Mandala Group

by Brice, Tormod, Victor, Elisabeth, Vilde

One of the members of our group was in Shanghai this winter and came across an organization called Mandala Group. Mandala is a social enterprise with the vision to lift millions of people out of poverty via their unique offline mobile phone app store. Mandala Group was born in October 2015, so the organization is very new but has grown rapidly since the start with volunteers (mostly students and young professionals) from all over the world wanting to fight poverty. Vilde joined the team with the co-founders (Callum, Rohit and Martin) in Shanghai. During the time there, they worked on projects and worked on the pitch for the annual Hult Prize Competition – a competition focusing on innovation and the demand side of social entrepreneurship. Here’s a description of the idea behind Mandala Group:

Mandala Group believe that “connectivity is productivity and productivity is what will make poverty history”. Mandala will try to make this happen by providing the world’s first offline app store for the bottom billion. An offline app is a mobile phone based tool that supports people in poverty. It requires no internet, no smart phone and no downloading. This is important because in the target country, India, smart phone penetration is only 25% but mobile phone penetration is over 90%. The offline apps can help people transfer money, identify fake medicine, learn to read and much more. Today there are a growing number of offline mobile apps, and all are trying to solve major development challenges. But there is no current market place for all these apps, so Mandala Group made one. This is the first version of the offline app store (how it looked like earlier this year):

As an offline app store, Mandala Group provide a market place for offline apps, a common distribution and training channel and a platform for developers to build offline apps. Their app store is a combination of Mandala originals and partnered solutions. For each offline app, there is a description, a price per month and an access code.

Technically, an offline app generally works as follows:

A person makes a phone call or sends a text message to a phone that is connected to a computer. The computer processes the data from the phone call or text message. To process the data, the computer gathers information from backend databases and user profile. Then the computer sends the information back to the user.

Mandala Group was on a three months’ research trip to Mumbai last year to find out how the platform is supposed to work:

1. Build: They build their offline app store – a marketplace that contains the solutions to the problems.
2. Connect: They connect urban slum dwellers to an offline app store by their partner NGO network.
3. Set up: Users register at local NGOs and learn how to use the offline apps.
4. Deliver: The user can now begin using Mandalas services on their mobile phone.

For instance, an unemployed slum dweller in Mumbai can be helped to find a job through Mandala’s services. In order to help him find a job, Mandala has built M-Naukri – an offline job portal. It works as follows: The man goes to a local NGO partner who train the man on how to use M-Naukri. With the help of the NGO, the man fills out his user profile which goes to the database. The database then matches the man with the existing job opportunities and he then receives information on his mobile phone about job opportunities.

Mandala is a social enterprise aimed to help people in poverty, but the company will still charge the end-users a small amount for their services. The average app price per month is a small amount of $0,55. They strongly believe that end-users will pay these small amounts because people in the slums of India are already paying for these kind of services. The cost is less than 0,5% of their monthly income and payments are spread throughout the year. The variable cost is $0,35 leaving a $0,20 margin. In that way, Mandala Group has a business model that focuses on helping people out of poverty (responsible), but at the same time, it is supposed to generate income in the long run (profitable).

Mandala Group has launched a crowdfunding campaign and have been on the ground in India this summer to develop new products, create marketing campaigns, do corporate pitching, meetings with NGOs, train local teachers etc. It will be interesting to in see which direction the social enterprise develops and if it manages to become both responsible and profitable at the same time.

Dell – Green Packaging and Shipping

by Sindre, Iver, Maria, Margerita and Nicolo

Packing and shipping is an important step in the supply chain for dell. A company with the size of dell can leave a significant environmental footprint. Traditionally there is a lot of materials that are not possible to recycle easily and much of the packing is abundant.  They are following a 3C strategy to try to reduce their impact on the environment. The Cs stands for cube, content and curb.

Dell’s “cube” goal is to reduce the packing size. In 2008 they announced that within 2012 they should reduce packing with 10%, and where able to reduce packing with 12.1 % as a result of new design. They also started with multi-packing to reduce the amount of packages sent. This effort to reduce packing has led to reduction in deployment time, transportation and storage cost. In the fiscal year of 2015 showed that sustainability and profits can be combined. Their strategy saved $53.1 million and reduced packaging with 14 million metric tons.

The content used is continually under assessment where they try to get materials that protect the product meanwhile reducing the negative externalities. They are using different local materials for different regions which reduce carbon emissions and are helping the local economy. They are using different eco-friendly and recycled materials. They are testing the implementation of mushroom packaging, which are using agricultural waste to produce packaging. They are leading with example as they are the first major company in their industry that is trying to implement this technology.

