RepaNet is an environmental and employment creation project based in Graz, Austria. It combines three complementary goals: the ecological goal of cutting waste by repairing and reusing things instead of throwing them away, the social goal of providing jobs for long-term unemployed people and the local economy goal of supporting small firms and building regional value.
The initiative is a triangular partnership involving small businesses as well as NGOs and the public sector. The co-ordinators see this as a 'win-win-win situation': The local authority and the ministry prize the environmental benefits, the chamber of commerce sees benefits for local firms, and the labour market service sees disadvantaged people back in work.
RepaNet is not just creating jobs that are sustainable in resource terms, but is also building attitudes and practices that are vital for the long-term development of the local economy. It is a training ground where consumers can learn to reuse waste, businesses can learn to co-operate and politicians can learn to think in terms of balanced growth.
A range of low buildings in a yard near Graz's railway station is home to Ökoservice , and the base for four different environmental services:
The Ökoservice workforce numbers 45. Of these, 10 are 'key workers', 27 temporary Transitarbeiter – long-term unemployed people employed on subsidised contracts of up to 14 months – and the rest ex-Transitarbeiter who have graduated to permanent contracts.
It recruits long-term unemployed people, who find it difficult to get a job for any number of reasons – because they are ex-offenders, migrants, illiterate, ill, or just women who want to go back to work after raising a family. Most of Ökoservice's employees have the status of ‘transit worker’ (Transitarbeiter) under Austrian law, which means that for up to 14 months their employer can claim a subsidy worth 60% of their wages costs from the Labour Market Office (Arbeitsmarktservice – AMS). This brings in a little less than half the enterprise's €1.3 million revenue, the other half being earned from the sale of services.
Ökoservice is determinedly a business, not a make-work scheme. Legally, it is a share company with two owners, the environmental NGO ARGE Müllvermeidung and the repair workshop BAN. It took the form of a profit-making company, because in Austria there is no specific social economy status that a trading firm can adopt. However the tax office recognises it as of being public utility (gemeinnützig), and so it levies VAT at 10%, half the standard rate.
Ökoservice is determined to combine social goals with its ecological and economic ones. It has the status of a Beschäftingungsgesellschaft (employment company), which is something special to the Land of Styria. The advantage of this status is that it brings the incentive to trade profitably like any other company. This is not the case for the so-called sozialökonomische Betriebe (social economic enterprises) which are driven by an administrative logic (i.e. spending a budget), rather than an entrepreneurial one (i.e. earning a profit), so they are unable to invest. There are some 200 Sozialökonomische Betriebe all over Austria, and ten Beschäftigungsgesellschaften, uniquely in Styria.
The staff are flexible, having at least two skills, which brings some variety into their working lives. Business peaks in the summer, so Ökoservice runs its training course during the winter. The syllabus includes job skills – maybe horticulture, forestry or forklift driving – plus employability skills such as computing, using e-mail, form-filling, CV-writing, goal setting, conflict management, drug awareness and first aid. The training is delivered on the premises, and lasts for nine weeks at 35 hours per week. A personal development counsellor is on hand to place people in an appropriate job. In ten years, 297 Ökoservice trainees have found permanent work, which is a 75% success rate.
Ökoservice has become a local institution, and is seen to create a range of benefits: an appropriate type of work for the target group, a variety of different jobs that workers can switch between, and the opportunity to get a qualification. It offers services that would not be offered in the market, and employs people who would not be employable in the open labour market. It gives these people support and mentoring, and raises public awareness of ecological and labour market issues – Graz is an EU ‘Eco-city’ and Ökoservice was selected as a Local Agenda 21 good practice. It has opened a branch in Sankt Veit am Vogau, 40 km south of Graz, and an extension to Vienna is under consideration.
The Ökoservice business model has worked well for a decade now, but there is a cloud on the horizon. The Arbeitsmarktservice, which has no way to measure the quality of the service it is paying for, wants to reduce the allowance it pays to integrate unemployed people.
Another social enterprise, BAN (Beratung, Arbeit, Neubeginn – ‘Advice, Work, New Start’) , is to be found in an old house in the inner-city neighbourhood of Gries. A pair of furniture vans stand in the yard, and the verandah is stacked with cupboards and similar items. BAN's main activity is collecting, renovating and selling old furniture and household equipment. Like Ökoservice, BAN, which was founded in 1983, earns about half its revenue from selling goods and services, and makes up the difference with the grants it receives in return for integrating long-term unemployed people. About two-thirds of household equipment that people throw out can be reused. So Graz saves €100,000 a year in landfill costs. The 50 workers repair about 1,000 items a year. An upstairs room is the meeting point for the Graz Repair Network, which brings together representatives from a score of local businesses, who energetically debate their collective image and plan promotional events. Many traditional crafts are built on the idea of durability and repair, and jewellers, watchmakers, cobblers, tailors, plumbers, carpenters, smiths, electricians and bicycle shops have all joined the networks. RepaNet members agree a quality standard which commits them to attempt any reasonable repair, to deal with at least five different brands of equipment, and to charge a set amount for a binding quotation.
