3:00 PMMODERATOR: (In progress) too much on their backgrounds, but we thought we would start with five-minute presentations by each of them, and hopefully they’ll tell you a little bit about what they do and how what they do is social entrepreneurial, and maybe get into defining social entrepreneurism a bit. And then after that, we’ll move to your questions. So if we could start with Patrick Fitzgerald of the Wharton School of Business.
MR. FITZGERALD: Great. So I teach a class on general entrepreneurship at the MBA level at the Wharton School of Business. I guess I come at social entrepreneurship probably from an outsider’s perspective. I was a sociology major in undergrad and then a – I’m a reformed lawyer. So I went to law school at Fordham University. At that time, New York City was considering canceling recycling, and I thought that’s pretty amazing that one of the largest cities in the world would cancel recycling. But I looked at the economics of it, and I realized, you know what? There are a lot of people who say they recycle, but at the end of the day the trucks are coming back a quarter full, sometimes empty. So there’s a disconnect there. So I came up with the concept for a company called Recyclebank, and Recyclebank at that time essentially was a very simple concept. They will pay you to recycle. The more you recycle, the more rewards you would receive from companies like Home Depot, Target, Starbucks, et cetera. So adding a financial incentive to a social problem.
I left Recyclebank in 2007, but it is currently – has about 3 million members, operations in a couple countries, and it’s spread pretty quickly across the United States. And now it has moved beyond just rewarding you for recycling; it rewards you now for green activities in general. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be just recycling. It can be energy conservation, et cetera.
So that was my first foray into social entrepreneurship, kind of from – like I said, from an outsider’s perspective. Then I got involved with some other companies in the field. One was a company called PhillyCarShare. And PhillyCarShare essentially aims to reduce our car consumption, our car usage, through use of short bursts of car rentals, kind of like a Hertz or an Avis but on a much smaller level. PhillyCarShare was a nonprofit where Recyclebank was a for-profit. And PhillyCarShare is pretty well focused on the Philadelphia region, but the big player in that world is a company called Zipcar, which recently had an IPO. And they do the same thing, but now on a national level.
I’ve had my hand in a few other companies in the social entrepreneurship space beyond PhillyCarShare, some for-profit, some nonprofit. One was a company called ReProduct, and ReProduct was a company that allowed you to – when you got a greeting card and you received your greeting card in the mail for your birthday or a holiday, instead of throwing it in the trash, which most of all do here – although we all like to claim that we hold those cards on, and we put them in the attic, and we hold onto them for years – ReProduct, you were allowed to send that card back in the envelope it was – it came into, and it would be melted down, and it could be turned into office furniture or carpet, et cetera.
It was a very unique concept and something that I thought really resonated, but it did strike to me at sometimes what the heart of the matter is when it comes to social entrepreneurship: The cards were just too expensive. The cost of shipping them back and the postage and the mailing overwhelmed the actual social benefit of the card. So if the average card is $2.50 and the ReProduct card was $4.50, guess which one most people are buying? The one that was $2.50.
So I’ve had my hands in a lot of different industries, a lot of different companies. Some are in the social entrepreneurship space, some are not, but ultimately for me, what I like to look at is the feasibility of companies that are in the social entrepreneurship space whether or not they can be a for-profit entity, because oftentimes the difficulty that a lot of folks who are, I guess, born and bred into that world don’t necessarily take the time to say, hey, is it possible here that we could be a for-profit? Because sometimes that is – that leads you down a longer road, if you will, and maybe more of a sustainable one. But those are some of the companies I’ve been involved in. I’ve been involved in a lot of others, but those are the main ones – Recyclebank, ReProduct, and PhillyCarShare.
I’ll turn it over to you.
MS. KICKUL: Okay. Thank you. I’m Jill Kickul. I’m the director of the social entrepreneurship program at New York University’s Stewart School of Business. And as a director, we have a number of different programs. I’m going to come from more of an educational perspective. We have – our program is probably one of the largest and probably one of the oldest social entrepreneurship programs around. We have over 21 courses at the graduate level in our social innovation and impact specialization. We introduced just a couple years ago an undergraduate specialization in social entrepreneurship where we have about 12 courses there.
New York University is very unique in the sense that it has two social entrepreneurship programs – one in our school of public service and then one also in our business school. Well, we like to think that we break down a number of the different silos, kind of across the university, because we see students who come into our program who are very interested, and this is really my kind of definition of social entrepreneurship, if you will. And I guess I can’t really own it myself because this morning we had Bill Drayton in from Ashoka, who is just kind of the leader, the pioneer of the social entrepreneurship movement for the past 30 years. And his definition is: How do we find innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems? And that can be anything around education, it could be healthcare, it could be energy, the environment, so a number of different issues, many associated with poverty levels across the world.
We do a number of different programs. A little bit on terms of our curriculum I’ve mentioned, but a lot of co-curricular activities, too, as well. We give away each year – we have an eight-month program where we run a social venture competition. We give away in the U.S. $200,000 to the best winner in terms of the innovation in the scale and sustainability and directly the impact. We teach a lot about impact, and we talk a lot about impact – how do we measure that, how do we address that, and how do social entrepreneurs communicate that and sell their impact in order to have a sustainable organization?
We do – on top of that, we do a number of different conferences, too, as well. We probably have the largest academic conference on social entrepreneurship. We’re in our 10th year now running. We draw in about a hundred – last year it was about 150 academics from around the world. Twenty-five different countries were represented, over a hundred papers that were presented, everything touching on the global issues around social entrepreneurship, scaling social entrepreneurship, how to do that, how to scale your impact, and how to teach social entrepreneurship, too, as well, a lot of different methods from very much classroom and case method to everything, to also experiential learning, too, as well.
We do a lot of fieldwork, too, as well, not only within New York City, but also abroad. We’ve had a number of different courses that have gone to Colombia and to India, where we have hands-on pretty much experience with social enterprises, working directly with them in the field. We take MBAs and also our undergraduates throughout that program, too, as well. And I think that’s enough – I’ll stop there. (Laughter.)
MS. JAVICE: That’s great. So okay. Thank you. Hi. I’m Charlie Javice. I am currently a sophomore at Wharton, so I haven’t been able to take Patrick’s class yet, but definitely looking forward to it. And I am the founder of PoverUP. So as a student, I started this in high school, I think second semester senior year. Instead of senioritis, I thought why not change the world. People thought, okay, I’m crazy, but – so it came to an idea of how can students help beyond a bake sale? How can we put our skills to use and really have change in the world? So PoverUP’s an online community where you can learn, connect, and invest in sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty. So we’re pretty much connecting information, people, and capital all in one place.
