Erasmus+ EcoEntrepreneurship

^{We publish this picture with the permission of the childrens' parents. Thank you Yousre for translating the paper into Arabic.}

In our discussions, two environmental challenges kept coming up. One observation was, that young people buy quite a lot of clothes. Some of them are cheap and don't last very long, others are soon forgotten in the drawer. Another observation was the tremendous amount of food waste that we produce in our households and generally in society. We learned, that the amount of food waste is tolerable at our school canteen, except for the special diets. When there is something delicious on offer, some students temporarily forget, that they are vegan, and there is food left over. Each of us have observed, that despite efforts against it, there is often some food going bad in our own refrigerators. We decided to tackle this.

^{This is our advertisemet for the event. It asks: "Did you hoard too much?"}
On Monday, December 12th we organised a "waste food day" at our school. In cooperation of our cookery class teacher we called for students to enroll for cooking with us from 10-12 o'clock and to bring any food from
home, that was in danger of going bad - such as sprouting carrots or last year's berries from the fridge. Unfortunately, no one enrolled, so we asked for participants from two schools for children with special needs and another upper secondary school in the region. It was on too short notice this time, but we agreed to develope something together in spring. In the end, we asked our little friends, who are seeking asylum in Finland. They embraced the proposition with shiny eyes!

Our students went around in stores describing our event and asking for sponsors. One store and a kiosk gave us bags and cardboard boxes full of food, candy, crisps, chocolate, pastries, energy bars, milk, coffee, yogurt and what not! Both of these sponsors want to continue working with us.

^{Saving food from the bin at our stand in the school lobby.}
The ready food was given to students for free, and most of it was gone within 10 minutes. The students could donate some money for an environmental cause, but this was voluntary. Our main goal was to raise awareness. We saw a lot of happy faces on this day! On the 12th of December the test week was about to begin, and the students had a lot of learning to do. The snacks were welcome for sure! A big thank you to our sponsors!

^{This is a compilation that we made as a thank you to our sponsor.}
The friendly entrepreneur from the kiosk also brought last christmas' rutabaga casserole from home, which we turned into a bread. Her ham casserole was turned into a salty pie, adding some leftover cheese etc.

We spent three hours baking with our adorable Iraqui and Kurdish friends. It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of chocolaty, smiling faces!

0 kommenttia

We're doing as good as hell!

2016-12-11T23:41:50+02:00

On the 25th of November you can choose between Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day.

We chose to hear the lecture "Helvetin hyvin menee - It's going as good as hell", which was organised in connection with the waste reduction week in Tampere. In the panel there were Professor Esko Valtaoja and Osmo Soininvaara, Member of Finnish Parliament (The Greens). They talked about the relation of happiness, consumption and natural resources.

The event was organised next door to our school by Ekokumppanit and Pirkanmaan jätehuolto (Tampere Regional Solid Waste Management) from 6-8 pm.

At the beginnig of the event a representative of Pirkanmaan jätehuolto pointed out, that the inhabitants of the region Pirkanmaa produce 100 garbage trucks of waste per day. It was surprising to hear, that single days like Christmas do not stand out at all in these scales. The amount of waste that we produce remains unchanged from year to year, although there are efforts made to reduce it. The only thing which will show to some extent in the amount of waste is recession.

First, we saw the following video by Esko Valtaoja:

In the video Esko Valtaoja says, that the world is doing better than ever in many ways. However, if everyone lives like us Finns, one Earth is not enough. Humanity holds the keys to our problems and he seems to trust, that we will use those keys as well. One of the answers is circular economy. As an example, he mentions the Finnish recycling system of beverage bottles. Imagine that we could be equally efficient in other fields!

According to Valtaoja we pay far to much attention to "the storm on the surface", like Brexit and Trump. The darker the figures the more credible they seem to appear to people. Despite negative headlines the deeper currents are taking us to the right direction.

Osmo Soininvaara asked, what the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is.

- The optimist is of the opinion, that we live in the best time ever. The pessimist agrees.

