Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Jute trade, manufacturing |
Founded | 1982 |
Founder | S.B. Kader |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | S. B. Kader (Chairman & Managing Director) |
Products | raw jute and jute yarn, hessian/sacking cloth/bag, and caddies |
Revenue | US$5 Million-US$10 Million |
Owner | S.B. Kader |
Number of employees | 50+ |
Website | http://mask.associates/ |
MASK Associates is a social business registered in Bangladesh involved in the manufacturing and export of raw jute and jute products. The company was established in 1982 by S.B. Kader, a Commercially Important Person (CIP) as declared by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Bangladesh. MASK Associates began its journey by representing REB Willcox of London, UK. The company currently exports raw jute and jute yarn, hessian/sacking cloth/bags, and caddies worldwide.
A Social Business is one that is created and designed to address a social problem as a non-loss and non-dividend company. [1] [2] With a company philosophy focused on addressing green issues and promoting green business through a product that is, in itself, environmentally sound, MASK Associates falls within this definition.
In 1993, director Syed Mustaq Kader, son of S.B. Kader, took up leadership of the company. One of the key achievements of the company was the development of a system to clean-up oil spillages using jute during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a solution that was acknowledged by United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
MASK Associates is an ISO Certified Company for the standardisations ISO 9001:2015 (Quality) and ISO 14001:2015 (Environment), since 2012 and 2015. In 2018, the company received an A credit rating from Alpha Rating Limited.
The Economy of Bangladesh is characterised as a developing market economy. It is the 33rd largest in the world in nominal terms, and 31st largest by purchasing power parity. It is classified among the Next Eleven emerging market middle income economies and a frontier market. In the first quarter of 2019, Bangladesh's was the world's seventh fastest-growing economy with a rate of 8.3% real GDP annual growth. Dhaka and Chittagong are the principal financial centres of the country, being home to the Dhaka Stock Exchange and the Chittagong Stock Exchange. The financial sector of Bangladesh is the third largest in the Indian subcontinent. Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the world as well as the fastest growing economy in South Asia.
Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus Corchorus, which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is Corchorus olitorius, but such fiber is considered inferior to that derived from Corchorus capsularis. "Jute" is the name of the plant or fiber used to make burlap, hessian or gunny cloth.
Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.
Eco-capitalism, also known as environmental capitalism or (sometimes) green capitalism, is the view that capital exists in nature as "natural capital" on which all wealth depends. Therefore, governments should use market-based policy-instruments to resolve environmental problems.
Bangladesh Export Import Company Limited, commonly known by its trade name BEXIMCO, is a multinational conglomerate holding company, headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was founded in the early 1970s. Beximco is Bangladesh's largest conglomerate, with the largest market capitalisation on the country's stock market. BEXIMCO's subsidiaries export products to 55 countries worldwide. It has retail outlets in South Asia and Eastern Europe.
The jute trade is centered mainly around India's West Bengal and Assam, and Bangladesh. The major producing country of jute is India and biggest exporter being Bangladesh, due to their natural fertile soil. Production of jute by India and Bangladesh are respectively 1.968 million ton and 1.349 million metric ton. Bengal jute was exported to South East Asia from the 17th century by the Dutch, French and later by other Europeans.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism." Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty is an autobiography of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus. The book describes Yunus' early life, moving into his college years, and into his years as a professor at Chittagong University. While a professor at Chittagong University, Yunus began to take notice of the extreme poverty of the villagers around him. In 1976, Yunus incorporated the help of Maimuna Begum to collect data of people in Jobra who were living in poverty. Most of these impoverished people would take a loan from moneylenders to buy some raw material, using that raw material to create some product, and then selling back the good to the moneylender to repay the loan, earning a very meager profit. One woman interviewed made no more than two cents per day creating bamboo stools using this system. The list Begum brought back to Yunus named 42 women who were living on credit of 856 taka.
Social business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and is described in his books.
Bhangura or Bhangoora is an upazila of Pabna District in the Division of Rajshahi, Bangladesh.
The textile and clothing industries provide a single source of growth in Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments (RMG) accounted for 77% of Bangladesh's total merchandise exports.
Humanistic capitalism is a concept that seeks to unite humanism, specifically the safety and health needs of people and the environment, with market forces and a market-based economy.
Grameen Danone Foods, popularly known as Grameen Danone, is a social business enterprise, launched in 2006, which has been designed to provide children with many of the key nutrients that are typically missing from their diet in rural Bangladesh. It is run on 'No loss, No dividend' basis. Initially, Grameen Danone agreed to pay an annual dividend of one percent to shareholders, however, in December 2009, the board of Grameen Danone agreed to waive any monetary return.
Sustainable products are those products that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until the final disposal.
Yunus Social Business (YSB) is a social business fund and corporate social innovator. Co-founded in 2011 with headquarters in Berlin, YSB's mission is to expand the social business model pioneered by Prof. Muhammad Yunus through the Yunus Center in Bangladesh, to countries throughout the developing world and to corporations globally. The primary goal is to utilise the tools developed in the business world, to create financially self-sustaining companies dedicated to reducing poverty. A secondary goal is to finance social businesses that directly contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Bangladesh–Brazil relations refer to the bilateral relations between Bangladesh and Brazil. Bangladesh has an embassy in Brasillia and Brazil has an embassy in Dhaka.
Bangladesh–Canada relations are the foreign relations between Bangladesh and Canada established 1972. Canada is represented through its High Commission in Dhaka and Bangladesh is represented through its High Commission in Ottawa. They are members of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations. Bangladesh currently receives ~$100 million from Canadian official development assistance per year as of January 2014. It is estimated that around 34,000 (2012) Bangladeshi people live in Canada, primarily in cities like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa.
Bangladesh–Italy relations relate to the foreign relationship between Bangladesh and Italy. Bangladesh maintains its embassy in Rome while Italy has an embassy in Dhaka.
Sustainable capitalism is a conceptual form of capitalism based upon sustainable practices that seek to preserve humanity and the planet, while reducing externalities and bearing a resemblance of capitalist economic policy. A capitalistic economy must expand to survive and find new markets to support this expansion. Capitalist systems are often destructive to the environment as well as certain individuals without access to proper representation. However, sustainability provides quite the opposite; it implies not only a continuation, but a replenishing of resources. Sustainability is often thought of to be related to environmentalism, and sustainable capitalism applies sustainable principles to economic governance and social aspects of capitalism as well.