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A platform helps producers track and collect post-consumer products
CategoriesSustainable News

A platform helps producers track and collect post-consumer products

By Zarkon Group,
A platform helps producers track and collect post-consumer products

Spotted: According to the World Bank, each year 4.9 million tons of plastic waste in Indonesia is goes uncollected, is left in open dumpsites, or is leaked from inadequately managed landfills. This ‘wasted waste’ blights neighbourhoods, damages wildlife, and leaches chemicals into the water. To find a solution, Jakarta-based startup Octopus has developed a circular economy platform to collect and dispose of waste. 

Octopus offers two main kinds of service. In one, consumers download an app and book a time slot for waste pickers – called pelestari – to collect their trash. The rubbish is then sold on to recycling businesses.  

The role of waste picker already exists in Indonesia. However, by taking waste directly from consumers instead of sifting through landfills, the pelestari can work in a safer way and earn higher prices. And, because the app formalises their labour, the pickers can build a verifiable employment history, making it easier to open bank accounts and gain access to credit. Octopus also provides a training programme through its app.  

The other part of Octopus’ business model is to provide data on waste collection and recycling to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands that help them meet their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets. Octopus also runs a deposit refund system for larger producers and brands. The startup already has more than 150,000 users and raised $5 million (around €4.7 million) last year, in a funding round led by Openspace and SOSV. 

Plastic waste is a huge concern, so it is no surprise that Springwise has spotted a lot of energy being put towards developing innovative solutions. These range from recycling tyres into green roof panels to using fungi to break down hard-to-recycle plastics.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

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Robots helping children with disabilities stay on track
CategoriesSustainable News

Robots helping children with disabilities stay on track

By Zarkon Group,
Robots helping children with disabilities stay on track

Spotted: Teaching in an inclusive manner that makes full use of accessibility technologies can greatly “improve the potential for learning in children and youth with learning disabilities.” Robots have been used in recent years to assist students with autism spectrum disorder, and now a team of researchers at the Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Laboratory (SIRRL) at the University of Waterloo in Canada has created a robot to help students with learning disabilities stay focused on the tasks at hand.  

Led by Dr Kerstin Dautenhahn, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, the group tested a social assistance robot named QT in classrooms. Instructors use a tablet to communicate with the robot, including indicating when the robot is to lead a one-on-one lesson with a student. 

QT uses hand and head gestures, as well as changing facial expressions and speech to communicate. In order to help students stay attuned to the lesson, the robot uses a mix of jokes, games, breathing exercises, and physical movement.  

The studies found that the students who learned alongside the robot completed more of their tasks than those without QT. Now, the research team is planning further studies of the robot’s assistive capabilities, along with ways in which the technology could be made more widely accessible.  

From an online assessment that identifies children struggling to read to a mobile-first education platform, Springwise is spotting innovations making education fun and easy to access for a range of abilities.

Written By: Keely Khoury

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A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 
CategoriesSustainable News

A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 

By Zarkon Group,
A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 

Spotted: With research showing that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are frequently withdrawn during times of economic uncertainty, the full picture of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is still developing. Many environmental advocates hoped that the sudden drop in global emissions would become the new norm, but the opposite happened. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that global emissions rebounded to their highest level in history in 2021. Part of that was a rebound in airline travel and a steep increase in transport by car.  

In light of the corporate struggle to do what is best for the planet, Spanish software company APlanet created a single, customisable dashboard for companies to track their environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures in one place. Whatever a business is doing to protect the global health of the planet, and wherever that occurs in the supply chain, the APlanet platform tracks it.

A company sets up the categories that it wants to track, which can include global standards as well as internal, local, or regional measures. APlanet helps identify data inputs and builds a bespoke dashboard. Companies can assign owners to different data sets and, when needed, easily create holistic performance reports for the entire organisation.

The detailed analysis provided by APlanet helps operational managers track efficiencies and a range of measures across multiple locations, including gender equality, emissions, energy usage, recycling, water usage and more.

