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Phase: Ideas Opportunity Areas: Local Design – Global Impact

Online shopping system designed for a circular economy.

Online shopping that facilitates a circular economy. We use smart software to track the savings our system creates.

Photo of Sarah
7 2

Written by

We are a startup and finalist in the Masschallenge accelerator program this summer in Boston. 

We have designed an online shopping system that supports sustainability and closes the loop on the cycle of consumerism. It's easy and convenient for customers and effective for the plant. 

The big picture: we have standards products have to meet, ship carbon neutral and offer an automated no waste program for proper disposal. We use smart software to track the savings this system creates for emissions, water and waste on our homepage for all purchases and in the future, we plan to track this in customer accounts.

There are 2 points in the purchase cycle where we reduce or optimize plastic consumption.

1. Purchase point:

  • we enable customers to filter for products that are plastic-free
  • we also enable customers to filter for products that specifically incorporate recycled plastic into their packaging and/or materials 
  • on every product page we give customers info about how to best dispose of products.


2. No waste program

  • we make it as easy as possible for customers to learn how to best dispose of a product when they don't want it anymore. Customers select the product type, enter their zip and we tell them their options for donation, resale, compost or recycling based on their location, so they can drop off, mail or have waste picked up. Facilitating a cradle to cradle approach.


This system promotes a sustainable production system for plastics by empowering people to easily avoid plastics or to support products that specifically incorporate recycled plastics into their design and/or packaging.

Idea Title

You shop. We reduce the impact and we show you the savings you create from supporting our system. It's easy for people, effective for planet

Company / Organization Name

The GreenLine

Website

www.thegreenlinemarket.com

Where are you / your team located?

We are based at Masschallenge in Boston right now. Other team members: Spain, Canada, Argentina, etc

How does this Idea redesign unrecyclable small format plastic items that often end up as waste?

This idea does not do this. The only thing we do that addresses this aspect is selling options such as bags or other options that capture microplastics for clothing when they are being washed. We give people tools.

Which use cases does your Idea apply to?

Rajata, Saatwika, Trevor & Benjamin, Anne in Copenhagen.

In what geographical context or area does your Idea plan to operate / solve?

We are launching in the US soon and plan to expand to other markets late next year.

How do you envision scaling up your Idea?

We have partnerships with a key public figure, experts and also with a non-profit organization to generate awareness. We need support from big established brands to help us build, more partnerships and execute the right strategies to start raising awareness. We want to help facilitate local and global product systems so partnering with the right people in every new country we start to focus on will be important to make sure we are supporting local businesses and cultures first.

At what stage of development is your Idea?

  • Full-scale roll-out: You have developed a pilot, tested, and analyzed the impact of that pilot as it pertains to the problem scope. You are ready to expand the pilot significantly and begin to scale.

Please describe how becoming a Top Idea and working with the Think Beyond Plastics Accelerator Program will help to accelerate your solution.

Our goal is to track and measurably reduce waste (one form of waste that is our focus is plastic) and show cumulative savings that our system creates over time.

Please describe from where your Idea emerged

The idea emerged at the end of a graduate sustainability class where applying project theory to application in business seemed like it might be a viable solution to reduce the impact of shopping. We saw a void in the market and the need to fix the system of shopping in a way that was effortless for consumers. I was sitting on the GreenLine (a metro line in Boston) which is where the name came from.

Tell us about your work experience

Background in Design, research and entrepreneurship. A mix of many different things professionally and academically.

Please describe your legal and organizational structure

LLP. We are working on getting B Corp certification.

7 comments

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Spam
Photo of Jackie
Team

Sarah, nice platform. Love its transparency too. I think you can collaborate with more companies to implement your system. You can create a software platform for one company, and another platform(basically simply put a website) for another company. Then you go for SaaS （Software As A Service）strategy, and this could be scaled up to generate phenomenal profits.

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Spam
Photo of Sarah
Team

Hi Jackie, thanks for your message. Your idea is great and we hope to be able to offer what you suggest in the future.

Keep in touch!

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Spam
Photo of Tamar
Team

Love what you are doing! We should talk

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Spam
Photo of Sarah
Team

Hi Tamar! Thanks for messaging. Would love to connect with you. Here's my email: sarahb@thegreenlinemarket.com

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Spam
Photo of OpenIDEO
Team

Hi Sarah,

The Ideas Phase of the challenge closes TONIGHT at 11:30 p.m. PT. Your post is currently unpublished, in draft mode. In order to be eligible for evaluation, your post must be published on the platform.

We'd love to have it be included in the challenge. You can publish it by hitting the "Publish" button at the top of your post. You can also update your post by clicking on the "Edit Contribution" on top. Thanks!

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Spam
Photo of Sarah
Team

Thanks for letting me know. Application is still in process. Finalizing and publishing today.

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Spam
Photo of OpenIDEO
Team

Hi Sarah,

Excited to see you joining this challenge. We noticed your post is currently unpublished. Was this your intention? We'd love to have it be included in the challenge. You can publish it by hitting the "Publish" button at the top of your post. You can also update your post by clicking on the "Edit Contribution" on top.

We're looking forward to seeing your contribution in this challenge.

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