James Grugeon is helping put a stop to large corporations monopolising the consumer dollar in a determined effort to shift the balance of power.
Grugeon, who has had 17 years' experience in senior business, advocacy and environmental roles, was recently appointed market impacts director for campaigning movement Getup!
Getup! chose Grugeon, 41, to create a team to help Australian consumers use their buying power for environmental and social wins.
"It's as if it were almost a start-up enterprise. It's going to be quite dynamic and able to grow quickly and in large numbers," says Grugeon.
"Consumers may have lost faith in big companies and the government taking action on important issues like climate change, but they definitely haven't lost the desire to take action themselves."
Following the success of GetUp!'s first consumer campaign, Better Power, which has encouraged Victorians to switch to cheaper and greener energy, Grugeon's market impacts team will continue empowering people as consumers to match their values for positive change.
"The three biggest energy retailers are AGL, Origin and Energy Australia, who control about 75 per cent of the markets," says Grugeon.
"What Getup! did was look for a partner in the energy sector that we could encourage people to switch to. Powershop came through very strongly, as a company taking the right stance on renewable energy."
Grugeon says Powershop and Getup! ran a trial which showed that 5000 people have already switched from the bigger companies in order to save money.
"Nine out of 10 Australians want to save money on their bills," he says. "The big companies have been price gouging and giving pretty bad service. They don't want competition from companies like Powershop."
However, the majority of consumers are strongly invested in positive environmental change, not just in saving money, says Grugeon.
"People live inherently in fairness. Getup! has 880,000 people on board who want to make the world a better place," he says.
"The great thing here is that for consumers in Australia, you can do the right thing by the environment and society, get behind companies that are innovative, offering better services and products and usually better priced as well."
However, Grugeon says that in spite of Getup!'s strong support, there is still a significant need for positive change to be more accessible to the wider community, with emphasis on how fast and easy such changes can be.
"We've got to reach out beyond that very big membership base that Getup! has to a broader mainstream consumer market," he says.
"You've got to make it really simple and in the case of the power switch it literally takes five minutes for people to do it. We're asking people to do something straightforward and they're going to save money."
Grugeon adds, however, that the big corporations are already getting the message.
"They've been lazily getting away with ripping people off," he says. "But we are literally shifting markets. It's going to make it difficult for them. We're not going to let them do that any more or let them get away with it."
Getup! are currently recruiting for a content editor, marketing manager and project assistant.
