Carrotmob leveraged the power of several hundred San Francisco consumers to get a local liquor store to make environmentally friendly choices. How did they do it? Organizer Brent Schulkin went to all the liquor stores and asked if he got a ton of people down there to buy on one day, how great of a percentage of their spending would the store be willing to dedicate to making environmentally friendly improvments? The store with the greatest percentage won and the Carrotmob got several hundred people to show up on one day. The line stretched around the block and bouncers had to be used to regulate the inflow. The consumers spent about five times what the store pulls in on a normal day, generating enough money for the store to redo its lighting system and its refrigeration gaskets. “We can harness the buying power of the casual consumer, get businesses to make environmental choices, and we can do it with the carrot,” says Brent in the event video after the jump. Pretty freakin’ awesome, a total win-win, imagine what could this look like if it were scaled out on a national level…

(Photo: Mary Catherine O’Connor)

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