News
10.000 Bamboo Straws for 10.000 trees with Boga Group
Through our campaign, Rethink Plastic, we collaborated with Boga Group, a culinary group owning 13 restaurant brands with hundreds of outlets all over Indonesia including Bakerzin, Pepper Lunch, Shaburi, and Kintan Buffet, to initiate “10,000 Bamboo Straws for 10,000 Trees” program. We have been provided 10,000 bamboo straws at Boga Group’s outlets and will use the profit to plant 10,000 trees. As a lead player in the culinary group, Boga Group realises that the culinary industry plays a big role in people’s consumption, including for plastic. Therefore, Boga Group wants to take action in reducing the usage of single use plastics at their outlets by launching #bogalessplastic program and initiating this campaign. Since the beginning of the campaign, Boga Group no longer provides plastic straws to customers unless requested. Instead, Boga Group offers them with reusable bamboo straws as an alternative. On Friday, August 16th 2019, Boga Group and Rethink Campaign held a press conference at Pepper Lunch Plaza Indonesia to announce the success of this program. From this campaign, Boga Group has reduced 70% of their plastic straw at their outlets and have sold 10,000 bamboo straws. This program also successfully helped Rethink Campaign in reaching 10,000 people to switch their plastic consumption with sustainable alternatives and potentially reduce 3,620,000 plastic straws in a year! We’d like to congratulate Boga Group for their success and thank the Ministry of Environment and Forestry Indonesia and DKI Jakarta Environmental Agency for the support. This campaign marked the beginning of Boga Group’s commitment to reduce plastic consumption as a business, and we hope #bogalessplastic program will sustain in the future!
Evoware Won Social Venture Challenge Asia Idea Category
So glad that Evoware was announced as one of the two winners of Idea Category on Social Venture Challenge Asia 2017! We won the award, SGD 5,000 cash prize and mentorship or incubation program. We made it after passing several stages including pitch deck submission and online voting along with 10 other finalists from six other countries. Evoware successfully brought Indonesia as the winner of Idea category in SVC Asia 2017 for the first time. DBS-NUS Social Venture Challenge Asia is an Asia-wide competition for social enterprises. The competition is organized jointly by NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS), and DBS Foundation. The aims of the competition are to identify and support innovative ideas and social ventures that demonstrate positive, scalable and sustainable social impact within the region all over Asia. SVC Asia 2017 was held from April to October 2017. Over 1,000 entries from nearly 30 countries across Asia took part. There were two categories on the competition, Idea Category and Enterprise Category. Evoware participated in SVC Asia Idea Category, that was applicable for teams who are still validating their idea, trying to build a minimum viable product or conducting trials to test their concept. We were attending the awarding night on early October in Singapore and met the judges, mentors and other winners from Enterprise category. As SVC Asia 2017 winner we also had a chance to join Social Enterprise Summit 2017 “Innovate for Impact” by DBS Foundation. Along with three other social enterprises (Crowde, TEMU and Wanderlust ID), Evoware was invited to participate on the pitching session to reach impact investors. We got 50% vote from the audience for “The Most Impressive Social Enterprise.” So thankful for all the supports that we got! Thank you once again to NUS Enterprise and DBS Foundation for giving us an honored opportunity to be a part of your community, also for all of you who are believing in our idea and giving your vote for us. We definitely can’t do this without you! Now it’s time for us to give real ecolution for our future!
Evoware’s Second Birthday Party and Ello Jello Launch at What’s Up Cafe
We just celebrated our second birthday last April, wohoo! You know you have fun, when time goes by quickly unnoticed, and we surely had one! It’s been a wonderful two years with full of experiences that helped us to improve and grow better. Thank you for those who believe in us since day 1 and everyone who supports us and made us who we are today! To celebrate our second birthday, we launched our Ello Jello edible cup with our partner, What’s Up Café. As the theme for this launching is collaboration, we invited publics to collaborate with us in “Ello Jello Dessert Making Competition”. Through this competition we let our customers to decide what kind of dessert they like to enjoy with our edible cup. The winner would have his/her creation to be included on What’s Up Café menu, how exciting! We had 30 participants in total with 30 different desserts. Every contestant was given 7 minutes to finish their creation and got a range of dessert filling from ice cream, fruits to crackers and bubbles. We got the first winner, Sherlin, a high school student who named her dessert “Ello Jello Flowers” as she cut the topping fruit into a flower shape. Beside she got her dessert made into What’s Up Café menu, she also received cash and bunch of fun prizes! Will be updating when you can start to enjoy “Ello Jello Flowers” at What’s Up Café, so stay tune! So happy we got the chance to spent time with our closest partners and audiences for Ello Jello Dessert Making Competition. Thank you everyone for coming, you know who you are, see you on the next fun events!
