A Case for Co-Ops
Executive Summary
April 16, 2020
Charles Darr
A Case for Co-Ops is a digital media outreach project that is intended to explore methods
for increasing the impact of sustainability solutions, by helping to translate research implications
into practical approaches for sustainable business design. The status quo for enterprise, often
referred to as Business As Usual, is not a sustainable model. In fact, many have argued that the
challenges we are facing today in our societies and with the planet’s ecosystem have been
overwhelmingly driven by economic endeavors. In the pursuit of maximizing the efficiency of an
enterprise’s ability to produce profits, many of these endeavors have externalized the social and
environmental costs that are often connected to cheaper supply chains, rapid production processes,
and linear waste streams. And while Business As Usual may be the leading proponent for the
unsustainable conditions that we must now correct, the pursuit of economic opportunity does not
have to be.
A Case for Co-Ops is the result of my collaboration with project partners within Arizona
State University’s School of Sustainability and entrepreneurs from the Phoenix-metropolitan area.
Together, we share a vision of economic activity that does not advance social conflict and
environmental degradation. We believe that the shortcomings of Business As Usual are the result
of incomplete considerations during the design iterations of the business models that have led to
our current sustainability crisis, and therefore designing and proliferating alternative business
models by utilizing state-of-the-art knowledge in the field of sustainability is a necessary condition
for solving the crisis.
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With this mission, my ASU partners created an incubator program designed to produce a
worker-owned cooperative beverage company in Phoenix that would incorporate sustainability
principles throughout the organization. These principles include supply considerations, such as
locally sourcing native ingredients and procuring refillable product containers; production and
distribution considerations such as biodegradable packaging and bicycle delivery; and waste
considerations such as recycling and composting. My ASU partners empowered their cohort of
entrepreneurs to make these decisions on their own as a team, by providing them with various
findings from sustainability research as consultation.
For my part of the collaboration, I provided creative strategies for increasing the awareness
of my project partners’ work and for delivering messaging aimed at attracting additional recruits
for future offerings of the incubator program. To achieve this, I documented the incubator process
from inception and design to delivery. Combining this footage and exclusive interviews with
leading sustainability researchers, scholars, and professionals, I produced a documentary film
showcasing design considerations for the creation of a sustainable business model. This film
strengthens my project partners’ proposition to imagine alternative business models by
complementing the conceptual sustainability benefits with the practical plausibility of a real-world
example.
Additionally, I created a website to host the documentary and other related media. This
media includes videos that I produced, such as a persuasive introductory video advocating for my
project partners’ vision and mission, and extended cuts of interviews with subject matter expert
that were conducted for the documentary. Furthermore, the website provides a library of
supplementary literature and video resources related to sustainable alternative business models,
such as social enterprises, benefit corporations, and worker-owned cooperatives for individuals
who feel enticed to learn more. Finally, I worked with my collaborators to include simplified
components from the incubator program curriculum on the website, making key sustainability
design considerations accessible to everyone, and to promote enrollment for future cohorts.
A Case for Co-Ops implements strategic communication strategies to provide my project
partners a comprehensive campaign for impassioning and motivating recruits for their sustainable
business incubator program. While many test-audience subjects who viewed a ten-minute
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demonstration of this campaign reported positive responses including excitement, eagerness to
learn more, and questions about collaborating with their organizations to make similar work, there
were also a few negative responses. These responses included confusion regarding the user
interface design of the website components; questioning how users arrive at websites; what visitors
are expected to do with the business design principles provided; and apprehension toward my
project partners’ solution for which I was advocating.
Moving forward, I will continue to document the fledgling business created by my project
partners. I will conduct follow-up interviews, and I will record sustainability performance measure
indicators to compare against intended outcomes to evaluate success. I will also continue to adapt
the website to appeal to a broader audience. I will attempt this by producing multiple videos, taking
advantage of overlapping values amongst varying worldviews, that highlight the parallels between
the viewer’s and my project partners’ vision. These videos, as well as the original persuasive video,
will be hosted off-site and will be disseminated through social media applications such as Twitter
and Facebook. These applications incentivize users to share media that comports with their shared
network’s values. Adapting my narrative to appeal to social media users across the political
spectrum will allow me to utilize algorithmic strategies for driving diverse traffic to the website.

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