The last C is that Dell wants to make the packaging easier to recycle. They are offering different options for recycling of their products which you can find detailed information on their website.  Their goal was to make 75% of the packaging recyclable at curbside, which they have met.

In addition, they are always evaluating their transportation and logistics so they can find better ways to deliver the products. They are for example trying to send more of with ocean-going cargo, since this reduces the fuel needed per product. Their Air-to-Sea initiative are reducing the emissions with more than 92% and in the fiscal year of 2016, 28% of shipments were via sea.

This is a small step towards the right direction and still requires more innovations and improvements. Dell is continually trying to innovate their materials and packaging. This is contributing to setting a good standard of how to package and ship for other large companies.

Sources:

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/dell-environment-packaging-and-shipping?s=corp

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/corp-comm/air-to-sea?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/corp-comm/earth-products-packaging?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1

The wetsuits of tomorrow

by Torstein, Therese, Thomas, Martin, Andreas and Lene 

Surfers are known to cast a critical eye over their environmental footprints. The nature is their playground and the pollution can impact the wave quality. Since the 50’s surfers has been relying on nepoprene as the main material in wetsuits. This is a non-renewable material and it requires an energy-intensive manufacturing process. Patagonia has now taken the first step in producing environmental friendly wetsuits through their new product line Yulex. This is the world`s first neoprene-free wetsuit. It consist of 85% natural rubber, replacing a petroleum-based materials with a plant-based one. This can reduce CO2 emissions in the production process by up to 70%. Surfers are now able to choose plants over petroleum and renewable over non-renewable.

Important features with a wetsuit is that it is comfortable to wear, not reducing flexibility in shoulders and knees and that it looks cool. The Patagonia Yulex are as good as all other neoprene wetsuits in the market today.

Their Yulex production line consist of four different wetsuits with different thickness, making the wetsuit suitable for most of the conditions. One issue is that at this moment they have not made any neoprene-free wetsuit suitable for arctic/winter conditions. When Patagonia makes a neoprene-free wetsuit that suits these conditions, their new product will fit all conditions and there is no reason to buy a neoprene wetsuit. To us, the choice is easy. We choose Patagonia Yulex. What do you choose?

Unilever

by Magne, Peter Aleksander, Haakon, Øyvind André and Ryan

Unilever has a Sustainable Living Plan (SLP) that was launched in November 2010 whose goals include helping 1 billion people to improve their health and well-being by 2020. This SLP spans all brands and all countries that Unilever sells in and has both an economic and an social dimension. The Sustainable Living Plan was broadened in 2013, with Unilever seeking to deepen its efforts in three areas where it has especial influence (the elimination of deforestation, sustainable agriculture and the development of smallholder farming, and improving hygiene via hand washing, safe drinking water provision and better sanitation).

Paul Polman, CEO of Uniliver, has ensured corporate responsibility is pervasive throughout the Unilever organization. SLP is proving to be a source of competitive advantage as employees and consumers are increasingly judging companies on how they impact with society.

Furthermore, Unilever Sustainable Living Plan brands now represents
more than 1/3 of their portfolio and is growing faster than the rest of the group.

Unilever seeks to work to cut its impact in diverse fields, ranging from the sourcing of raw materials to the way that consumers use its products. Life cycle assessments are conducted for all new products to assess their potential environmental impact versus the products being replaced. Knorr, a Unilever brand, is currently seeking to ensure that all of its major
vegetables and herbs are grown sustainably by the end of 2015. Hellmann’s
mayonnaise, a Unilever brand, has used cage-free eggs and high quality ingredient.

Unilever aims to manufacture products that are sustainably sourced and hence to protect resources for future generations. The good sustainability angle – goals include 100% sourcing of agricultural raw materials from sustainable sources – is though also excellent business practice for the group. The vast majority of customers favour such thinking, and most of the retailers supplied are also keen to ensure the best possible compliance so that Unilever’s relationships here are often deepened via this strategy. Good publicity can be created for specific brands, giving them a competitive advantage and differentiation, whilst smart thinking on this front can also save manufacturing costs through cutting waste in terms of energy and raw materials use.

Is CSR a PR exercise or not?

by André, David, Henrik, Karine and Torbjørn

It is almost a unspoken truth that companies need CSR to survive in business. A lot of customers would avoid companies that don’t act socially responsible. So, does that mean that CSR is just a PR exercise, that companies do to attract customers? Or is it also a fundamental motivation for companies?