Our Commitment on Our Ocean Conference 2018
It was such a great opportunity that Our Ocean Conference (OOC) 2018 was held in Bali, Indonesia, on 29 – 30 October 2018. Numerous Indonesian institutions, NGOs, private sectors, professionals, and passionate individuals, participated and connected with different parties from all over the world to agree on one commitment to end plastic pollutions for healthier oceans. Evoware was invited by different institutions to share its story and experience at the conference. On the first day, we joined the “New Plastic Economy” discussion panel as the winner of the Circular Design Challenge competition. It has been a great opportunity to share our innovation to the audience, and how grants and financial support from like-minded institutions are helping us to grow strategically. On the second day, we were invited by the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries to talk on the stage of the “Youth Voices” session along with other youth-led inspirational organizations such as Bye Bye Plastic Bag and Sustainable Ocean Alliance. It was such an honor to represent the youths, and inspire them at the same time to do something for the oceans. Aside from that, we were also supported by the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs to showcase our products for the exhibition along with Pure Eco Bag (bioplastic made from cassava); a fantastic opportunity to share Indonesia’s innovations to the world. It was a humbling moment when Indonesian President, Mr. Joko Widodo, Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Susi Pudjiastuti and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi, took the time to visit our booth and discussed how our innovations can be a solution for global plastic waste issue. On this conference, Evoware made the commitment to replace 21,714 tons of plastic waste, reduce 110,216 tons of CO2 from seaweed cultivation, increase 346 farmers’ income by 2.1 times, and provide extra jobs for 728 people by 2020. To achieve these ambitious objectives, we are expanding our product range to provide more alternative plastic material for different products. This event and the many meaningful connections we made there, helped us to reconnect with our “Why” (why we do what we do), and empower all of us to keep working and creating ECOlutions; to protect a world that can no longer tolerate and handle more plastic waste. We are 100% committed to the conference tagline “Our Ocean, Our Legacy”! Special thanks to all our sponsors and supporters, and…. see you at Our Ocean 2019!
Pasar Semesta – A Sustainable Festival
At Evoware, we do our part to create a cleaner and healthier environment, so everyone can experience how wonderful our home planet truly is. We know it’s impossible to work alone and still have the impact on the earth we aspire to, so we always look for ways to collaborate with fellow eco-warriors. Teamed up with Project Semesta, Burgreens and Union Yoga, we have created Pasar Semesta, a festival to celebrate a sustainable, conscious, eco-friendly and ethical lifestyle. Our aim with Pasar Semesta is to share our love for nature and to inspire people to be more conscious and mindful of how our daily life—everything we do—affects our earth. The event was held on 2 & 3 December 2017 at Union Yoga and Burgreens Dharmawangsa, Jakarta’s first organic, healthy, plant-based eatery. As a pre-event, we held Kumpul Semesta, a series of discussions with practitioners and professionals about sustainable food, sustainable fashion, minimalism and finding a healthy balance between work and life. Bringing up different topics every week leading up to Pasar Semesta, we encouraged everyone participating to dig deeper into the subject of our basic needs, to truly see the relationship between each of our own selves and the earth. Most people feel that sustainability or environmental issues are outside themselves, far from themselves. In fact, sustainability is always here, with us and within us. It is the food we choose and the clothes we wear. Our daily activities and consumption affect the earth as a whole. In Kumpul Semesta, we asked everyone to be more critically aware of what they choose, and to only consume what adds spark and true value to their lives. For Pasar Semesta, we brought and presented various activities so visitors could get a bigger picture of what a sustainable lifestyle is all about, to get their hands on and experience that lifestyle, and to learn more about brands and products dedicated to supplying and supporting a sustainable lifestyle. We offered talk shows, dialogues, workshops, movie screenings, yoga, and meditation, as well as thoughts on and examples of swap, repair and bulk storage, and sustainable brand markets. Most of the activities were free and visitors could interact closely, with both our speakers and each other, to gain insights into the most suitable sustainability practices that they can apply to their own daily lives. Our workshops ranged from DIY home remedies such as upcycling plastic bag waste to create home décor, to composting and urban farming for kids. Our dialogues covered topics from zero-waste living, sustainable food, sustainable businesses, and sustainable urban lifestyles to find ikigai, the power of community and biodiversity. To focus on the sustainable brand market, we collaborated with brands who share and promote the kind of lifestyle that we wish to make a part of our lifestyles on this earth. Requirements? The brand has to be local, ethical, and use natural materials and sustainable practices, or at least be headed in that direction. We succeeded in making this event waste-less, prohibiting our vendors from using plastic packaging, including plastic bags, and from handing out flyers. We also encouraged visitors to bring their own shopping bags, as well as jars, tumblers, cutlery and old or worn out clothes to be repaired, donated or swapped. We also asked everyone to take public transport if possible. We were so happy and energized by the positive vibe that our visitors brought to the event. We made new friends and reaped inspiration, energy and the spirit to keep on doing what we’re doing. We hope this movement becomes only bigger and that many people, especially urbanites, will also choose a sustainable lifestyle—the lifestyle we need to maintain this earth for generations to come.
