A
coffee cup that you can eat. Chairs made from recycled wood. A stationary bike
that powers a blender when you pedal, to produce fruit smoothies. And a range
of biodegradable packaging.
 |
| A chair made from recycled wood by Pimp Your Waste. |
These
were some of the items on display at Sustainable Brands Paris (SB Paris 2019),
a ground-breaking event on creativity, innovation and sustainable development
that took place April 23-25 in the French capital.
Organized
by design agency Pixelis, the event attracted more than 3,000 participants who
shared information about how art, design and technology can be used for
sustainability, for combatting climate change, and for reducing waste. The
speakers included “youth hactivators” who challenged corporations to improve
their environmental policies.
“We
all need to find solutions,” said Pixelis CEO Edouard Provenzani. “And that
includes big brands, innovators, designers, consumers, youth.”
Provenzani,
who founded Pixelis 22 years ago in France, said the main aim of the meeting
was to help brands become “more environmentally aware, more useful and more
efficient” in their sectors. The event forms part of the Sustainable Brands
movement launched in 2006 in San Francisco, California, to help “design the
future” of the business world.
“We
want to demonstrate that sustainability is not a burden, but an innovation
driver in every dimension of business,” Provenzani said.
 |
| Pixelis CEO Edouard Provenzani |
He stressed that multinationals who contribute massively to the crises of
carbon emissions, pollution and loss of biodiversity need to be part of the
solutions.
They should demonstrate the measures they’re taking to improve their
business models, even in the face of criticism because - as environmentalists
have pointed out - doing “business as usual” will not meet the climate targets
set in the Paris Agreement to reduce global warming, he added.
The
companies that took part in SB Paris included small firms as well as the global
consumer giants L’Oréal, Danone and Ikea, who staged exhibitions and discussed
their sustainability pledges.
“We’ve
assessed all our products … and we have a commitment that each will have a
better impact on the environment than the previous one,” said Anthony Grassi, a
communications representative for L’Oréal, the world’s leading company for
“beauty” products - mostly sold up to now in single-use plastic containers.
The
group says that it aims to play a “catalysing role” in addressing the challenge
of climate change and that it is committed to making a “profound transformation
towards a low-carbon business model”.
Actions
include improving energy efficiency and using renewable energy at all
manufacturing sites, L’Oréal says, as well as upgrading the “social and
environmental” profile of products. It displayed its “certified organic”
skincare line as well as biodegradable containers at SB Paris. Consumers can
read the company’s “sustainable commitment” at:
 |
| Plastic waste in the river Seine, near the venue of SB Paris. |
Still,
“big companies are doing a terrible job in educating consumers”, says Mirela
Orlovic, an activist and founder of UrbanMeisters, a green-lifestyle community
for urbanites.
Orlovic
told SWAN that the public often doesn’t know what to do with packaging or with
items that they don’t need anymore, and that it’s mostly up to the media,
including bloggers, to try to decipher and describe what is being done.
“Companies need to show consumers how sustainability can be part of their
everyday life everywhere,” she said.
At
SB Paris, Danone personnel showcased recyclable containers for brands including
Evian water and certain yoghurts, saying that “cross-industry” collaboration is
needed to address the “critical issue” of plastic waste.
Danone
- which markets a range of beverages in plastic bottles, is active in some 120
countries and recorded income of 24.7 billion euros in 2017 - said that SB
Paris was an opportunity to “showcase how together we are transforming our
approach to plastic and changing the future of hydration”.
A
representative said in an interview that recycling may not be the only
solution, however, and that consumers would increasingly need to consider
providing their own containers for products, as is already happening in some
stores.
 |
| Recyclable, reusable bottles among the solutions. - Danone |
According
to a report published in Science Advances
magazine and quoted by environmental group Greenpeace, only about 9 percent of
plastic has been recycled, 12 percent has been incinerated “(polluting the air
with toxic gases)”, and the other 79 percent remains in the environment.
Greenpeace
says that if current production and waste management trends continue, there
will be 12 billion tonnes of plastic in natural environments by 2050, including
in the world’s oceans.
In
Paris, Danone equally put focus on plant-based drinks produced by Alpro, the
Belgian-based company it acquired in 2017. Alpro has expanded its range of
beverages to now include soya, almond, oat and coconut “milks”, with the
message that a “plant-based diet is better for the planet”, as Greet
Vanderheyden, Alpro’s senior sustainable development and communication manager,
told SWAN.
Alpro
used its beverages in coffee to demonstrate the point, offering frothy, tasty
coffee mixed with coconut milk, for instance, to SB Paris participants. This
coffee was distributed in recyclable paper cups, but in another section of the
event, participants were given coffee in cups that they could eat, taking
sustainability a step further.
 |
| Tassiopée serves coffee in cups that one can eat. |
The
company responsible for the edible cups - made from organic ingredients - is
Tassiopée, launched in 2016 in France, after many months of research and design.
The idea is that eating your cup reduces waste and is good for the planet, and
the cup is relatively low in calories too (about the same as two squares of
chocolate), Tassiopée says.
The
waste-reduction drive was evident in other items as well, such as wooden chairs
made by the start-up “Pimp Your Waste” - begun by four friends who graduated
from an architecture school in Paris.
“The
motivation was to help reduce the amount of waste produced each year by the
construction industry,” said Eric Dorleac, one of the co-founders. “All the
material comes from building sites. We take it, transform it and create
furniture."
The
renewable energy section of SB2019 showcased a range of innovative products,
including a stationary bike that participants can pedal to yield energy for
food blenders. The bike can be used in restaurants or for special events where
patrons can power-pedal to produce their drinks.
While
these may be considered minor steps compared with the fundamental global change
required in economic models, small-scale innovation is helping to address the
issues, through putting creativity to effective use for sustainability, says
Provenzani.
“We
can use our creativity to change the model or to create a new model,” he told
SWAN. “It’s an issue of urgency now because we’re running out of time.”
Further
reading: http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/05/loss-biodiversity-puts-current-future-generations-risk/
Follow
SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale
