WWF cuts out unnecessary printing, mobile phone banking helps in Haiti and Levi’s jeans get less thirsty
WWF file prevents printing
If you’ve ever made the mistake of pressing “print” when you didn’t mean to, only to find yourself collecting hundreds of wasted pages in embarrassment, WWF’s new file format may be for you.
Over 1m tonnes of paper are consumed every day. To help put a stop to this worldwide waste, which continues to threaten forests and those who depend on them, WWF has launched a new electronic document format.
Essentially, a WWF file is just like your common PDF but entirely without the option to print. To save your document as a WWF file just download the free WWF software from its website, which will install a “save as WWF” option in the print menu.
One major limitation, however, is that the WWF file is currently only available for Mac users. A Windows version is in development.
Several companies and organisations have already adopted the new WWF file including Suncyle, a solar service company, Triodos Bank, and Baum, the German environmental management association.
Mobile money helps Haitians rebuild
Unibank, Haiti’s largest bank, and Haitian telecom operator Voila have launched Haiti’s first mobile money service, T-Cash.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. That fact, compounded by the devastation caused by 2010’s earthquake, has made the most simple of daily tasks a challenge.
T-Cash is a first-of-its-kind service in Haiti, which will enable thousands of people, particularly those in remote areas, to receive and make payments. This means they can more easily buy critical food and shelter items, or pay for their children’s schooling through the simple touch of a button on their Voila phones.
A unique feature of T-Cash is the “mini wallet”, whereby users can activate the T-Cash service immediately via their phones and store up to 2,500 Haiti gourdes (roughly £40), a function that the service’s founders hope will prompt rapid adoption of the programme nationwide.
“As money comes in for reconstruction efforts, relief organisations need access to the most efficient methods of distribution possible to minimise the cost of providing needed services and programmes,” says Robin Padberg, chief executive of Voila. Padberg says that historically up to 40 cents of every dollar was spent on logistics and security associated with moving cash. “With Voila and Unibank’s mobile money solution, this can be reduced to just a few cents.”
The T-Cash service began as a pilot programme with the international relief and development agency Mercy Corps, which tested the new service over nine months. Over the pilot’s run roughly 100,000 Haitians used the T-Cash service to receive and make payments.
Voila and Unibank hope to expand T-Cash beyond NGOs to individual customers early this year, and establish hundreds of affiliated merchants and transaction sites throughout Haiti.
Candy connoisseur wins sustainability award
Global food giant Mars was recently bestowed with the US State Department’s 2010 Award for Corporate Excellence for its work in cocoa sustainability in Ghana.
The award recognises US businesses that demonstrate innovative thinking and have proven to be good corporate citizens abroad. Mars was selected from a record number of 78 nominations submitted by American ambassadors posted worldwide.
In Ghana, agriculture employs more than half the population and represents 40% of the economy. Ghana is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa, behind Ivory Coast.
Given the country’s pivotal role in the cocoa industry, Mars has implemented several notable programmes to help increase farmer productivity and address the social, economic and environmental issues they face.
The Mars Partnership for African Cocoa Communities of Tomorrow (Impact) helps improve the economic situation of farmers, their families and the community by teaching new, more efficient production techniques that are environmentally sustainable. Impact also teaches participants how to implement fair labour practices, and provides access to educational facilities, health care and financial services.
The Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) is a public-private partnership between Mars, the US Agency for International Development and the World Cocoa Foundation, with the aim of generating growth among tree crop farmers in an environmentally and socially responsible way. Specifically, the STCP helps to diversify farmer income, strengthen institutional policies and invest in research, for instance to produce tree seedlings that are more disease-resistant and produce higher cocoa yields.
Through such programmes, Mars employs a whopping 800,000 people across Ghana’s cocoa industry and is currently pursuing programmes in Ivory Coast, Indonesia, and Brazil.
The key benefit for Mars is the pivotal role of public-private collaboration. “There is a real opportunity here to use cocoa cultivation as an effective engine for significant economic development in some of the most impoverished areas of the world,” says Andrew Pederson, global chocolate manager for sustainability at Mars. “But unless we’re able to scale our efforts together, we may only be able to reach a small number of the millions of farmers who could greatly benefit from industry intervention.”