Before we start the discussion, we would like to specify that CSR is what companies do in addition to certain standards and laws. Thus, CSR is based on the firm’s initiative, and not meeting basic requirements.

Ask yourself, would you buy products from a company that you knew was exploiting their staff? Not giving them any labor rights except from the bare minimum? Would you buy products containing palm oil? Probably not. To feel better about yourself, and increase your conscience, you would probably choose products that at least have a sustainable profile. Maybe made from more sustainable resources, or made from fair-trade certified producers?

Or how about Skoda – the Czech car company. They have stated that they plant a tree for every car they produce. Sounds great? What if we told you that to compensate for the climate damage from producing a car, you would need 3000 trees? One tree, in comparison, seems pretty weak. This suggests that Skoda’s CSR activities are more a symbolic PR exercise, to attract environmentally conscious customers.

Of course, you have companies that base their entire business model on CSR, such as Tom’s Shoes. Do you think that Tom’s really have this deep, profound motivation to make the world a better place, or could it be that they just have designed their business model as part of a PR scheme, and make it part of their marketing strategy?

In the end of the day, some CSR is better than none, and it is perhaps not of the greatest significance whether a firm’s CSR activities are truly motivated, or just to attract customers. What do you think?

SAPA

by Peter Aleksander, Magne, Haakon, Ryan and Øyvind André

SAPA is one of Norway’s 10 biggest companies, that has also gone global with more than 22 000 employees in 40 different countries around the world.
SAPA is jointly owned by Orkla and Norsk Hydro, and is a world leader in aluminium solutions. They develop, design, manufacture and market aluminium extrusions for use in all kinds of sectors. Sectors such as: electronic giants, automobile manufacturers, building and construction firms, the marine industry, furniture companies, designers and so on. The customers in these sectors range from small family-owned companies to large multinationals.

They are moving towards the use of 100% recycled aluminium, through internal scrap recycling and remelted aluminium from external suppliers. This way of using aluminium only requires 5% of the energy as melting new aluminium, and with the use of recyclables, SAPA is leading their way into a circular economy.

Their incentives for moving towards a more circular and sustainable business model are driven by the high value of scrap aluminium, the energy savings, coupled together with the obvious environmental benefits.

They are doing this by considerable investments in improving the productivity of existing casthouses, as well as establishing new casthouses.
By doing this, they achieved a substantial growth in their remelting capacity, and more than 50% of all the aluminium in SAPA’s production stems from sustainable sources today. Their aim for the future is an incremental and continuous increase in their use of recycled content alongside global supply.

For more information, go visit Sapa at: http://www.sapagroup.com/en/sustainability/

Tripadvisor will no longer sell tickets to ”cruel” animal attractions

by Embla, Kaja, Cedrik, Ingrid and Linn Kristin,

TripAdvisor recently announced that they will no longer sell tickets to what they categorize as “cruel” animal attractions. This means that tickets to attractions where tourists come into physical contact with captive wild animals or endangered species will no longer be available on their website. In addition TripAdvisor will also ensure that the remainder of the attractions it continues to sell come with additional information about the animal welfare practice involved.

To say that this is a major business model innovation might be an overstatement, but TripAdvisor are changing their value proposition by adding more to the the value they offer and create for customers. Also, this is TripAdvisor using their strong brand name and market power to convey a message about the importance of animal welfare in an attempt to do less bad and more good! With this change they are doing more good by reducing the availability of tickets to potentially cruel animal attractions. Also, since they are such an important and influential player in the travel and tourism industry they are able to convey a message about the importance of animal welfare to a substantial amount of people. These factors, among others, will add to the value offered to customers since people now can feel safe that whenever they buy tickets from TripAdvisor they can feel responsible.

Moreover, a potentially bad aspect of this change is the fact that they to some extent are affecting people’s income. Seeing that such “cruel” animal attraction often find place in developing or poor countries, it might substantially harm the economy of people selling these types of attractions. That said, in this case we feel like there is more good to it than bad.

Tripadvisor is not the only online-marketplace that’s changing their business model towards  sustainability. Lately, several online platforms have added new regulations to their product. Airbnb recently committed to inclusion and respect for all of its customers by implementing a nondiscrimination policy. Given the power these online marketplaces as Tripadvisor and Airbnb have, there is no doubt a their actions could affect the consumer´s behaviour and beliefs. We can only hope that more online marketplaces realise the impact they have, and continue to make changes with the goal of changing consumer behaviour in a more sustainable manner.