So on one side, we have the learning. And that’s really where we’re able to aggregate the research from some of the best institutions, so NYU Financial Access Initiative, one of them; Innovation Poverty Lab, I think, at Yale; also Harvard Social – Harvard also has a lot of publishing and case studies. So it’s really where to put everything in one place so people can learn about impact and really how to measure it and even shine a critical eye on it and move forward. Parallel to that, we’re going to open an investment platform. So we don’t just want to focus on microfinance like Kiva, but really bring it to microfinance plus or even funding different types of social enterprises, making it available for individuals starting with students to be able to put some money in, lend it, and get it back and keep on recycling it. We’re looking at targeting five main areas, including microcredit, low-income housing, education, healthcare, and sort of environment or energy.
And so we want to be able to create a community where people can connect on the scholarly level, on the personal, professional level, as well as different companies also. So it’s bringing everybody around one table and thinking, what can we do together?
So apart from PoverUP, I was asked what’s really my definition of social entrepreneurship as an undergrad and as a student trying to become a social entrepreneur. And I was at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference this weekend, and I think between Acumen and Bill Drayton, it sums it up a lot, and I think it’s really the humility of seeing the world as it is and the audacity to think that you could change it. And I think you fall right in between. You wake up every morning and you think, oh, I want to change the world, and as a student I want to have a little fun, too. So how do you combine that? And I think I found my happiness in social enterprise.
So now we have, I think, about 75 different university clubs or universities within our PoverUP network. We have some offices in New York, Philadelphia, and we just have a team starting in London. So it’s a lot of fun and currently we have 25,000 people on our waitlist trying to get in, and hopefully we’ll be launching early in April. So we’re testing it internally and really looking forward to be able to welcome everybody and everyone in one place. Thanks.
MR. ZAKES: Excellent. I’m Albe Zakes. I’m the global vice president of media relations for a company called Terracycle. Terracycle is a pioneer in a field we like to call eco-capitalism. And what we mean by that is the same strategies and business models and tactics that make us socially and environmentally responsible also make us more profitable. Some of the other panelists touched on it a little bit. Too often, social business is – either has to be nonprofit, or when a larger company does it, to be socially or environmentally responsible becomes a line item. It’s a cost against your budget.
What Terracycle does is the very same things that we do, where we’re located, the types of materials that we use not only are socially and environmentally responsible, but also enable us to be a profitable business as well. And what I mean by that is what Terracycle does is we actually collect non-recyclable consumer packaging, everything from used pens or tape dispensers or glue bottles to chip bags, cookie wrappers, candy wrappers, and over 60 other different types of materials that can’t go in a standard recycling bin. What we do is, just like with Recyclebank, we incentivize this collection.
So any school, non-profit, church, community group, or even individual can sign up for free on our website. In the U.S., it’s terracycle.com. And there you can select what materials you want to collect. For every drink pouch, for every candy wrapper, for every chip bag, for every used pen that a location sends back to us, we donate 2 cents here in the U.S or the equivalent overseas for the material that they collect. The programs are free and we pay for all of the shipping.
So basically we’ve incentivized people to start recycling instead of throwing this material away. But at the same time, it’s also an environmental education program for schools. That way, kids are learning about resource conservation and are doing it in a fun and engaging way.
Terracycle started as a two-man dorm room operation, like so many entrepreneurial stories. Our 19 year-old founder was a freshman at Princeton University when he first learned about composting with worms. He began to take university cafeteria waste, literally the leftover food from Princeton University’s cafeterias, and feeding it to an army of worms and creating an organic fertilizer which we fondly called worm poop. (Laughter.) He did what any young entrepreneur would do when he’s struggling to get a company based on worm poop off the ground. He dropped out of Princeton University. You can imagine that conversation with mom and dad. “Hey mom, hey dad. The behavioral economics degree at Princeton sounds great, but instead I’m dropping out to sell worm poop.”
So he drops out with almost no investors and no money to actually get the company off the ground. He can’t even afford packaging. And because he can’t afford packaging, he starts to package the product directly in reused soda bottles. But what that meant was that suddenly we have a product that’s made entirely from garbage. You have organic waste that’s being composted by worms and you’re packaging it directly in reused 20 ounce and 2 liter soda bottles. Now what’s really unique about that is that means that raw material is garbage. And if your raw material is garbage, you technically have a no-cost or even a negative-cost raw material. Which means that if you could process it in a responsible way and sell a finished product – in our example, a plant fertilizer – you’re then making profit off of a product that has an environmental root because it’s made from recycled material but also has very limited cost. So that’s what enables us to be both profitable and environmentally responsible at the same time.
In recent years, we’ve expanded to almost 20 countries across the globe. We’re in many South American countries – Argentina, Brazil, launching in Colombia. We’re also in Mexico and Puerto Rico, at the moment. We’re in most EU countries, including all of the Nordic countries and just recently launched in Turkey for the first time. What we do is we partner with major corporations – Kraft foods, Nestle, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly Clark, and they actually sponsor the collection of these programs, which means that Terracycle has been able to continue our free material stream because these corporations are sponsoring the collection.
And so Terracycle gets free raw material from which to make affordable, sustainable products. Our participants, which are about 90,000 collecting organizations across the planet – an organization being a school, a non-profit, something like that – they’re earning money, much-needed funding in this time of economic austerity. Terracycle gets this material so we can make eco-friendly products. And for every item that Terracycle sells through a retailer like Walmart or Target, it’s one less material that needs to be made from virgin materials.
So it’s really a win-win-win, both for society and the environment. And really, we view ourselves as a socially – social entrepreneurial company really at our core because everything that we do is socially responsible in one way or another, right down to where we base our offices in Trenton, New Jersey, which is the 7th most dangerous city in the U.S. It’s the 7th most dangerous city in the U.S., but only the third most dangerous in New Jersey. (Laughter.)
So, yeah, I mean, that is our story. This is our website behind us. It’s terracycle.com in the U.S., terracycle.eu in Europe and various other places.