CSR and ESG are important to consumers, with much brand loyalty pegged to a company’s ethos. As organisations seek ways to bake sustainability into their very foundations, innovators are rising to the challenge with technologies such as a platform that verifies and tracks impact projects and a social media app that raises funding for sustainable brands and causes.  

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference

Drones track pollution to provide real-time air quality data
CategoriesSustainable News

Drones track pollution to provide real-time air quality data

By Zarkon Group,
Drones track pollution to provide real-time air quality data

Spotted: Calling itself a Guardian of the Air, Peruvian startup qAIRa combines static and mobile monitoring for the most up-to-date air quality information. Constant data streams help urban planners and transport managers track the environmental effects of their work, while alerting area communities to the best times of day to be outside.

With devices for monitoring indoor and outdoor air, as well as a system of drones for tracking larger areas and changing conditions, qAIRa brings diverse data together into a single platform that makes it easy to see, at a glance, any areas of concern. The platform is open source, and the company encourages feedback and suggestions for new applications of the collected data.

The system measures particulate matter, humidity, temperature, UV radiation, noise, and more, and the outdoor devices are either solar or electric powered. Already working in several locations in Peru, the company is exploring funding options to help expand availability of the platform nationally and internationally. An educational module for schoolchildren is currently being developed.

Springwise has recently spotted several other innovations focused on air quality including an air quality app that empowers users through education, air quality data for building management, and smarter, cheaper industrial air monitoring.

Written by: Keely Khoury

29th July 2022

Email: hola@qairadrones.com

Website: qairadrones.com

Reference

A CSR platform enables companies to choose and track verified impact projects
CategoriesSustainable News

A CSR platform enables companies to choose and track verified impact projects

By Zarkon Group,
A CSR platform enables companies to choose and track verified impact projects

Spotted:  Investors and corporates alike are increasingly interested in using software as a service (SaaS) models to integrate sustainability-focused infrastructure into corporate platforms. In line with this trend, Singaporean startup Handprint is providing businesses with an easy way to improve their planetary impact. 

The Handprint platform offers companies a choice of pre-verified impact projects grouped into themes such as social justice, clean water, and deforestation. Each company can then choose to support the ones that best align with its brand and values.  

Once a company has chosen the projects it wishes to support, software plugins integrate contributions to those projects into core business functions such as e-commerce. For example, food delivery company Saladstop integrated with Handprint’s technology to allow its customers to order ‘climate positive’ meals. Similarly, media platform Teads worked with Handprint to let its users dedicate part of their advertising spend to the regeneration project of their choice.  

The idea behind Handprint is that the company makes the contribution rather than the end consumer. But by using Handprint’s platform, companies gain benefits such as increased brand loyalty and greater cart conversion, while also linking their impact contributions to their core business. 

Handprint also makes it easy to track the company’s overall contribution – both in terms of monetary investment and impact outcomes. The progress of the company’s chosen projects can be traced with quasi-real-time data and on-the-ground photos – which the company can post on social media. 

A really important benefit of Handprint’s approach is that it significantly reduces intermediary costs on the back-end. By using blockchain technology and satellite imagery Handprint is able to avoid some of the costs normally associated with donation-based systems. As a result, more money flows to projects on the ground and less to third-party administration. In fact, the company claims to have one of the best dollar-to-impact rates in the world, being on average 68% cheaper than its competitors. 

In a crowded marketplace for corporate impact, Handprint’s credibility is boosted by its links with academia, and the financial backing it has recently received through a $2.2 million (around €2.08 million) funding round. 

Other recent software innovations aimed at corporate sustainability include a platform for measuring an organisation’s IT footprint, a SaaS platform that helps real estate investors lower their environmental impact, and a platform that simplifies ESG data. 

Written By: Katrina Lane

27th May 2022

Website: handprint.tech

Contact: handprint.tech/contact

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