Mr Valtaoja was of the opinion, that we need economical growth in order to get rid of powerty. Mr Soininvaara pointed out, that at some point you should stop striving for more growth. Japan has not had any economical growth in 25 years. We are now craving 5 Earths. If we were willing to cut down 10%, we could make it. At the moment we live in a system that favours playing dirty. It is the task of politicians to rewrite the rules.

There needs to be a shift from growth in material or energy to growth in information. The problem is that the growth of information is a source of anxiety for many. The picture below calls for new ways of doing things.

The approach to the subject was perhaps a bit more personal than expected, but our group agreed there were some good points made.

0 kommenttia

Meeting for Planning 17.11.

2016-12-17T10:46:04+02:00

Pictures and text coming

0 kommenttia

On Eco-Entrepreneurship and the Talkootori-project

2016-12-17T10:46:36+02:00

Text coming

d

d

d

d

d

0 kommenttia

On 28.10. Suvi Holm from Ekokumppanit visited us

2016-11-21T14:38:07+02:00

Suvi Holm, the CEO of the non-profit organisation Ekokumppanit described their business activity to us, discussed topical environmental challenges, named some eco-enterprises and commented on our ideas for ecological initiatives.

An excerpt from a participant's learning diary:

This time the CEO of Ekokumppanit visited us in order to present their organisation and their activities.

She told us many interesting things, and I want to list a few here, which particularly stayed in my mind and interested me.

- Ekokumppanit Oy is a non-profit organisation who think that being active is what counts. Without being active there is no change. Apart from knowledge we also need activity.

- People often use a lot of different terms to describe the same thing. For this reason, ecology and other environmental activities can sound distant and frightening and very difficult to achieve. However, you don't have to see things as difficult, because you can actually achieve a lot with little effort. Everyday choices matter a lot!

- There are a lot of solutions that save the nature; less is more, renewable materials, organic food and local products, from products to services, recycling, borrowing, sharing, energy efficiency and many more. We have everything on earth, so why would we not use everything in a wisely and with a long-term perspective? I am sure we all want to preserve the diversity of nature, the production of quality food, clean water and as clean and fresh an air as possible.

- The importance of circular economy will raise in the future, which means, that the life span of products will be prolonged and they can be reused. We will also be using natural and eco-friendly materials etc. Cotton for example is very bad for nature, because growing it needs a lot of water and harmful pesticides. We must find other materials to replace it.

- Ekokumppanit wants to make change and inform people more and more. Therefore they organise lectures, events, training, publish animations and e.g. hand out stickers that reming to switch off the light at schools.

The first and foremost thought is that we are all in the same boat and creating change for the future

- Allthough people know, what would be the right thing to do, they do not act accordingly. We know, we should eat healthily and go to gym regularly in order to stay in good health, but yet we do not. The same goes for environmental issues.

- Only 20% of all consumers are willing to pay extra for an ecologically produced product. Many of those 20% travel to Thailand for their holidays once a year, and thus the ecological benefits gain from the ecological choices in the daily shopping are lost. In order to make real change, you have to find the will.

- Even though an eco-entrepreneur has a vision of a better world, an eco-entreprise is still a business that relies on the paying customer. You need to have something to offer. In Juupajoki, Finland a farmer quitted farming and now business people come from ia. Germany to stay there over the weekend in total quietness. They have to switch of their phones and computers and just go to the sauna and enjoy the nature. If you can offer something adventurous to your customers, they will maybe not travel to Thailand but stay closer and make smaller carbon footprints.

1 kommenttia

Nuoret Apuun -project in cooperation with Coreorient

2016-10-30T14:57:43+02:00

We were interested to learn about Piggybaggy's road from inspiration to innovation. What happened along the way and was it rocky at times?

To learn about this, our Swedish and Danish parnters can read this article in Swedish.

We, on the other hand, were hoping to meet the CEO of Coreorient in person, so we contacted him in order to ask him for an interview or a skype conference, to which he agreed. Two days later, Harri Paloheimo got back to us with an amazing offer:

He invited our students to participate in the testing and development of their new solution Talkootori in Tampere. You can read about the project in English here. Currently, the company is cooperating with various municipal agencies of Tampere to develop a service, through which all kind of people can participate easily in occasional voluntary work directly in private housholds.

