim to sell the following day. It is, indeed, a process that takes into account many different internal and external factors, such as weather, transportation availability or season and, therefore, risk and uncertainty will always be central to forecasts and prediction. Currently, in London, managers forecast is mostly focused on historical data (how much was sold the past weeks) and lacks understanding of what influences customer behaviours, resulting in overstocking and waste disposal.

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This project aims to help coffee and sandwich shops prevent waste and better recycle it, by making information more accessible and actionable.

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Methodology

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A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design. Thus, designing for a circular economy means that products and services no longer have life cycles with a beginning, middle and end, and therefore contributes less waste and can actually add value to the ecosystem instead of hurting it. It did make sense, therefore, that my methodological approach to the challenge described was a Circular Design approach. It considers services as a cycle that shouldn’t be broken and aims to create sustainable solutions that can live and be adapted forever.

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Research

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Designing for coffee shop managers was a challenge in many ways. It was crucial to understanding managers day-to-day with very little motivation on the managers' side to share it because they were scared it would represent the company they were working for. Therefore, I had to be creative with my techniques of approaching managers and asking for their time.