New Levi’s line uses less water
Have you ever taken a look at your smart jeans and wondered why they’re so expensive? Beyond the brand name, the answer largely lies in the finishing.
On average, a pair of jeans uses 42 litres of water in the finishing process, roughly the volume of the fuel tank in a family car.
A group of designers at Levi’s sought to reduce this water use, without forgoing the styles and finishes their customers shell out for.
Behold: Levi’s Water Less line, which reduces Levis’s water use by an average of 28% and in some cases 96%, for example with 501, 514, 511, 505 and 559 men’s jeans and several jackets, which now use 1.5 litres of water each.
The Water Less finishing process rethinks water consumption at each step of the production cycle. For example, Levi’s stone wash jeans were traditionally made by adding stones to washing machines. Now, they add stones to the washing machines without water. And voila! The jeans look identical and use far less water.
The company also uses ozone machines to cut water consumption in the finishing process. The jeans are placed in an ozone machine to clean the fabric, without the need for a wash cycle.
The Water Less line hit US stores in January with a small batch of classic Levi’s jeans and the Trucker jacket. Levi’s will continue to educate and train their global manufacturers on these new processes, and their spring line of more than a million jean products will save 16m litres of water.
“Anyone can create a jean with less water,” says Sarah Anderson of Levi Strauss & Co, “but the challenge has been creating fashion-forward finishes. We believe we’ve achieved both.”
Nokia relaunches African e-waste programme
Nokia has given its Ugandan e-waste recycling programme another go, this time with far greater success. Nokia operates the largest voluntary mobile phone recycling programme in the world, with 5,000 collection points in more than 80 countries.
In 2008 Nokia conducted a worldwide consumer survey of 6,500 people in 13 countries and discovered that only 3% recycled their old mobile phones. Elisabeth Tanguy, Nokia’s senior sustainability manager for the Middle East and Africa, explains that the company’s 2008 programme in Uganda did not take off because participants expected something in exchange for their old mobile phones and accessories.
Having learned this lesson, Nokia relaunched the initiative in December 2010 with a three-pronged plan. First, it promoted the campaign on the radio before the launch to raise awareness about e-recycling.
Second, it provided “eco gifts” to participants, such as bags made with recycled material and USB sticks made from bamboo. And third, the collection point was conveniently located in a shopping centre in Kampala, making drop-off hassle-free.
The timing was also particularly ripe, as the Ugandan government is working on a national e-waste policy.
“We also wanted to prove the sceptics wrong,” Tanguy says. “Many Ugandan journalists told us that the country was not ready for recycling, but we believed otherwise. With more than 11m mobile subscribers in Uganda, there is great potential to influence and make a difference to the environment.”
Nike shares its design tool
In an effort to incite more sustainable innovation, US sportswear giant Nike has made its $6m design tool open source.
The Environmental Apparel Design Tool (EADT) is an external version of Nike’s internal design tool, which took seven years to develop and which Nike has been using for the past four years. The tool enables designers to evaluate the environmental impact of a new product in the design phase, including waste, energy, toxic substances and water used, and thus helps determine how a product can be made more sustainably.
By sharing the tool, Nike hopes that a plethora of companies will use it and provide feedback for improvement. “It is only in this way that we can create tools for the industry that are truly universally usable and scalable,” says Hannah Jones, Nike’s vice-president for sustainable business and innovation.
Nike used the tool to develop what it calls the “greenest” jerseys ever made, worn by the South African football team last year. The jerseys used 100% recycled polyester, thus saving 13m plastic bottles from landfill.
Jones said the jerseys for several football clubs sponsored by Nike, including Barcelona, Arsenal and Manchester United, were designed using the tool, and were made using polyester derived from recycled plastic bottles. Nike also offers other non-football products made from organic cotton and recycled polyester.
“There are areas where we will always be naturally competitive, and then there are areas, such as sustainability, where collaboration is mutually beneficial, and in fact essential, to create the scale we need to help solve the most pressing environmental problems,” Jones adds.