This service provides meaningfull activities for the long-term-unemployed, provides CV-material for young people and promotes the integration of immigrants while it offers more help to those in need, such as elderly people and families with children.

Students work in occasional jobs all around the world, but they might also be interested in voluntary work, if it is made easy enough and fits in their lives.

Of course we embraced this rare opportunity to concretely be part of this process of developing, testing and applying a new solutiuon. Coreorient applied for a grant form the HundrEd- foundation.

Watch this video to find out, what HundrEd is about:

Based on our experienes the aim is to find a model which works for various agencies and also in other cities and municipalities. Later, this concept and good practices can be multiplied in other upper secondary schools in Finland in order to promote the active citizenship of the students.

After our pilot project, the idea is to broaden the specturm to other functions such as occasional jobs, the profit of which will be automatically transferred to common-good purposes such as school trip accounts.

Our project name in Hundred is Nuoret Apuun – youth to help.

0 kommenttia

Our First Meeting on October 6th

2016-10-30T19:13:19+02:00

We started off by defining some of the key terms relating to our project. When we hear the project name Eco Entrepreneurship, we all have some immediate associations, what it might be about. But instead of just settling with a hunch it is important that we all know, what we are referring to.

The terms that we discussed were Ecological, Circular vs. Finite Economy, Eco-entreprise, Innovation, Eco-innovation and Eco-social-innovation.

Here are some topics, which we took up in connection with the discussion of these terms:

Ecological

Plastic or Paper bag - which will you choose at the counter? The paper bag is brown, so it has to be more ecological - or is it? Although we all know, which criteria an ecological product should fulfill, it is not always easy to recognize the option with the smallest ecological footprint. In relation to this question, we watched the first 3,5 minutes of Leyla Acaroglu's inspiring Ted Talk:

Circular economy

Circular economy aims to keep products, components and materials and the value bound to them in circulation for as long as possible. The production and consumption create as little waste and loss as possible. The circular economy is referred to as a closed system, where the resources are returned into productive use again and again. Meanwhile, the amount of waste is also reduced. The products are designed and the materials chosen considering the durability and recyclability of the product.

The textile manufactorer Finlayson is offering to buy used linen in order to produce carpets. Nanso makes jewelry out of used stockings. Voglia and Marimekko produce bags and pouches from waste material. Joutsen offers a repair service for their down products and Arela care for their cashmir products.

Eco Entrepreneurship

We need to distinguish between the environmental strategies of big companies and Eco-entreprises.

An Eco-entreprise is a company, which has turned an environmental challenge or problem into a profitable business idea. In the USA eg. there is a family business, who collects biowaste from the neighbourhood, turns it into compost and sells it to its customers.

Some of the business ideas might be nothing new - but temporarily forgotten in our throwaway society: A repair shop for bikes or electric devices or a service shop who clean airconditioners, which in turn leads to energy savings for the customers.We all know you can rent a party dress - but why not expand this to childrens' or winter clothes.

A very inspiring example is the Piggybaggy-application of the company Coreorient:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJBr0kkvgI#action=share

Entrepreneurship

In Finnish, entrepreneurship can also be translated into yritteliäisyys, ie. trying hard, relentlessly.

Being an entrepreneur is a way of thinking, a way of life. We usually only see the big success stories like Supercell - but not the 1000 failed attempts that went before.

There was a documentary on Finnish television about a Finnish team, who developed the Swing Game. Although it provokes quite different associations for the English reader, the game turned out to be a simple copy of Angry Birds, basically. The viewer soon understood, that this bird would not fly very high. What is relevant for entrepreneurship is - however - that you could throw up any idea in the team. No one would laugh at the others' suggestion but evolve on it. The team worked relentlessly and came up with many innovative ways to promote the game:

This foto is by yle. Read the related article about the Swing Game -project.

Another example is the Finnish company Gugguu, who produce childrens' clothing. Two sisters were tired with baby clothes that were too wide and short at the same time. They could no longer bear with the same-old retro-patterns. When they started their own company, they heard comments like: "Girls, girls, these boots are too big for you". In 2015 their annual turn-over was 1 685 000 Euros. To the article.