MODERATOR: Thank you to all four of you. I hope we’ll get at the question of how you create a social entrepreneur, since both Wharton and NYU Stern School are such prestigious MBA schools from which many aspiring entrepreneurs graduate each year. Are you just responding to what young people are interested in or is this something that the schools themselves have taken on as a new direction in business education? And I want to let the journalists themselves ask questions, but as you think of more things that you want to inform them about social entrepreneurialism, I hope you’ll also speak further about how you actually teach social entrepreneurialism.
MR. FITZGERALD: I think on the education side, I would say a decade ago, classes on social entrepreneurship didn’t exist. Maybe 15 years ago, I would say about a decade ago, it really started to take off because at that time companies like Walmart, Home Depot, and Target had large wings of their company dedicated to sustainable activities. Let’s say, for example, Home Depot building a rainforest in the Amazon, which is a very admirable project and very well respected that they do things like that, but MBA students started to look at that and say, well, if Target is doing stuff like that, if Home Depot is doing things like that, maybe where I get my MBA, maybe they should help me learn how to do that. And I think it was a response of students coming to them and saying these large-scale corporations are doing these types of initiatives; maybe I can do something on a smaller scale that one day grows into something bigger, but I’ll need the training. And I think that’s where places like Wharton and NYU stepped up.
MS. KICKUL: Yes, I would have to agree with that. Especially with the students I see now today coming through our program, the motivation and the interest is coming through their values so very much more. I think this generation is so much more civically oriented than I would say couple generations before. And in a lot of ways, I think they’re looking how do I connect the values, what I believe in, the empathy, how do I connect that with my identity? And I think they have been disenchanted in some ways seeing their parents kind of grow through organizations where there maybe isn’t a meaning or there isn’t a mission that they’re directly tied to.
And I think where social entrepreneurs come in, and where the students have the interest in social enterprise, is really just driving the question of how do I make a change? How do I make a difference in what I’m learning if I’m in one field, if I’m in architecture, if I’m in medicine, if I’m in dentistry, if I’m in business? How do I have some type of impact with the type of work and the knowledge and skills that I’m bringing to the table?
And so I think, as a school, to be able to harness that motivation and that interest and bring it in and build a curriculum around it where it gives them really experiences to look at, okay, what are some of the society’s problems? What are some of the things that we can address immediately, where are some things maybe long-term? Where can I leverage and use my own skills to make a difference? And I think we have to – I mean, and we have, I think, done a pretty good job in terms of designing a curriculum that is nimble, kind of around their motivation, around their interests, but really gives them ideas to experiment and to really test it out while they’re in school before they’re out there and launching their ventures with social enterprises.
MR. FITZGERALD: In a way, it does validate that, whereas a decade ago or 15 years ago, you would have been thought of as somewhat off or a little bit crazy, now it says, okay, look, some of the top business schools in the country, in the world, have whole curriculums dedicated to this. So you’re not crazy. There are aspects of this that are immensely viable. And it also allows them to not necessarily think about pie in the sky, wouldn’t it be great if we all could solve these issues. Well, it would all be great, but is there a business side to it? And if you marry the two, then you have a much better chance of saving the world or solving that big issue.
MR. ZAKES: Oh, and just as a quick addition, working at TerraCycle, we have a lot of college interns and we get a lot of employees who are first year graduates. And one thing that I’ve found lacking – and you start to see it more and more – but five or six years ago, people were either business-minded or they were civically minded; they didn’t have both sets of tools. And I think it’s really important. It’s great that places like Wharton and Stern are doing this. Just having a great idea isn’t enough anymore. Even if you want to start your own venture or even if you want to go work for a socially responsible company, it’s important that you have the hardcore business skills as well.
So I think it’s really vital that there are programs like this that exist, because I think a generation ago people who were very civically minded or very idealistic didn’t have the skills to bring a lot of those ideas to life. And now that students are both civically minded and idealistic, but also have the real-life applications and skills necessary to bring businesses or to bring their value to other businesses, I think it really speaks brightly about the future of social entrepreneurism.
MS. JAVICE: I could speak as a student in the program. I’m doing a secondary concentration as an undergraduate in social impact and responsibility at Wharton, and it’s really just amazing to see the types of classes that are offered. And it’s not only a business initiative from Wharton; it’s really the whole University of Pennsylvania that’s jumping onboard and thinking of it – because social entrepreneurship is really multidisciplinary. And you’re not only going to get it from business. You’re not only going to get it from your economic development classes. It’s really important to have practical experience and incorporated case studies, as you said, and really integrate that curriculum with practice. And practice is everything.
So I know Wharton’s curriculum, you go from financial literacy to education and really seeing the lens through that. And it’s definitely a complement for social entrepreneurs wanting to start it in a business school to have those types of resources and professors available to help you. So whether you go to Wharton entrepreneurial programs or the Civic House or the Nutter Center on campus, there’s stuff – there are many opportunities for you to take your venture a step further.
MODERATOR: Any questions? Please state your name and your affiliation.
QUESTION: Hi, I’m Christine Mattauch from German magazine Absatzwirtschaft. I still – I have to admit I have problems in understanding what the definition of social entrepreneurship really is, because I ask myself – being an economist myself, I ask myself, “What can you do? What can be either done perfectly well with a normal company, a regular company, or a nonprofit? I mean, what’s really the difference? Isn’t it only a marketing label?”
MS. KICKUL: That’s a good question.
MR. FITZGERALD: TerraCycle's Albe is one of the marketing gurus. I think he should lead with this.
MR. ZAKES: Well, I don’t think that it’s just a marketing label, in the sense that I think that it’s very important that socially responsible businesses don’t always assume that they can only be a nonprofit. You have much more power to erect change, I think, as a for-profit business because you have the ability to grow much faster, to bring in investors, to partner with companies that don’t necessarily share your values.
I mean, an example is TerraCycle working with major manufacturers doesn’t necessarily mean that they share our values. When you’re in the nonprofit world, you have to be very careful about with whom you partner with and who you take money from. As a for-profit business, you have the opportunity to grow, to raise money. And I think that in the end, that creates an opportunity for a larger impact. I mean, I view social entrepreneurism summed up simply as the triple bottom line theory, that you place just as much emphasis on the planet and people as you do on profits.
And that term, triple bottom line, is a very common term. And I think that’s really the only difference is that we are focused on profits, but we’re not only focused on profits. We’re also focused on creating social and environmental good at the same time. But by being able to drive profits and be in a profitable company, we can really build in our own direction. And we’re less influenced by the industry that we represent as a nonprofit or by the people who fund us as a nonprofit. By being a for-profit company, we fund ourselves and we can really drive our own innovation.