A more specialised operation is based on an industrial estate in Liezen, 120 kilometres northwest of Graz amid the mountains of Northern Styria. This industrial town of 7,000 was once the home of state-owned engineering firm Voestalpine. The works closed down in the 1990s with the loss of over a thousand skilled craft jobs. GBL (Gemeinnützige Beschäftigungsgesellschaft Liezen) has created products that make good use both of these specialist skills and of traditional local materials. The most original line produced is water wheels. The workshop helped renovate three old watermills and the idea grew from there. The normal size is one-and-a-half metres across, but they make them as big as three metres. And they are all made from local larch wood. The company has found a niche market at the intersection of tourism, the environment and science education, and also fabricates items such as Archimedes screws, which make popular hands-on exhibits at a local water theme park.
The waterwheels are GBL's trademark, but its high skills base means that the enterprise can fabricate all sorts of metal or wood prototypes and is always on the lookout for new product ideas. It has contracts to make high-end wooden office equipment and mountings for diesel engines, and is experimenting with ideas such as ceramic plaques and wooden toys.
It also renovates and repairs household equipment, especially white goods (washing machines, dishwashers, tumble driers, electric stoves etc.), which it sells with a one-year guarantee. It also offers a wide range of services both in the open air – cleaning historical monuments, landscaping, building footpaths, cycle paths and cross-country skiing trails, clearing snow, maintaining playing fields and other open spaces – as well as indoors, such as house clearance.
GBL's workshop is open-plan, as it is important for customer confidence that they can see the repairs being done. This means they both have trust in the quality of the renovation, and can identify with the enterprise's social values. The enterprise works as part of the local Repair Network, along with 25 other local businesses. They pay an annual fee of €100. Working together means they have a more prominent brand and can refer customers to the best specialist.
GBL employs 21 handicapped people, 12 long-term unemployed 'transit workers' and 17 key workers, and has a 70% success rate in placing people in permanent jobs. New employees rotate round the different jobs for the first few months so that the enterprise can find out where their strengths and interests lie. Especially for women, GBL runs a course where they can try three different professions in a week – carpentry, metalwork and electronics – to see what suits them best. It finds that women want part-time work and flexible working hours, but the problem is that AMS can normally only find full-time posts. Each job costs an estimated €25,000 to fill – but there is a significant saving as regards the economic and social costs of unemployment.
The Institut für Höhere Studien in Vienna investigated the issue of costs in a study of RUSZ, a similar workshop in Vienna, which places 55% of its trainees in permanent jobs. It found that if they stay employed and pay tax for 3.5 years, then the state breaks even. Even if they do not find an external job, keeping someone in unemployment benefit for a year costs the state about €43,000, but supporting a job in the social economy costs only half that. [1]
RepaNet is based on the principle that a table needs three legs, or it will fall over. It applies this analogy to the provision of social services in today's cash-strapped climate. The demand for social services is rising, but the resources to meet it are not. So the social economy has been seen as a substitute for public or private action. But the project does not see itself as a substitute, and believes that triangular partnerships are needed.
Based on this principle, RepaNet brings in not just the local authorities, labour market service and environmental activists, but also local SMEs. When it builds up a local Repair Network, it can bring local small businesses on board because they gain market contacts and benefit from sharing know-how, as well as providing jobs for thetrainees. Partnership with the companies means that RepaNet is kept abreast of the skills that are in demand, and can recruit trainees with matching aptitudes and desires. The EQUAL project gives each network a kick start by supporting the costs of two key workers – a trainer and a strategist.
The development partnership also has a 'vertical' dimension, linking the regional networks with the key decision makers at national level, including the environment ministry, employers and trade unions. But the key relationship is with the local town councils, the Gemeinden . Shared environmental goals mean that a close relationship is relatively easy to establish. A shared history also helps: ARGE Müllvermeidung, which was founded in 1982, has since 1986 run educational courses for 300 waste advisers. Many of these people are now working in local authority environment departments, and are partners in the project via the Abfallwirtschaftsverein. The ARGE is well known, and the connection between the social economy and ecology comes easily to people's minds. Nevertheless, local businesses sometimes fear that employment companies may constitute unfair competition, so it is an asset to have the ministry and chamber of commerce (Wirtschaftkammer) behind it.
