Protecting the planet, the environment and all people. Ecological companies try to produce all products in an environmentally friendly way. But how are they planning on doing that and what exactually are they planning on doing? We, Haneen, Malvika, Alisia, Imagene and Ilias are going to tell you more about ecological companies.
An ecological company is a company that makes products in favour of nature. For example: they recycle plastic and make clothes that are eco-friendly. Ecological companies stand for protecting and restoring the natural environment. You are called an ecological company if you invest in nature friendly products and make your company eco-friendly. Ecological companies raise social awareness about sustainability and about ways to help restore/protect nature.
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We have interviewed two companies for our research. The questions can be found in the document below.
questions_ecological_companies.docx | |
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Dopper
The first company we interviewed is Dopper. We have done an interview in the building of Dopper. The woman we interviewed did not want to be recorded. That’s why we took notes and edited them.
Dopper is a company that makes bottles from recycled plastic. Because Dopper is against pollution, they also recycle things. Dopper works together with other companies that recycle items and that is how they become bigger. Besides selling bottles, they also sell books to make people aware of how important the environment is.
Dopper
The idea all started with looking at a documentary about plastic. Marijn Everaarts, the founder and owner of this company, saw that plastic is very difficult to remove by nature itself. Because of this, Marijn Everaarts wanted to start something that would reduce this, nature friendly bottles! The idea behind the bottle is that people refill the bottle with water from the tap instead of buying so many plastic bottles from shops and then throwing them all on the street. If something happens to the bottle, you can still recycle it in TU Delft. The company itself is in Haarlem.
Part of the money that Dopper earns goes to other organizations and activities. Dopper also gives money to other countries such as Nepal because they do not have clean water. Most customers of Dopper come from the Netherlands and Belgium.
Future plans
Dopper wants to sell bottles in Germany in the future to receive more attention and to make more people aware of the recycling of plastic.
Their 3 goals are:
1. To raise social awareness about the impact of single-used plastic waste and to inspire people to make a change themselves.
2. To offer an innovative product line of sustainable design bottles for drinking water.
3. To increase access for safe drinking water for people around the world.
The customers of dopper are generally satisfied with dopper. They like the idea and the way the company works. The design and colors of the bottle are very beautiful. And that is actually what used to attract customers in the beginning. The fact that the bottle is made from recycled plastic and can be easily washed is also a good idea of dopper. Nevertheless, customers also find that the company is not entirely ecological because of the plastic of which the bottle is made. We prefer no plastic at all in nature.
The transcript of the interview with the clients can be found in the document below.
transcript_interview_clients.docx | |
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Bello&Eco
The second company that we interviewed is Bello & Eco. We did the interview on the phone and we recorded it. the transcript can be found in the document under the video.
Bello & Eco is a company that makes clothes that are nature friendly. Their goal is to make sure that everyone can have the best of nature in their wardrobe by offering sustainable and affordable clothes and accessories.
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The workplace
The workplace of the company is spread over European countries, also in Peru and India will you find small studios and factories of the company. In Peru, single mothers work for good wages. In India you will also find a factory where they use green energy (solar panels and wind energy). The working conditions are clean, safe and not too big, which ensures order. How does the company ensure that it gets customers? Well, they do that by sharing their ideas and products on social media, they talk a lot about it and they also organize workshops at schools and universities.
Where can Bello & Eco find its customers?
The company refers to people between the ages of 25 and 55. Girls love fashion, but also young men. But we have seen on the website that prices are slightly higher than in the regular markets, so an ordinary young person would not be able to pay for this. Therefore they focus on people between 25 and 55 years.
Production
The company produces sustainable clothing and accessories for women. At first they wanted to focus on women's fashion, but over time they saw that men like fashion a lot.
Their goal
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The products are made with organic products. They have better qualities than normal clothing and can last longer. And cleaning the products also uses less energy, because they have to be washed by hand.
Future plans?
Because they also have many male customers, they want to design a sustainable clothing line for men later on in the future. The company also wants to invest in ecological shoes later on. The idea came to the founder of a visit to an ecological shop in Peru, where they had shoes for sale that were made out of fish.
The customers of Bello&Eco talk very positively about the company. They think it is very good that the clothes are made from natural raw materials and that the way of making clothes does not burden the environment. The people who work for Bello&Eco also show interest in sustainibility and they always give the customers much information about the clothes.
transcript_interview_bello___eco.docx | |
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Comparison companies
Both, Dopper and Bello&Eco are ecological companies and both companies go for it in every way they can. That is for sure. They both want to reduce environmental pollution. The only difference is what they do and the way they do it.
Dopper wants to reduce environmental pollution by reducing the use of plastic bottles. They do that by selling bottles that you can refill. If you can refill your bottle, there will be no need to buying a plastic bottle every time you need water and are not at home. With money that is left they help other charities who have something to do with water. For example they help support Simavi, a charity in Nepal, for cleaner water.
Bello&Eco reduces environmental pollution by making clothes that are handmade. So there isn’t any carbon emission. The difference between other ecological clothing companies and Bello&Eco’s is that they want the clothes to, not only be good for the environment , but also look good. They also help people by giving jobs to the people that need jobs. For example: single mothers.
An agreement is that they both try to sell their products by making their products look good and both companies try to do something good for people around the world.
Conclusion
The main question of this research is ‘what measures do companies take to implement a more eco-friendly policy and to attract more customers?’