Rethinking The Way We Consume Plastic With Rethink Campaign
Plastic pollution We can all agree that disposable plastic is bad for the environment. However, it is undeniable that we became reliant to it. Plastic has offered us with numerous benefits. It is lightweight, flexible, water resistant and most importantly, cheap. Due to these strengths, plastics are literally everywhere. If you pause reading and look around, there is probably some kind of plastic material on your sight. While making your life extra convenient, plastic becomes problematic at the end of its useful life. Disposable plastics are only useful within minutes, but can persist on this planet for centuries, long after your own lifespan. This clearly shows that the environmental impact plastic causes outweigh the convenience it offers. Out of the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste that were produced since 1950, only 9 per cent are recycled and around 60 per cent end up in the landfill and natural environment (source: Great Britain’s Royal Statistical Society). In the long run, humans, being at the top of the food-chain, will be imperilled by plastic contamination in our water and food. In the midst of a global plastic crisis, a lot of attention has been placed towards individual-level plastic consumption. On average, individual Indonesian would use 700 plastic bags each year (source: Greeneration). Over 20 years, that person would have already generate 14,000 plastic waste, which is already significant enough without adding the other plastic items that are commonly used, such as plastic straws, cutlery and bottles. What we do about it? Rethink Plastic is one of the six topics relating to consumption that are raised by Rethink Campaign, a collaborative campaign initiated Evoware and Campaign. As part Rethink Campaign’s collaborative movement of individuals, communities, brands, retailers and companies, Rethink Plastic is targeting people to evaluate their habits in terms of their plastic consumption. Our mission is to get 1,000,000 people to reduce their plastic consumption by using sustainable alternatives by 2020. In order to achieve this goal, we provide a set of reusable products that we proudly call the Rethink Kit. While assisting people in implementing a new lifestyle with less plastic, Rethink Kit also serves as a tool to measure our achievement. For each Rethink Kit that is given means one person has switched to sustainable alternatives, hence reduced their plastic consumption. The alternatives inside our Rethink Kit includes bamboo straw, brush, bamboo cutlery, cutlery pouch, tumbler and produce bag. By using one Rethink Kit, a person can reduce 362 plastic straws, 107 plastic cutlery, 1277 plastic bottles and 700 plastic bags within a year. How to join Rethink Plastic? We are open for collaboration with individuals, communities, brands, retailers and companies. You can purchase our Rethink Kit as an individual, or you can collaborate with us to distribute our Rethink Kit to the wider community. We have collaborated with numerous companies, brands and events, including DBS Bank, Boga Group, World Resources Institute, Gigi Art of Dance, Red Planet, Happiness Festivals, Departemen Lingkungan Hidup, GandengTangan, Campaign, Aliansi Zero Waste Indonesia, Etmico, Coaction and Nara Bepro. Through intensive collaborations, so far we have helped 18,755 people to reduce their plastic consumption.
Sustainable Business Discussion
Together with Burgreens, Project Semesta, Impact Hub and Coworkinc, we held sustainable business discussion last month (August 12th, 2017) at Impact Hub @ Coworkinc. The aim of this discussion was to reach the same level of understanding about sustainable businesses, find out the opportunities and challenges of growing sustainable businesses and come out as stronger entities. As a startup with the mission to preserve clean environment using sustainable practices, we feel the struggle of growing our business, let alone the impact we want to create through our business. Our biggest challenge is, because we produce alternative products with alternative material, our products’ prices are a bit higher compared to conventional products. Due to a lack of understanding and demand for sustainable solutions in the marketplace, our products become irrelevant and too costly. This challenge is also experienced by many sustainable businesses, and discussion between players is necessary to enable any action to solve the problem together, , so we sat down and had a great and very fruitful discussion. We also had expert sharing with Agni Pratama, VP Business Development from LiMa Group who give us clear picture about what is sustainable business and what really makes a sustainable business. Great insights from an expert who has been in the field for over 20 years. From open group discussion, we mapped the four biggest challenges to sustainable businesses: resources, market, government and impact plan. As it turned out, these four problems can be solved by one solution, collaboration! Sustainable businesses have existed and done their own thing separately, now it’s time to gather and walk toward the same direction. Through collaboration, it’s possible to access greater resources, create demand for sustainable solutions, manage the regulation of sustainable businesses, and make a bigger impact. We are so happy that everyone who came shared the same concerns and are excited for the collaboration. Can’t wait for another discussion and activities to inspire a positive impact on humanity and our only mother earth!