MR. FITZGERALD: Go ahead.
MS. JAVICE: I’d like to add that it’s really wealth – wealth creation is the means, and the end’s going to be your mission. So to be able to achieve your mission, you’re going to need some type of money, some type of way to incentivize your employees. And whether it’s a nonprofit, for-profit, now a B corp, there are many ways of doing it. But I think that really distinguishes a social entrepreneur, using wealth to be able to achieve your end goal.
MODERATOR: You were using that term before, B corp. I don’t know it is familiar to our audience.
MS. JAVICE: So I don’t know if I’m the perfect person to explain this, but – so it’s a benefit corporation. And a B corp is now how I think maybe 23 states – don’t take my number yet, but it’s getting up there as far as in the U.S. as a new legal structure for companies to be able to incorporate. It was written up in Fast Company and the New York Times, a bunch of different press outlets. And it’s trying to find the perfect legal structure for a social entrepreneurial business to do good.
I think some of the main differences have to do with the way you treat your employees, the way you have environmental standards, the way you – if you do sell your company, that these values are maintained throughout your acquisition or merger. So that’s, I think, some of the main points, but Bart Houlahan would probably be the best person to talk to.
MS. KICKUL: : Yes, it might be good to direct him to the website, so bcorporation.net is a good place. Yes.
QUESTION: Bcorporation –
MR. FITZGERALD: B – yeah, bcorporation.net.
MS. KICKUL: B – yes, Bcorporation.net.
MR. FITZGERALD: Real quick on the – what is social entrepreneurship, it’s also key to look at what is not social entrepreneurship. So if you look at companies that just donate X amount of their profits to a charitable good or charitable issue, that isn’t social entrepreneurship. Let’s use, for example, just a tee shirt company. Just because they’re a tee shirt company and they donate 10 percent of their profits to homelessness as an issue, that does not make them a social entrepreneurial company.
What you’re looking at is the triple bottom line. Are they making tee shirts based out of reusable goods? Are they donating a certain percent of their profits to a social aspect? Is the ultimate goal here to provide tee shirts just in a kind of a commercial platform, or is there something else they’re trying to do with those tee shirts? So it’s all-encompassing. It’s not just hey, let’s give 10 percent of our profits and now we’re a social entrepreneurial company. It’s an all-encompassing concept.
MS. KICKUL: Yeah, and I think there’s – just to kind of reiterate or bring home in terms of what a social kind of entrepreneur is, I think the bottom line is really impact and looking at it in terms of how they measure and they create value, and how they address in terms of how they measure that and assess it kind of over time.
There are a number of really great resources for measuring impact that social entrepreneurs go to. And they have to because it’s part of – if they’re going out and they’re looking for funding, they’re looking for any type of grants or looking for any type of sustainability issues. The foundationcenter.com is a really a great – .org, actually, excuse me – has a great website that a couple years ago NYU Stern collaborated with McKinsey to put together all the different tools and resources for assessing social impact, and directly in line with how do we fit the mission and how do we address the idea of how – what makes a social enterprise so different.
So it’s called TRASI and it’s right up on Foundation Center’s website. It’s trasi.foundation.org. It’s a one – a really great kind of free resource for social entrepreneurs. And especially as they’re looking at their mission, they’re looking at creating value, how do they address and look at impact and how do they communicate that?
QUESTION: It seems that there’s so much going on that is very positive but that is not well known in the general public. And I’m not sure this message has (inaudible).
MS. KICKUL: Yeah. That’s a good --
MR. FITZERALD: Well, I think that you start off from a practical perspective, I think one of the things that Recyclebank and TerraCycle have been able to do is touch people on an average daily basis. So for Recyclebank, for example, rewarding people for recycling is something that people – it’s easy to understand. It’s not that complicated. If you recycle, you will get rewarded for doing that. So everybody has that blue bin. If you just put this in that blue bin, you will get rewarded.
If I try to encourage you to be environmentally friendly by making it too elaborate or too complicated, you’re not going to hear that message. If I tell you, instead of buying this water, go out and build a well and drain it yourself, et cetera, that’s too complicated. It’s environmentally friendly for you to do that, but it’s too complicated. If I say look, just live your life and do the little small actions of putting your recycling away, you will get rewarded for that, you’re going to recycle more.
So in my opinion, it’s breaking down the message in very simple, practical forms so you can touch not just everybody who’s in that world but everybody else. So that the 99 percent of us who actually are just trying to go about and live their daily lives, if you make it simple and easy for them to understand, hopefully the message gets out there a little clearer. And I think TerraCycle and Recyclebank have done pretty good jobs to doing that.
MS. KICKUL: Yeah, and it’s giving larger organizations the visibility that – to work throughout their supply chain, to work with Recyclebank, to work with TerraCycle, to get that into their DNA that value is created and embedded, the big larger organizations, that it becomes a part of – these are the goods, these are the products that we use every day, so where does it come from? And where are the companies that kind of are backing that, and where are they actually making some of the change, too? So it’s ingrained totally within their DNA but along the supply chain and who they work with and who they employ and who they – what they believe in.
MR. ZAKES: And I think – you were saying you always see these headlines and it’s all about things like fracking and “drill baby, drill,” and those types of things. I think that’s because social entrepreneurial companies tend to be smaller startup companies and don’t have the marketing budget to compete with these major things, so you’re not going to see massive advertising campaigns. They’re not going to be able to buy an advertisement at the Super Bowl or something like that. I think you see them using grassroots marketing, social media, gamification, brand ambassadorship, local media, things like that that are much more affordable or can actually be done for free.
And that’s what TerraCycle has done to get our message out. We – our marketing budget is nonexistent. We’ll do about $20 million in top-line revenue this year. We’ve never paid for an advertisement in the history of the company. And there’s not a lot of companies that can say that. And I think there is a disadvantage for the social entrepreneur because he simply will never be able to outspend his competition. But there is an advantage for the social entrepreneur, which is they have a story that is timely and impactful and means something.
That doesn’t mean that you’re going to see it every day in The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or USA Today because they’re not necessarily issues that impact everyone. They’re never going to be on the front page. But more and more, you start to see major newspapers and major media outlets of all kinds spending more time on social entrepreneurism, on green. I mean, Huffington Post has a green segment now which, Patrick, you actually write for, right?
MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I write for (inaudible).
