USC Marshall School of Business

A team of four USC Marshall MBAs came up with an innovative recycling solution to take second place at the Net Impact Case Competition, which is "built around businesses facing sustainability challenges, while succeeding financially." The competition was held at the Leeds Business School at the University of Colorado on Feb. 18-19.

From an original pool of 63 teams, the USC Marshall team made it through to the second round of 20 teams that were invited to compete in Boulder. They were asked to develop an easy-to-implement and low cost recycling solution focused on consumer-packaged goods, targeted to people ages 18 - 30. Further, the team was asked to recommend ways to improve the aluminum can's image as a sustainable product.

USC Marshall's team--Geoffrey Duckworth, Asa Firestone, Brittain Gulden and Nick Hasara (all MBA 2012)--presented twice during the competition, sharing their social solution to recycling: "RecycleStreet." The team describes RecycleStreet as a virtual game that is a hybrid of Foursquare, Farmville and Facebook. RecycleStreet would allow users to scan barcodes of items they are recycling to receive coupons, to learn if an item could be recycled and to identify the nearest recycling center.

"What set us apart from the other teams is that we approached this case as entrepreneurs looking to start a business to solve problems that recycling faces," said Firestone, for whom the trip was a bit of a homecoming, as he holds a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado. "We also looked at the target demographic, which was 18-30, and came up with a social media approach that we thought would be popular. We decided to concentrate on a mobile app to increase the transparency of how people recycle."

The team competed against students from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, and three teams from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. The panel of judges, which included representatives from Coke, Pepsi, and the Ball Corporation, selected the USC Marshall team for second place (with a $3,600 prize) and the University of Washington for first.

Marshall's team are all members of the Marshall chapter of Net Impact, an international nonprofit organization with a mission is to inspire, educate and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.