Every ecological company takes measures such as making nature friendly products, which they do in favour of the nature. There are a lot of different ways of taking measures to implement a more eco-friendly policy. For example, by recycling plastic bottles and re-making them into plastic products. But you can also do things like making nature friendly shoes or nature friendly clothes.
We interviewed Dopper and Bello&Eco. Both companies are ecological companies and both companies go for it in every way they can, that is for sure! They both want to reduce environmental pollution. The only difference is what they do and how they do it.
Dopper wants to reduce environmental pollution by reducing the use of plastic bottles. They do that by selling bottles that can be refilled. If you can refill your bottle, there will be no need to buy a plastic bottle every time you need to drink water or are not at home. With the money that is left, Dopper helps other charities who have something to do with water. For example, they help by supporting Simavi, a charity in Nepal, for cleaner water.
Bello&Eco reduces environmental pollution by making clothes that are handmade and coloured with natural materials. On this way there is almost no carbon emission. The difference between other ecological clothing companies and Bello&Eco is that they want the clothes to, not only be good for the environment, but to also look good. They also help people by giving jobs to the people who need jobs. For example, single mothers.
Agreements are that they both try to sell their products by making their products look good and both companies try to do something good for the people around the world.
Final answer: ecological companies take measures such as making nature friendly products. Companies that we have interviewed took measures such as making bottles that you can use over and over again and making nature friendly clothes. To attract more customers these companies raise awareness about their eco-friendly products with posters and with their online website. You are able to find a lot of information about their company and you can buy the products online which makes buying the products a lot easier.
Awareness activity
To spread awareness about what the companies do and why they do it we have made a folder for both companies. These folders can be hang up in the school.
These are the two folders:
awareness_activity_dopper.docx | |
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awareness_activity_bello_eco_rl.docx | |
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Comparison websites India and The Netherlands
We are going to discuss the differences between our website and the website of Vibgyor High, in India, with the same topic, ecological companies.
The first thing we noticed is that the group from India uses more videos while we use more text. Of course we also have some video’s, but the difference between the video’s is very big. Because our interview in Skype was in Dutch we decided not to record it, but to make a transcript. The second thing we noticed is that we have more pictures which can give you a better view of our project. But on Vibgyor High’s website you can see that many of their pictures have to do with plants and trees, and that gives you a bit more of a premonition with the assignment.
The first thing you see on the website of Vigyor High is that it is less extensive with text than ours. You can see that our site has much more statistics and text than the site of Vibgyor High. On the other hand, the introduction of Vibgyor High’s site is a video, where they all present themselves, while on our website, there are only photos of the team members and an introduction text. The last thing we want to say is that the group in India has done a good job and that we are proud of our own group as well.
Process
When we started this project, we formed a team very fast and easily. Choosing what we were going to do research about was a bit harder, but in the end we choose ecological companies and we don’t regret it. Choosing a team leader wasn’t that hard either. Especially because choosing a team leader was part of the assignment. We worked together and didn’t act as if you have to do what the team leader said.
But really starting with the research was a lot harder. That is because we had a lot of tests and reports to hand in for a long period and we couldn’t start with the research until we had an interview. Getting one wasn’t that easy. First we mailed Marqt an Nice. Marqt rejected us. After Marqt we mailed Dopper. They did want to hold an interview with us, but it couldn’t be done in face to face. We had to do it over phone. We held the interview on November 20th, 2018 at half past 5 pm. To get pictures of the place we asked Britte Schilt to send us some pictures of the workplace. Nice couldn’t have an interview with us, but they had no problem with answering our questions on a document. In the end we found out that Nice was never going to response. We had to settle an interview last minute. That wasn’t that easy either. First of all we mailed Protix, but they couldn’t have an interview till February. So we had to search for another company and chose for Protix. We mailed them and settled an interview on December 21st, 2018 at 12 o’clock am. We couldn’t do this interview face to face. We did it over Skype. For a look at the workplace we asked Carmen Lavieri to send in some pictures.
After the interviews we also had to find costumers of the products. To find costumers we walked around the school. We only found four costumers in our school. To find costumers from Bello&Eco by ourselves would be almost impossible. The company is very far away from us and only sells online. So we asked Carmen Lavieri if she could settle an interview with three of her customers. They didn’t want an interview, but they didn’t mind filling in a document.
The division of tasks didn’t go as easily either. Because of all the tests an reports we had to made, we didn’t really had time to make one and making one via WhatsApp didn’t work. On December 18th, 2018 our school scheduled the whole day in for this project. That was the day that our task division really became one. Three days later we had our last interview, with Bello&Eco and we decided that everything would be signed in on December 25th, 2018.
Group reflection
We think that our group has done a great job with this project, but that there are things we could do better. There was always someone who didn’t get the deadline. Of course there were people who only missed the deadlines we made one or two times. We should have done that better. On the other hand, we were very fast in dividing who did what. Another thing that could have been done better is how much everybody did. It all looked very good divided, but in the end there were members who did less than the other members. The differences are big enough to say that it should have been better divided.
Our methods were no problem for us. We could do everything we had to do with the methods that we used. The only thing about the methods that could have been done better was interviewing the customers of Bello&Eco. We did the best we could. We even asked to do it over phone or via Skype, but we couldn’t get something like that.
Our technical aspects are fine. We think that the video we used was good enough.
Our Self-evaluation:
our_self-evaluation.doc | |
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