MR. ZAKES: New York Times has a green segment of their website. Sites like Earth911, Mother Nature Network, and TreeHugger are growing much faster than other news sites when you look at new media. So I think that there’s advantages and disadvantages. The challenge becomes it’s simply not as impactful. A story about TerraCycle is never going to make the front page in the middle of an election cycle or when things like drilling and fracking are making headlines. So it’s important to reach the consumers in different ways.
But another thing that TerraCycle has really been able to use to our advantage is what I like to sort of jokingly call piggy-back PR. While the Wall Street Journals of the world or the International Herald Tribunes of the world might not write about TerraCycle, if we’re partnering with someone like Nestle or Danone or Kraft Foods that have these global impacts, then they’re going to write about us. So when I’m pitching a story to a major news outlet, I don’t lead with TerraCycle. I lead – even though I work for TerraCycle, I lead with Nestle runs packaging reclamation cause related marketing program, because that’s going get the attention of people much faster than little company TerraCycle launches in Austria or Sweden or Spain for the first time.
QUESTION: My name is Louise. (Inaudible). Can you hear me?
PARTICIPANT: Yeah.
QUESTION: Oh, okay. Sorry. I’m Louise. I’m with a newspaper in Denmark. I was interested in some of the drivers of this change, if we can talk about at least two sort of major trends, one being that the big famous business schools have embraced this over the last decade, I think you said, and the second one the marriage or the sort of combination of a for profit and this social consciousness or however you want to put it. So what has been driving that? Why is that – these two – why are these two different things emerging now? What are the reasons for the trends?
MR. FITZGERALD: I think one is clearly financial. So when we were starting RecycleBank, cities were spending a lot of money, and they still are, on landfill costs. And sending materials to a recycling processing center is much cheaper, and they actually get paid for that. So when we were approaching cities, we’d say, “Okay. Well, what is your recycling rate today?” And they would say, “Well, it’s 10 percent.” Well, if we got you 50 percent, which is, for them, it was kind of comical – if we got you 50 percent, how much money would you save as a city? And when you hear those numbers of 20, 30, 40 million dollars, okay, so there is a lot of real economic value here towards saving this city a lot of money, and by extension RecycleBank can help you do that.
So in my opinion, it has been the growth of a lot of financial needs or things like – for example, the Toyota Prius, with the cost of gas continually rising – a decade ago we did not see hybrids on the road all the time. Now we do, and 10 years from now non-hybrids are going to be seen as the dinosaurs. So that’s just purely a function of finance. People don’t want to spend as much as they used to on gas, and for RecycleBank’s purposes, people didn’t – cities don’t want to spend as much as they were on just putting things in a hole. They’d prefer to send it to a recycling processing center, where they actually make money off of it.
MS. KICKUL: I’d like to say also from a – what I see with the students coming into our program is that students today are so much more – and this is the 18 to 24 kind of demographic – is that they’re so much more socially aware of what’s going on in the world. They can actually see through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. They know really what is going – they have an idea of what’s going on in other regions of the world. They know what the poverty levels are. They know what some of the social problems are. They know what education and healthcare and what the – what is actually happening in other regions of the world more so today.
And they – I think they feel also motivated to how can I address that; is there some way that I can address that beyond just looking inside myself and looking inside just my own individual and my family; what can I do for a community; what can I do for society? And going back to just addressing that impact that they really – they want to connect those values and what are some ways that they can, even at a level, how can we make a difference?
MS. JAVICE: Yeah. And I think it’s really – on the student level, it doesn’t just start from the 18 to 24. You’re looking at university --
MS. KICKLUL: (Inaudible.)
MS. JAVICE: Yeah, because you’re looking at university – is when you speak to their admissions, you say what’s the perfect candidate, and you will notice that it’s not – it’s – in the U.S. at least, it will not be your GPA that will define where you go, and it’s more and more going towards: What have you done for the world, how can you show leadership qualities? And this is really what employers are looking at, this is what universities are looking at. And I think it stems from a personal motivation of I’ve had these values; I’ve been doing this – I don’t know – volunteering tutoring something, and I want to be able to continue this, and I don’t want to have to sacrifice what I love to do to just have that financial motivation at the end.
So I think it’s really through that and this new generation that has access to – and it’s becoming a lot easier to do good. You have websites like Catchafire, who does volunteerism. You have new internship programs that make it accessible so you don’t only need to go through a traditional recruiting route. And I think all that put together is really what’s driving it, but it starts with the individual (inaudible.)
MR. ZAKES: As a quick addition, you ask what’s really driving it, and I think part of the thing here that you’re hearing is the necessity, the fiscal necessity and the environmental and social necessity, and also the opportunity. There’s more opportunity out there, including getting an education around it or beneficial investors. Socially responsible investment creates more opportunity but also the success stories that you’ve seen, companies of course like TerraCycle and RecycleBank, but also Method Cleaners and 7th Generation, before that someone like Stonyfield Farm. We’re now growing up in a world and learning in a world where there’s been an incredible amount of success of companies that are doing social good.
And so I think the average student today, if you ask them if you could go make a lot of money or go make a livable salary and also impact the planet, because of the success that we’ve seen, people like Charlie are going to make that choice. And I think that that opportunity is really driving it in a really big way, and I think that you’re going to see more and more of that, because consumer demand for socially responsible products and for companies that offer socially or environmentally responsible services only appears to be increasing. It may have slowed a little bit over the last couple years with the economic downturn, but it doesn’t appear to be going away. So if it’s weathering the storm of the current economic circumstances, I think that there’s incredible growth potential for socially and environmentally responsible companies in the next decade.
MS. JAVICE: And I think abroad you’re dealing with the bottom of the pyramid, which is about a third of the world. So just by sheer volume and number there’s a lot of demand there, and you can’t really neglect a third of the world’s population. And it’s how you think of it and how to provide good service and quality service to the bottom of the pyramid. So there’s going to be demand, and I think JP Morgan and the Rockefeller Foundation published a report about growing social business or social enterprise. And it was 15 trillion asset class, I think, in the next 15 years in impact investing. And I think if you’re getting demand from the investors and there’s money to be given towards the space, then it’s sort of the chicken and the egg, so you’ll get both from both ends, and it’s just going to flourish from here.
QUESTION: My name is Myoung-Soo Kim. I’m a bureau correspondent of Maeil Business Newspaper, which is a Korean business newspaper. You mentioned the benefit corporation influence. So as may people worry about the future of capitalism recently, so can it become the alternative typical company model?