Institutional anchoring is vital to the RepaNet idea. So although its primary ideological drive is to reduce environmental damage through waste minimisation, it sometimes seems reluctant to go out and sell the products it so inventively designs and manufactures. It does not want to forget what sort of a business it is – one that integrates unemployed people back into the workforce.
The project has a vision that builds from the bottom up to European level. Thanks to the support of EQUAL, the RepaNet model has spread from Vienna and Graz to five other regions in Austria. Altogether, the five enterprises employ 90 people and repair 4,000 items of equipment a year. Each repair centre has its own speciality: in Graz it is audio, video and computers, in Liezen white goods, in Ried-im-Innkreis bicycles, in Vienna computers – and multifunctional Hohenems tackles white goods, computers and bicycles. Under the aegis of the national federation, two more regional networks are in their formative stages.
The national federation Reparaturnetzwerk Österreich is in turn a member of the European network RREUSE (Recycling and Reuse European Social Enterprises) , which was established in 2001. Most environmental legislation is decided at European level now, so having an EU-wide voice is seen as vital. RREUSE holds meetings with the Environment Commissioner and European parliamentarians, and seems to have had a real influence on the WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) directive. It has also submitted a joint response to the public consultation on the EU sustainable development strategy.
As well as lobbying for policy change, RREUSE helps its members to develop the best delivery mechanisms. Its 1,000 member enterprises employ 16,000 people across ten countries of Europe. In March 2004 RREUSE members came to Graz to take part in the exchange mart the RepaNet DP organised within their transnational partnership SENECA – Social economy network for environmental co-operation activities (TCA 237). The event enabled participating organisations to exchange ideas for new environmental businesses in the social economy, by addressing both customers and producers. Customer awareness is built through the visibility of the services offered to the public, such as the BAN repair workshop or the garden waste composting service. On the supply side, the regional RepaNet networks bring in small businesses and enable them to swap skills and knowledge to their mutual advantage. National and international networking also gives access to economies of scale in marketing. A number of RREUSE member firms have established an EEIG (European economic interest group) called Serranet to carry out marketing at European level, using such channels as the internet or a catalogue.
The project contributes to the strategy set out in the European Commission's Integrated guidelines for growth and jobs (2005-2008). [2] Its Guideline 14 encourages the adoption of environmental technologies, guideline 15 calls for local industrial clusters, and guideline 18 recommends measures to include disadvantaged people in the labour market.
Thus, it was part of a 'development partnership' (Reparaturnetzwerk Österreich, DP no. AT-3-08/135) within the EQUAL Community Initiative, part of the European Union's Structural Funds. Its lead organisation was Arbeitsgemeinschaft Müllvermeidung, Dreihackengasse 1, 8020 Graz, Austria, telephon: +43 316 71 23 09, e-mail schleich@arge.at (Berthold Schleich). Partner organisations in Austria were:
RepaNet's work was taken forward in two new development partnerships in the second round of EQUAL: Econet Austria focused on setting up integration firms in the recycling of electronic waste, while PSPP' (Public Social Private Partnership) aimed to take social enterprise into new fields.
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution and water pollution.
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications. In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.
Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into by-products, products and services which can be bought and sold to meet the needs of humanity. Industrial ecology seeks to quantify the material flows and document the industrial processes that make modern society function. Industrial ecologists are often concerned with the impacts that industrial activities have on the environment, with use of the planet's supply of natural resources, and with problems of waste disposal. Industrial ecology is a young but growing multidisciplinary field of research which combines aspects of engineering, economics, sociology, toxicology and the natural sciences.
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science of forming objects, systems, or organizations. It comes from the Latin word constructio and Old French construction. To 'construct' is a verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built or the nature of its structure.
Used goods, also known as secondhand goods, are any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Used goods may also be handed down, especially among family or close friends, as a hand-me-down.
Electronic waste recycling, electronics recycling, or e-waste recycling is the disassembly and separation of components and raw materials of waste electronics; when referring to specific types of e-waste, the terms like computer recycling or mobile phone recycling may be used. Like other waste streams, reuse, donation, and repair are common sustainable ways to dispose of IT waste.
