Hey there! In this last post, I would like to share with you one of the most interesting initiatives I’ve ever seen. During my stay, here in Canada, I had the chance to meet another Exchange student who turned out to be from Barcelona and she was studying interior design in Richmond.

One day we were having an informal chat about sustainability and she told me that they have a lot of projects and courses related with this topic. She shared with me some of the projects that she had done during her degree and I’ve decided to share one of them with all of you in this post.

Let me introduce you to IKEA Shoes! My friend’s project consisted in creating a product 100% recycled. They produced several shoes basically made with the most famous plastic bag in the world: the FRAKTA bag. Moreover, shoe soles were made with reused ropes. I found it such an interesting initiative! Don’t you like them? I think they look really cool! Obviously, they don’t seem the most comfortable shoes ever and my friend concluded that these shoes could be too warm for your foot, especially in summer. However, I think that it is a great point to start and make people aware of the seriousness of the situation in which we are.

So, with this initiative, I want to ask you a question. As we discussed in class, I hope that in a future we won’t need to have “Sustainability” or “Ethics” classes, because this would mean that we would have progressed into a more conscious planet. However, meanwhile, do you think that all degree should have some courses related with sustainability? Or we just have to do it in Business degrees?

Our future regarding sustainability is kind of uncertain. This is the reason why companies need to work together to reduce environmental costs of everything they make, and to create a more sustainable economy throughout the supply chain. Companies should not behave like islands, they should try to work together, to try to stop environmental damage, so that our future generations could live in the world that we would have wanted to live in. We could say that the future of the next generations relies on the co-operation of enterprises that compete with one another.

Patagonia is one of the companies that believes in having strong corporate partnerships. Patagonia has several corporate partnerships with companies that improve labor conditions worldwide, that restrict the use of dangerous chemicals, that increase transparency of social and environmental practices throughout the supply chain…among many other companies.

I would like to highlight 3 of these corporate partnerships that Patagonia have been achieving during its existence.

-1% for the planet: Since 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment.

– Fair Labor Association (FLA): The FLA is a multi-stakeholder initiative including companies, colleges, universities, and non-governmental organizations working together to improve workers’ lives.

– Textile Exchange: Patagonia was a founding member of the Textile Exchange, a nonprofit group dedicated to increase global sales of organic cotton apparel and home-textile products. The company has expanded its role by including bio-based, organic and recycled fibers.

However, I’ve seen that MEC and Patagonia have many corporate partners in common? Why do you think that this is happening?

Today, I want to share with you, a really interesting initiative leaded by Nespresso company. As we’ve seen in class this company is really committed to sustainability issues and they have created a program, that they want to achieve in 2020. They want consumers to drink “a cup of coffee that has a positive effect”. The Positive Cup program incorporates ambitious goals in the areas of coffee sourcing and social welfare; aluminium sourcing, use and disposal and resilience to climate change.

They are committed in sustainability in 3 different ways:

– Commitments on coffee: Nespresso sustainably will source 100% of its permanent Grand Cru range through the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program. They are expanding the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan. Moreover, they will want to assist farmers in achieving high certification standards – for example in water management, biodiversity and fair worker treatment – through their long-term partner Rainforest Alliance (since 2003) and Fairtrade International.

– Commitments on capsules: They encourage people to recycle their used capsules by having a link on their website in order to find the nearest recycling point. Then, they recycle these used Nespresso capsules and reuse them as new capsules, if it is possible.  In 1991, Nespresso launched the world’s first capsule recycling system in Switzerland. Nowadays, they have reached 75% global recycling capacity. Nespresso have achieved this percentage, with 14,000 dedicated capsule collection points around the world.

– Commitments to the climate:  Nespresso’s vision is to reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 10%. In addition, they aim to become 100% carbon neutral. At this moment, they are exploring ways that Club Members can opt in to contribute to this net-positive carbon consumption.

Do you have a Nespresso machine at home? What are you waiting for? Find your nearest recycling point using this link:

https://www.nespresso.com/positive/us/en#map-intro