MS. JAVICE: Yeah. I think I understand. As in do you think social – like B corps will become the new model of capitalism or replace capitalism in way? Is that your question?
QUESTION: Yes. Right.
MS. JAVICE: So I think it’s really – social entrepreneurs are just trying to fill that gap. As we were saying earlier, if big companies start thinking about how can we integrate impact in our model – and I think that’ll go a long way. I don’t see capitalism going out one way or non-profits or government going out the other, but it’s really how everybody interacts in this sphere, from an academic institutional standpoint to social entrepreneurs trying to think of how you can fill what academic, business, and government has kind of let you down, and sort of marrying all that together. So I don’t think it’s necessarily an alternate form, but then again, I’m 19, so I don’t know how deep I could actually get. (Laughter.)
MR. FITZGERALD: Capitalism isn’t going anywhere.
MS. KICKUL: No. And I think it’s --
MS. JAVICE: From Wharton. (Laughter.)
MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
MS. KICKUL: Yeah, and I think there’s also – there’s a term now in social entrepreneurship around shared value, and it’s shared value – well, it’s not only in social entrepreneurship. It’s in the CSR literature, it’s in – corporations are talking about it, how do we create both economic and social value so that they go hand in hand? And so how do we ingrain, also, the capitalism, but also then the social good and the difference that we’re actually making? And there is a value. We can now place a value on what is that social return on investment that the organization is looking at, just – and weighing that in the same way that they would look at their return on us – investment.
MR. FITZGERALD: And social entrepreneurship has to keep up with capitalism, right? So capitalism probably isn’t going anywhere, but it’s the role of social entrepreneurial companies who try to keep up with capitalist corporations and help prove to them that it is in their best interest to partner with TerraCycle, partner with Recyclebank, make sure that they understand that this value is not going in – away either because it’s growing at the same rate.
PARTICIPANT: Yeah.
MR. ZAKES: Yeah, I think that’s right. I don’t think that capitalism is going to go anywhere, obviously, but I think that it can change. And with companies like TerraCycle and Recyclebank working with much larger partners, we’re able to erect that change. We often joke that when sustainability and social responsibility truly achieve their goal, they will go away as terms, because it won’t – you will no longer be a socially responsible corporation; you’ll just be a corporation. It’ll no longer be a sustainable product; it’ll just be a product, because between consumer demands and dwindling resources, there will be no other real option, So I think its ultimate achievement is to actually disappear from the lexicon, because it just becomes an industry standard.
PARTICIPANT: Yeah.
QUESTION: Is there any incentive system to promote the social entrepreneurs, according to your theory or execution?
MR. ZAKES: I didn’t – sorry, I didn’t understand your question.
QUESTION: Is there any incentive system to promote social entrepreneurship according to your theory or anything?
MS. KICKUL: Well, I think there is a movement in order – how do we quantify it, how do we put economic value on the social impact that we’re doing, and I think that is a big movement. You’re seeing it in terms of what impact investors are looking at, you’re looking at it in terms of what governments and NGOs are looking at right now. And that is a new wave. I really believe that that will be a new wave. And how individual donors, plain and simple, where they put their money.
MR. ZAKES: Yeah. I mean, I think the incentives include things like impact investing and more wealthy people wanting to put their money into socially responsible ventures, but also lots of tax credits. I mean, in the U.S. and lots of other places, you’re seeing more and more tax credits for people who are not just starting – it’s part of the benefit corporation is being able to get a for-profit company that is socially responsible treated more like a nonprofit when it comes to the tax code and the tax structure. And I think that will help to give social entrepreneurs a big advantage in the early days when they’re trying to gain market share in very competitive markets.
MS. JAVICE: One of the questions is really about measurement and when – it’s really hard to convince investors without proof of concept and without actually having those numbers. So we’re trying to sell a story of “Look, this is the potential outcome.” And a lot of people, when they see outcome versus output, is very difficult to measure the positive externalities associated with it. And so if we find a way that’s not as expensive as randomized control trials, to be able to do that and really place emphasis on your output, then I think you convince a lot of people a lot faster to jump into this movement.
QUESTION: Hello. Adele Smith from Le Figaro, the French newspaper.
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
PARTICIPANT: (Laughter.) Oui, oui.
QUESTION: Yeah, I wanted to ask you – to you two first, in your experience, do you see such developed programs in other – in universities or school – business schools in other parts of the world that are really as developed as yours?
MS. KICKUL: There has recently been a kind of a landscape study done in terms of what’s going on nationally, but also internationally. Close to 500 universities have some type of social entrepreneurship program. Let’s say either it’s a course or a suite of courses or a program. And I don’t think, not even five years ago, you would be even close to naming probably maybe a hundred.
So the growth is really – and internationally, I think in terms of the resources and the money that’s being put aside by corporations to have endowed professorships, to have endowed chairs that develop such curriculums and develop such programs, you’re seeing more and more of that. And organizations like the Dannons, like, they’re getting more into developing those programs. I know there are several actually in France, too.
QUESTION: And – but is the movement coming from here (inaudible)?
MS. KICKUL: I don’t --
MR. FITZGERALD: You’re saying where is the movement originating?
QUESTION: Social entrepreneurship movement.
MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. I really think it’s a global movement. I think out of the top 20 business schools in the world, I think every single one of them has a department or endowed professorships in social entrepreneurship. If they don’t, they won’t be in that top 20 because a lot of corporations are funding that, saying, “We’re hiring people coming out of your MBA program and they need to know about this if they’re coming to work for our companies.” If they don’t, they’re not as qualified as somebody else. So I think if you’re a business school and you do not have something like this, if you do not have core courses in social entrepreneurship or full departments on it, it’s very difficult for you to keep that ranking, if you will.
QUESTION: And to you, as young entrepreneurship, in your interactions with maybe other countries, do you feel like countries as strong as France is (inaudible) --
MS. JAVICE: I can speak particularly to France, actually, where I work with a group from Sciences Po and HEC, and they have – the institution themselves don’t necessarily have those those endowed professorships or academic programs. However, I really think it starts from the bottom up, and the students have their own consulting clubs. The students have their own sort of incubation and have found funding for themselves. And I actually have one of the girls on my team from Sciences Po who was saying if only you could create something to give students resources that don’t have these academic programs to communicate with them to be able to get them at our schools.