Sustainable jeans, why bother?

by Ena, Camilla, Ida og Solveig

Weekday is a Sweden-based retailer best known for its Cheap Monday brand of denim, also they offer fashionable clothes for a fair price to some parts of Europe. They see themselves as a modern brand and envision keeping both the future of fashion and the future of society in mind when selling clothes. One of their core values is that “Weekday customers should feel like they can buy the latest fashion without compromising their value” and as a result they created sustainable jeans.

In spring 2015 Weekday took a step to improve the way they produce clothing by implementing sustainable material in all of their MTWTFSS 5-pocket jeans. By doing this they prove to work hard to produce the best selection of garment combined with their vision of always include a design journey of constant refinement.

Weekday emphasises that by using sustainable materials in their jeans, they are contributing in creating a better future one step at a time. Although it is hard changing everything at once, they are constantly trying to better their production and distribution into a more sustainable process. For example they use ecologically sustainable fabric and communicate to their customers exactly what material has gone into making their jeans.

Today, Weekday is trying to build a circular economy by using and reusing cotton, and they have also implemented iCollect in their stores. iCollect offers customers to hand in old clothes and garments so that Weekday can reuse the fabric in new products. By doing this they are shedding more light and limiting their negative externalities.

Weekday says the following about why they’re not a 100 % sustainable yet:

“When it comes to changing materials it is difficult to change everything at once. We do however strive to become more sustainable. We see it as our mission to make things better step-by-step, season-by-season. This is only the first of many steps towards a better future”

Do you consider what garments are made of when shopping new clothes? Do you think a retail-clothing store can become a hundred per cent sustainable? If so, how can this be accomplished?

Biofuel in airplanes – on the way to something better?

by Henrik, André, David, Karine and Torbjørn

With improved battery technologies, the growth of electrical cars, trucks, ferries and also soon boats seem inevitable. With more and more renewable energy in the electrical grid, the last frontier on making transportation sustainable is air travel. But the road ahead looks long and winding until we see airplanes fuelled by solar panels on the wings and batteries charged at the airport instead of trucks with the ordinary fossil airplane fuel we use today.

Among the ways many try to reduce the CO2-emissions from the sector is by using biofuel. Biofuel can, according to the Norwegian airport authorities, Avinor, Boifuel can substitute up to 50 % of the fuel used today by adding it to the fuel mix, without affecting either the engines or the fuel distribution systems already in place. Using oil already used in food production, or by using wood from growing Norwegian woods, their CO2-footprint is 80 percent lower than regular fuel. Do you think investment in production of such fuel is a good idea? Hopefully, the time in which it is profitable will be quite short. Or will it just help loosen the preassure on airlines and others to make the complete technology jump to sustainable carbon-neutral solutions?

For more info, see https://avinor.no/konsern/miljo-og-samfunn/biodrivstoff/ (only in Norwegian).

Photo: Avinor.no

ReGen Villages – Sustainable Urban Living

by Alex, Melanie, Dylan, Felicitas & Lara

Can you imagine picking up your salad greens and vegetables at the greenhouse attached to your home? That you would gather your eggs directly from the village chicken coop, and your food waste would all get harvested for compost?

ReGen could imagine all this and is about to realize it. In Almere, Netherlands, ReGen plans to finalize its vision of the sustainable village until 2018. Ideally, everything the village and its inhabitants need, would be provided from the closed loop within this small society.

Even if it sounds too good for being true, the concept is far from being just idealistic and well thought out. The food waste gathered from the households is composted and used as food for flies, which in turn feed fish, which afterwards fertilize aquaponic gardens (systems that combine fish farming and hydroponic agriculture, where plant roots are submerged in a solution rich of nutrients rather than soil). Those aquaponic farms grow food for residents to eat, as well as seasonal gardens, which are fertilized by waste from livestock raised to feed residents. Rainwater is harvested and filtered to be used in farms and gardens, and on-site solar panels power the homes.

A village could produce enough fresh food to take care of 50-100% of the needs of its residents and in the case that there is an overcapacity of food or energy produced, those can be sold and the revenues used to offset resident fees.

Finally, more organic food, clean energy and clean water are produced, while the overall waste is reduced. As a result, the vision of the circular economy becomes reality.

However, not all the villages will be able to produce the same amount of food and the percentage of the nutritional needs they could fulfill will depend on the climate of the region in which it is built.

We are about to move in – do you join?

Read more at:

http://www.businessinsider.com/self-sufficient-village-regen-2016-9?r=US&IR=T&IR=T

http://www.regenvillages.com/

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-dutch-town-will-grow-its-own-food-live-off-grid-and-handle-its-own-waste

http://www.effekt.dk/regenvillages/