Gugguu´s products sell like hot cakes. (Foto: Helsingin Sanomat)

We are not about to found a company, but our aim is to come up with small innovations, which will offer a solution for an ecological challenge or problem and inspire and motivate people to follow our example. In the process, we will face similar challenges and hurdles like the creators of the Swing Game and Gugguu.

Innovation

An innovation is not only a new product, but it can also be a new way to act or use alredy existing resources.

All innovations start with the observation, that there is a problem that needs to be solved. This is how man invented the ax, wheel and plough. There is the realisation, that something can be achieved more easily or efficiently in matter of time and/ or resources. The German inventor of robots famously stated, that he was just too lazy to calculate.

Often, the knowledge is already there as tacit knowledge. For example in Lempäälä, a neighbouring municipality of Tampere, the employees of the city were asked, how things could be improved and be done more smartly at their working places. In the end they received more than 600 ideans and initiatives. One observation was, that an enormous amount of cleaning products was going to waste because of short expiring periods. Replacing these products and making other changes led to savings up to 2 Million Euros. To the article.

Eco-Social-Innovation

We were very happy to receive our first guest, Sanna Nevala, who worked as a volunteer in Iringa/ Tansania for 2 years. She coordinated a workshop for locals called RLabs, where also a Eco-Social-innovation was born.

In the workshop, which Sanna presents in the picture below, the participants were sent out to the town to collect waste, which they used to build the Iringa of their dreams with all the functions they thought that were needed:

A Social innovation benefits the community. According to Sanna, RLabs is thus a social innovation in itself. She pointed out, that you don't learn innovating at Tansanian schools. There, the teacher is seen as an authority. It might not be evident to us, but we are encouraged to independant thinking from early on. RLabs taught the local participants a new way of thinking, in which they can take matters in their own hands and turn a problem into a way of income. Former participants now continue the project and share their aquired knowledge with others.

Go to the pages of RLabs.

an Eco-innovation solves an ecological problem, and Eco-Social-innovation also benefits the community at the same time.

In Iringa, there is a big problem with waste management. Consequently people dispose of their garbage by burning it in their yards. Two men turned this problem into a business idea. One of them owned a tuk-tuk, which they now used to collect garbage from middle-income neighborhoods for a fee:

The principle of RLabs is that you do not need any foundation, but you ask yourself, what you can do with the resources you already have. Another good example was a group of people, who made lean chairs and garden decorations out of old car tires:

A young man started producing bags from recycled package materials:

Sanna held a workshop for us, which they also did with RLabs. The participants received a coat hanger, an empty bottle and a pair of scissors with the task to find completely new usages for them. This task is according to the notion of ecological innovation: We use existing resources for new purposes.

You can melt the metal of this item and produce jewelry. If you take it apart, you end up with two knives.

If you are cooking two dishes at the same time, you can use this device to stir both without washing it in between using both ends.
You can use this to slide down a rope
You can use it as a ruler
You can hang something on the hook

You can refill this item.
If you cut this item in two you can use this item as a pencil holder or a cookie cutter form
You can use it as a foam roller
You can use it for storage
You can create furniture for Barbie-dolls
You can use it to scratch or massage your back
You can use the lable for jewelry or little pouches
You can melt it and make decorative items with it

Homework:

1. Observe your living environment. What works in an ecological sense and what does not?

2. Which Eco-Entreprises can you detect? Keep your eyes open when walking in the city and also ask your family and friends.

0 kommenttia

Erasmus+ EcoEntrepreneurship

Related Pages

Nuoret apuun

Talkootori

Swideas

Crossing Borders

Project Homepage

Newsletter December 2016 - January 2017

Seminar in Denmark 16.-18.1.2017

Let's save food from the bin!

We're doing as good as hell!

Meeting for Planning 17.11.

On Eco-Entrepreneurship and the Talkootori-project

On 28.10. Suvi Holm from Ekokumppanit visited us

Nuoret Apuun -project in cooperation with Coreorient

Our First Meeting on October 6th