Illustrative EL Projects

REI

A student Operations team proposed a more economical and sustainable way to ship the outdoor retail company’s bicycles in one carton versus several. REI was able to leverage the student’s work across its distribution network, with savings estimated to be $1,000,000.

Parco Homes

Parco Homes designs, builds and ships innovative, prefabricated, high quality green house kits. Parco had a very positive, successful experience working with a Presidio Operations team, which developed an operations plan that focused on addressing Parco’s shipping logistics. Parco implemented a key aspect of their proposal-to offer carbon neutral shipping by purchasing carbon offsets for all its shipping costs-thus integrating the environmental impact of shipping into its business model.

W Hotels

W Hotel San Francisco is part of an internationally-recognized brand of luxury hotels. The student Management team’s work involved consolidating W Hotel SF’s various sustainability initiatives into a unified strategic management plan and to develop a tool that measures steps necessary for W SF to obtain San Francisco Green Business Certification. The team developed a “Dashboard” spreadsheet tool incorporating all needed calculations to measure, track and assess progress made towards sustainability.

IDEO/Capay Growers

The Marketing team project focused on formulating a strategy for FarmShop, a unique collaborative between Capay Valley Growers, a for-profit venture based in California’s Central Valley, and the renowned design firm IDEO. A combination café/deli/farmer’s market, the FarmShop concept embodies a way to simultaneously promote sustainable agriculture, support local communities and provide healthy food alternatives at the workplace. The Presidio student team analyzed the concepts’ internal strengths and weaknesses, assessed the market opportunity and created specific recommendations for the FarmShop experience as well as its business model.

Oakley Apparel

A student Operations team analyzed the manufacturing process of an apparel product line. The team recommended an innovative, environmentally responsible cradle-to-cradle procedure to turn packaging into retail bags. Oakley stands to save as much as $500,000/annually by adopting the team's recommendations.