UrbanLadder-Climate Tech
Urban Ladder is an omnichannel furniture and decor online retailer in Bangalore, India, offering curated home solutions for Urban Indians to build stylish, well-furnished homes.
My Objective was to help consumers know about the climate impact of the products they buy on the Platform.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we educate consumers on the products they buy and their climate impact?
EXECUTION SUMMARY
Project Domain
Climate Tech.
Timeline
20 Days
Tool
Figma
Target Audience
Adults of 25-45 Years
PROPOSED SOLUTION
A feature to get short but clear description of the raw materials used in the furniture and its affect on the Climate at the product description page.
A filter option to let users refine the search result for the sustainable items on the platform.
A Dedicated button on the home page which leads to all the key resources and their effect on the environment
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
Why is this a problem?
Growing interests from customers to understand the environmental imapcts of their purchasing decisions,as they are becoming more climate conscious
Despite the environmental awareness, there is marginal change in the sustainable behaviour, hence the consumers look upto brands to lead the way.
In order for brands to develop trust among its consumers, and to show that they care, they need to convey the climate impact of their products in full transparency, as consumers might switch brands if they do not align with their values.
Only 1% of stuff is still in use after 6 months of its purchase, and consumers end up discarding more and buying more, due to less awareness about the environment impact of the processing.
Why is it required to solve now?
Since Sustainability is a micro trend in 2022, hence consumers search responsible brands who strongly assosciate with this.
Growth in Social media has empowered individuals to find common cause with others, and sustainable living is one.
Increase in millenial and GenZ consumers, who rank climate change as their top concerns.
What drives the problem?
Less green marketing by brands for their products
Brands false promising about the sustainability of products
Less visibility of information on sustainability and climate impact of products on brands’ website and apps.
RESEARCH
Market Research
Badge alongside certain products while shopping in Amazon’s store, The badge represents products that qualify for Amazon’s new Climate Pledge Friendly program which highlights products that are certified by one of the sustainability certifications.
For the brands on amazon store, they can drive awareness through streaming TV ads, of their Climate Pledge Friendly products.
IKEA provides a section called “sustainability”, where it provides information on the initiatives taken towards sustainable Product designs, Such as incorporating the IKEA circular product design principles through IKEA Democratic design approach.
Earth hero is an online marketplace that aims at making sustainable shopping easy and affordable. They provide the sustainability description of every product on their platform by categories like Earth-Friendly Features, Packaging, Origin, Certifications, Ingredients, made without.
For every product customer can click on “view impact”, which gives information about how the product was made describing every raw material used in the processing and where it was made.
It is also transparent about the fact that not all of their products are eco-friendly and they rely on fossil fuels for some of their deliveries and other business processes. They also provide facts on the ecological footprints produces by clothing industries, greenwashing, and what can be done, all under a section called “our footprint”
They evaluate their products and how they fit into a sustainability spectrum and provide batches to each product for the sustainability criteria they fulfill.
User Research
Secondary Research led to the classification of users based on the their purchasing behaviour of sustainable products, as follows :
Non - Green Consumers
Don’t care or know about the environment impact
least likely to adopt green product
Do not seek information
Price Sensitive
Active Green Consumers
Ready, willing and able to take action
Think they are capable of making a change
They believe in the sustainable system.
Medium to high level education
GenZ and millennials
More proactive in seeking out sustainable brands.
Boycott brands who don’t fit this model
Latent Green Consumers
Care about the environment.
Don’t think their efforts will make any difference
Appreciate transparancy and more infomation
Potential Green Consumers
Urban to medium education.
Not aware about sustainable brands
To appeal to them as a sustainable brand, prove them the value.
Skeptical about information
TARGET AUDIENCE
People in 25-45 age group
Familiar with ‘online shopping’
Are ‘home proud’ and appreciate great design
Have knowledge of society.
Have Purchased the property for Rs. 40-50 lakh, will invest 4-5 lakhs in furniture and home decore
In the top 30 of the cities
USER SURVEY PARTCIPANTS
10- 15 users were survey
5 individuals participated in the interview
Majority of the users were working professional between the age of 25 - 32 years.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS
Major Reasons behind hinderance in buying sustainable products was found to be their Expensive price and less knowledge around what products are sustainable.
Consumers mostly learn about the climate impact of a product through product label
While purchasing big furniture items, they prefer seeing the product in person to know the real look and feel, hence they would go for offline shopping mostly and online only when they provide experience stores.
Blogs on climate initiative mentioned on the brand’s website are not read by most of the participants, they would rather prefer a brief description.
Following user personas and journey map incorporate the user research insights:
IDEATION AND DESIGNING
CONSIDERATIONS
Information around climate impact should be short yet effective
feature suggested should motivate users to buy more sustainable furniture.
Consumers appreciate transparency, so for products which are less sustainable, information should be clearly displayed.
USER FLOW
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGNS
Resources tab on the home page, is way to navigate towards a section where user can learn about the different raw materials involved in the manufacturing of the furniture.
A green icon to represent which items in the product listing page are sustainable, this creates a diffrentiating factor.
Users can directly navigate to the list of sustainable Furniture items through the “Sustainable” option available in the popular categories section on home page
User is led to a type of product listing page consisting of different categories of selected furniture. User is led to this screen either by search for a particular item or selecting it from the popular items category.
To get refined result for items that are sustainable, users can use the filter option in the product listing page
Filter like Wood Type which provides the options to filter reclaimed wood furniture or new, can motivate users to know which products are sustainable
The green icon for sustainability is used here with a short fact stating how is the product sustainable and by how much
The product description page consists of a View climate impact button to let users know the various raw materials involved in the making of the item selected
The “View Climate impact” button leads to the page with brief description cards about the raw material involved and how do they impact the climate
On clicking Learn more or “more about resources” from the climate impacts section, will lead to a resources / topics page which will give a more descriptive information about the raw materials involved in the carious products on the Urban Ladder application.
Users can choose from the topics such as wood type, stain, etc. and read about them to get a better understanding of how products are impacting the climate.
This section can also be reached through the resources button on the home page
DESIGN ASSESTS
REFLECTION
PITFALLS
Consumers while buying furniture are more inclined towards the look and price of the items. So a text climate description might not be helpful for those consumers who would opt for sustainable products only if that provides value to them.
Certifications regarding the sustainability of furniture will help consumers in ways to assure quality and prove brand’s credibility, which was missing from the prposed solution due to lack of information on this topic.
Certifications regarding the sustainability of furniture will help consumers in ways to assure quality and prove brand’s credibility, which was missing from the prposed solution due to lack of information on this topic.
FUTURE SCOPE
Other potential solution could be explored such as consumers can be provided video information for awareness on climate impact too, which can be quick and more engaging.
While conducting market research came across many brands such patagonia, and earthhero, who are responsibly solving for climate change.
LEARNINGS
Furniture Brands are yet to market themselves as sustainable, as the wood being the basic raw material in this industry, gives the idea that they can’t be sustainable.
Secondary research for this case study, really helped me solidify my understanding around why brands need to work on this problem.