But I think France is a good example, and the UK as well. There are lots of programs, if you look at Oxford pushing from the school (ph) foundation to, I think, LSC development economics, and DESTIN Institute has a great social enterprise and sort of focused more on the microfinance route and social business in the pure sense, or where it started. I think there’s definitely a lot of interests. And once when I was applying to university, I know my decision to apply where I did, including NYU and Wharton, was what type of programs do they have to support social impact, and both of them had great programs. And it’s a lot more – as an applicant, you’re looking for this in your school. So I think it’s the same thing internationally as well.
MR. ZAKES: And beyond academia, I mean, our expansion in France and across the EU has brought an incredible amount of enthusiasm from young employees, from interns. We have three or four French interns right now working out of our London office, helping us with that operation. But I mean, just everywhere that we go, we see a lot of enthusiasm from local universities, from local industry associations, and from the companies that we partner with as well as the schools or communities that collect for us. But I think – I mean, Europe as an example, I think there almost may be more enthusiasm for it than you see here in the U.S, at least in some examples.
MS. JAVICE: Especially with investor money, I think it’s --
MR. ZAKES: Yeah, absolutely with investor money as well, yeah.
MS. JAVICE: Where you have a lot of (inaudible).
QUESTION: Nele Husmann from Focus magazine in Germany. I would like to know if you have already kind of statistics on how many companies in social entrepreneurship have been founded and – like, I know that probably microfinance and recycling are the easiest that come to mind, but do you have some other examples that are kind of interesting to know, like where else people take this idea?
MR. FITZGERALD: Sure. There’s a company that I’ve worked with, a company called Back On My Feet, and essentially what it does is it tries to – they get a little sensitive about the terminology, but they try to help the homeless get back on their feet through running, and putting an end goal of running a marathon or running a half marathon. There’s a lot of training that goes into a running a half marathon or a full marathon. And if you’re homeless and you start to engage and get into that training, there’s a lot of confidence that’s going to end up being built around that. And this company started in Philadelphia in 2007, and it is now in about seven or eight states nationwide.
And by the end of that program, once you’ve – once you’re – you finish that marathon or that half marathon, along that way you’ve done job training, you’ve had a lot of skills training along the way, but just to have that “Okay, now I have a goal, a life goal,” that company has done a phenomenal job of – I don’t want to say curing homelessness, but helping the issue throughout the country.
QUESTION: And how do they make a profit?
MR. FITZGERALD: They are a nonprofit, and they work with – but they also work with a lot of corporations that are looking to hire people. And they say look, this person has been through our job training program over the past year or two years; in addition, they also have been training for this marathon, but we know what kind of employees you’re looking for and we’ve been training these people over the past year or two, we’ve been in constant contact with them, we know what you’re looking for. And they’ve kind of created a screening process, if you will. It’s a phenomenal company, and it’s called Back On My Feet.
MS. KICKUL: Yeah. There are – the first part, in terms – there are some numbers in terms of globally where is kind of the hottest places on social entrepreneurship activity. And there’s been – the last two years, it’s called the global social entrepreneurship monitor, and it’s based out of London Business School. Babson also does it as well, gets support from there, and then also Imperial College in UK. And they also – what they do is they track in terms of where the nonprofits, where the for-profit social enterprise is, and then where also are the hybrids, too, as well.
And I believe they have about at least 50 countries that are within their dataset that they’re tracking kind of over time. So just on numbers, it’s kind of interesting to kind of see where some of the different areas are and what type of ventures are actually – what type of social enterprise is for profit, nonprofit, or being started.
MS. JAVICE: I know – yeah, I know we’re screening some for our investment platform part, and there are some absolutely everywhere. India, there’s a great healthcare initiative, so you have hospitals where – I think one of the most profitable ones is the eye care and – because blindness is a big issue. And so if you end up curing that, then people can get jobs. Then there’s, I think, A-to-Z Textiles in Tanzania, where they did – where they started manufacturing bed nets, and now it's pretty much one of the biggest suppliers and got, I think it was, a loan from Acumen. Then there’s – even companies in sanitation. I think Ecotact was one of them. And they pretty much clean water and make sure people don’t defecate in public, and that’s a big issue. And then a lot of private schools now – I think there’s a network of private schools as well in Africa, where you’re able to – I think it’s $2 a year to afford this private school, but because of the scale that they can have, it’s profitable.
So there’s some, really, in every type of industry, and I don’t – I think it’s – social entrepreneurship is really how to do good with business. So using business tools how to do good, you really have a set of every type of company, pretty much.
MR. ZAKES: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s really what I was going to say is it’s not just socially responsible endeavors. It’s doing even regular business or providing regular products and services in a socially responsible way, so whether – something like organic food would be a big example or community assisted farming, which is buying more locally, I think, are two really big things. But just to echo two of the things that Charlie said, I think clean water and clean energy are two of the big areas where you’re going to see massive social entrepreneurial growth over the next couple years.
There was one company where they create soccer balls as the kids in towns in Africa and spots in Asia play soccer. It actually creates energy for them. And then another one where they set up playgrounds, and the playgrounds actually operate wells that pool clean water. I can’t think of the names of either one of them, but --
MS. KICKUL: PlayPumps.
MR. ZAKES: PlayPumps, that’s it, yep. Two very clever, clever ways to accomplish social good, and I believe they’re both for profit, though. I’m not sure about that.
MS. KICKUL: Yeah. A great – just a great plug for Ashoka, who has over about 3,000 fellows in the social entrepreneurship area. They put out a book of all the aspiring great case studies, short case studies of all the social entrepreneurs that are kind of within their network, and you really find some – across different sectors from water, healthcare, education, just really a lot of different innovations, too. And a lot of the funds, like an Echoing Green or an Acumen Fund, they profile so many of these entrepreneurs that – I mean, just – their stories are very compelling.
QUESTION: What fund?
MS. KICKUL: Acumen Fund, and they’re based actually here – yeah, based here in New York. And then Echoing Green is another organization very similar to Ashoka that funds – gives fellowships to social entrepreneurs, social enterprises.
MS. JAVICE: I think you need a three-year track record for Echoing Green. I know Ashoka is a startup where – Ashoka Youth Ventures – and it’s a great process and they do a great job incubating new startups in this space.
QUESTION: Just two quick, brief questions: Can any business call itself a social business, social entrepreneurship, or is it – is there a kind of protection? And the other question would be: Is there a special funding on the federal or state level, something?
MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think – I sort of mentioned this before, that you just donating a percentage of your profits doesn’t automatically make you. What you should talk about is that triple bottom line. Every day, is your company geared towards curing a social good? That really – that covers all aspects of it, so if it’s a product you’re making, if it’s a service you’re providing, if it’s financing you’re provided – if the ultimate goal is for a social good as opposed to just selling cars or telling – selling t-shirts, whatever it may be, if your ultimate goal is a social good, then that’s kind of a broad-based barometer, if you will. There’s really no kind of – there’s not five checklists that you can check off. It’s really those kind of broad-based understanding is that every day this company operates, the goal is to do X, and if that X is cure a social good or help solve a problem, that’s a pretty good understanding of it.
In terms of federal or state funding, there is – there are a lot of incentives out there. I haven’t been the biggest supporter of those because I prefer to see companies – either nonprofit or for-profit – see if they can make a go of it on their own, because politics change, regimes change, administrations change, so for you to rely on that as your core revenue stream can be very, very difficult, and a long process.
MS. KICKUL: Yes. I mean, just seeding the idea for the social venture, it’s okay, but to really have a sustainable venture, really thinking about an earned income type of model of how you can actually bridge across from a – going from a loan but really being on your own, sustain – on your own. The greatest – probably biggest resource I’ve ever seen in terms of where – what federal and even foundations – again, The Foundation Center, if you go up to their site, you’ll find locally, regionally, plus also internationally a whole kind of database of all different types of grants that are out there – startup grants for social enterprises. It’s very good.
And even now, we had – last week we had in Jonathan Greenblatt from the White House Social Innovation Fund, so we’re having a social innovation fund here in the States. It’s at $50 million. So I don’t know how much of that has been spent so far, maybe not that much yet, but in – and it’s still small, but hopefully that’ll carry on and maybe we’ll see what happens in the future.
MR. FITZGERALD: But if you look at the German example of the solar industry in Germany – well-funded by the government, well-financed, well-incentivized, and there are solar panels everywhere you go. But now that’s drying up. So the issue is: Can an industry sustain itself in Germany and beyond without federal financing because it’s now over? They’ve proven that people like solar power in Germany. It works. The infrastructure’s built. Now the question is: Take away the government funding, what’s going to happen? And hopefully, it does succeed, because it’s ingrained in the culture now, it’s ingrained in the logistics and the operations, and the construction. Somebody will figure it out, but the goal is to use it but don’t rely on it.
MS. JAVICE: And as far as certification and requirements, B Labs, which is sort of under the same umbrella as B Corp, has tried to put together sort of a weighted metric to be able to assess are you as social or, like, be eligible for a B Corp or things like that. And they do have a list of criteria. I know in the impact investing space, there are different standards, like – I think it was ISIC or --
MS. KICKUL: IRIS.
MS. JAVICE: And then the BACO, also for measuring your output. So there are different types of measurements out there, but we use it so loosely, some people even compound it with social business, where Muhammad Yunus defined it one way, and now people are starting to use it another. So there’s definitely definition confusion.
MODERATOR: I guess this will be the last question since we’re coming up on the magic 75 --
QUESTION: Thank you. Thomas Siemienski, I work for the Polish Public Radio. Do you think the social entrepreneurship is something that is reserved only for small companies? Or would it be possible to imagine big company with, I don’t know, anonymous shareholders are quoted on Wall Street and still being a social company?
MS. KICKUL: Well, I’m hoping these two actually go to take it public. (Laughter.)
MR. FITZGERALD: There is potential for companies like Recyclebank and TerraCycle – as they grow and grow and grow, they become so big – that maybe, like you said, the lexicon is gone, Recyclebank is just a company that does this and it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s social or not, it’s ingrained in it. I think it is difficult, but I think companies like GE and their eco-imagination platform, it’s a large portion of what they do, and it’s a very, very large company. So are they still doing what they do on a daily basis, and that’s not necessarily solving a social good? Yeah, that’s still what they do on a daily basis. But a large portion of their company is dedicated to this eco-imagination platform which is a huge game-changer.
QUESTION: Just remember – you touched on this a little – do you think the financial crisis and the global downturn, has that helped or hindered this whole movement? Because I guess you could argue suddenly Wall Street wasn’t the place where young, bright, smart people wanted to go. But on the other hand, being from Denmark, I read a lot about renewables, and it did also sort of clean – kill off the climate bill here in the U.S. and so forth. So it’s a big question, but --
MR. FITZGERALD: (Inaudible) created a lot of entrepreneurs because they started to realize, hey – (laughter).
MR. ZAKES: Unemployed entrepreneurs.
MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, unemployed entrepreneurs, right? And the downside is, is that it does make it harder to raise capital because there’s less money out there. So when companies like TerraCycle or Recyclebank are out there looking for investors and there’s less of them because of the financial crisis, it makes it harder for them to grow. So you have a lot of people who are coming off the marketplace and now want to create companies, and just by sheer numbers, if it’s people like that or people like Charlie who are starting these companies, just by sheer numbers, there’s more of those out there. But it has made it harder to raise capital, for sure.
MR. ZAKES: Yeah. I think definitely, the answer is both, I think, for some of those reasons. And I think some of the reasons that it’s helped also relates back to the tax incentives that we were talking about, is these companies have to be fiscally sustainable on their own. They can’t just rely on being socially responsible or environmentally sustainable. And I think that if you can survive in economic times like now, if these companies can still manage to grow and thrive now, once whoever it is that turned the tap off turns it back on, one day they’ll be that much better suited. And I think it’s also created an opportunity for small companies to catch up with the big guys a little bit since no one is really growing – billion-dollar companies are not growing, but a $10 million company still has the opportunity to grow.
So while these other companies are a little stagnant or have sort of hibernated for the economic winter, I think it gives young entrepreneurial companies an opportunity to gain a little bit of market share and to gain a little bit more exposure when it comes to consumers. But I do think that that – there is another challenge when you look at consumers, which is even if your product comes at a small premium, 5 or 10 percent more expensive than a traditional competitor, right now consumers are not likely to want to pay that premium, whereas a couple years ago, a larger segment of the population was willing to pay up a little bit more for an organic or a recycled consumer product, and that might not be the case today.
MODERATOR: I think I’ll stop the panel discussion now. There may be people who want to come forward and ask you questions one on one if you’re okay with that.
PARTICIPANT: Sure, of course.
MODERATOR: Great. Okay. Thank you so much.
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