Jose Carlos Espinosa Villaseñor
Alejandro García Olivares
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM)
Lilia Patricia López
Keep this story going! Share below!
Punto Verde is a mexican entrepreneurship based in Morelia, Michoacán. This is a product and service company that provides cleaning products via vending machines at a lower price because of the refill scheme, the clients must bring their bottle so they can save the container price and reuse it.
Punto Verde's innovation consists of a vending machine business model that encourages the reuse of plastic bottles, selling the clients cleaning products for their homes such as dish soap, laundry detergent, floor soap and fabric softener. Customers come to the point of sale with their own containers and the machine can automatically dispatch liquid products in bulk measurements. In addition the service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Punto Verde was created by 4 people - two business students, one architecture student and a mechatronics engineering student. They developed the prototype and the business model, at Inc Mty 2018, the greatest entrepreneur contest in Latin America, where they managed to be in the top 10 out of 200 of the most brilliant ideas amongst Mexicans from either public and private universities. According to Enia Vanesa, Punto Verde Co-founder, their "mission is to offer an innovative service that allows their clients to perceive savings in cleaning products while reducing their ecological footprint." In the long term they want to make Punto Verde the regional leader selling hygiene and cleaning products in order to make the dream of a sustainable world a reality. Furthermore, the plastic bottles that Punto Verde is trying to reuse are the ones that pollute the most, even greater than the PET bottles, which otherwise would be incinerated or dropped in the sea.
The impact Punto Verde is making on the business is that they’re offering a new option for consuming cleaning products by saving money and using the same products that supermarkets offer at a cheaper price. It also helps to create a conscious consumption for the society and start educating people about saving the environment by reusing their plastic bottles which contaminates the most, and receiving a better price by choosing this alternative.
Punto Verde is aiming to put their vending machines in medium-sized cities, from 500,000 to 3,000,000 habitants, since most of the trash is generated in urban areas, nonetheless, the machines can also be installed in towns, where the access to cleaning products are limited.
The great impact for the environment is that Punto Verde is aiming to fill 30,000 plastic bottles a year on every machine, this seems like a very achievable goal which can be a positive change for the contamination and start helping to turn into a more sustainable world.
Punto Verde plans to diversify its business model responding to the interest of several entrepreneurs and businessmen who already had the opportunity to meet the machines. "The Punto Verde team is confident that this project can be successfully replicated in other cities of the country, and because our service has received very fast acceptance samples, we are contemplating the opening of a model based on franchises, allowing new partners join the cause and exponentiate the results for our planet benefit” Enia commented.
Some benefits that Punto Verde provides to the society and the environment are:
Avoid crowds: due to COVID pandemic the clients are able to avoid the crowds, instead of going to the supermarket they would go to the vending machines that are located in open areas, reducing the chance to get infected by other people.
Reduce ecological footprint: by reusing the plastic bottles that would otherwise be thrown away and another one would be produced to contain the cleaning product. On the other hand, the products are biodegradable, so the entire value chain is focused on helping the environment.
Support local economy: the products are bought to local suppliers and the vending machines are operated by small businesses.
Help the clients’ economy: the price of the products are cheaper than the ones in a supermarket, making a low price differentiation.
Punto Verde reduces the ecological footprint of users because every time they go to the machine to fill their container they are supporting that a new one is no longer manufactured.
Get stories of positive business innovations from around the world delivered right to your inbox.
Enia Vanesa Loeza Velázquez, Punto Verde Interview
Punto Verde is a mexican entrepreneurship based in Morelia, Michoacán. This is a product and service company that provides cleaning products via vending machines on a lower price because of the refill scheme, the clients must bring their bottle so they can save the container price and reuse it.