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
Reverse logistics encompasses all operations related to the upstream movement of products and materials. It is "the process of moving goods from their typical final destination for the purpose of capturing value, or proper disposal. Remanufacturing and refurbishing activities also may be included in the definition of reverse logistics." Growing green concerns and advancement of green supply chain management concepts and practices make it all the more relevant. The number of publications on the topic of reverse logistics have increased significantly over the past two decades. The first use of the term "reverse logistics" in a publication was by James R. Stock in a White Paper titled "Reverse Logistics," published by the Council of Logistics Management in 1992. The concept was further refined in subsequent publications by Stock (1998) in another Council of Logistics Management book, titled Development and Implementation of Reverse Logistics Programs, and by Rogers and Tibben-Lembke (1999) in a book published by the Reverse Logistics Association titled Going Backwards: Reverse Logistics Trends and Practices. The reverse logistics process includes the management and the sale of surplus as well as returned equipment and machines from the hardware leasing business. Normally, logistics deal with events that bring the product towards the customer. In the case of reverse logistics, the resource goes at least one step back in the supply chain. For instance, goods move from the customer to the distributor or to the manufacturer.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has a minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that attempts 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, a business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
In the context of physical construction, deconstruction is the selective dismantlement of building components, specifically for reuse, repurposing, recycling, and waste management. It differs from demolition where a site is cleared of its building by the most expedient means. Deconstruction has also been defined as "construction in reverse". Deconstruction requires a substantially higher degree of hands-on labor than does traditional demolition, but as such provides a viable platform for unskilled or unemployed workers to receive job skills training. The process of dismantling structures is an ancient activity that has been revived by the growing fields of sustainable and green building.
Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function. It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of used items to make raw materials for the manufacture of new products. Reuse—by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items—helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.
A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-industrial countries as well.
An environmental enterprise is an environmentally friendly/compatible business. Specifically, an environmental enterprise is a business that produces value in the same manner which an ecosystem does, neither producing waste nor consuming unsustainable resources. In addition, an environmental enterprise rather finds alternative ways to produce one's products instead of taking advantage of animals for the sake of human profits. To be closer to the goal of being an environmentally friendly company, some environmental enterprises invest their money to develop or improve their technologies which are also environmentally friendly. In addition, environmental enterprises usually try to reduce global warming, so some companies use materials that are environmentally friendly to build their stores. They also set in place regulations that are environmentally friendly. All these efforts of the environmental enterprises can bring positive effects both for nature and people. The concept is rooted in the well-enumerated theories of natural capital, the eco-economy and cradle to cradle design.
A green-collar worker is a worker who is employed in an environmental sector of the economy. Environmental green-collar workers satisfy the demand for green development. Generally, they implement environmentally conscious design, policy, and technology to improve conservation and sustainability. Formal environmental regulations as well as informal social expectations are pushing many firms to seek professionals with expertise with environmental, energy efficiency, and clean renewable energy issues. They often seek to make their output more sustainable, and thus more favorable to public opinion, governmental regulation, and the Earth's ecology.
Equipment rental, or plant hire, is a service industry providing machinery, equipment and tools for a limited period of time to final users, mainly to construction contractors but also to industry and individual consumers. Renting can be defined as paying someone for the use of something for temporary or short-term purposes.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
A circular economy is a model of resource production and consumption in any economy that involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible. The concept aims to tackle global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution by emphasizing the design-based implementation of the three base principles of the model. The main three principles required for the transformation to a circular economy are: designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. CE is defined in contradistinction to the traditional linear economy. The idea and concepts of a circular economy have been studied extensively in academia, business, and government over the past ten years. It has been gaining popularity because it can help to minimize carbon emissions and the consumption of raw materials, open up new market prospects, and, principally, increase the sustainability of consumption.
RREUSE is an international nonprofit network that links social enterprises active in the environmental field of re-use, repair and recycling. Its main areas of focus are environmental protection, social equity, and economic viability.
Sustainable Materials Management is a systemic approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire lifecycles. It represents a change in how a society thinks about the use of natural resources and environmental protection. By looking at a product's entire lifecycle new opportunities can be found to reduce environmental impacts, conserve resources, and reduce costs.
Container-based sanitation refers to a sanitation system where toilets collect human excreta in sealable, removable containers that are transported to treatment facilities. This type of sanitation involves a commercial service which provides certain types of portable toilets, and delivers empty containers when picking up full ones. The service transports and safely disposes of or reuses collected excreta. The cost of collection of excreta is usually borne by the users. With suitable development, support and functioning partnerships, CBS can be used to provide low-income urban populations with safe collection, transport and treatment of excrement at a lower cost than installing and maintaining sewers. In most cases, CBS is based on the use of urine-diverting dry toilets.