CSR – Shanghai Metal Corporation

Afghanistan’s Future Is Built on Skateboards and Containers

As we’ve already covered in our blogs, shipping containers can be used to build high-end homes, hotels, villas, restaurants you name it. Due to their low prices, shipping containers are especially good for low income areas. They have even built a shipping container skate park in Afganistan.

The mega shipping container skate park will be built by an international NGO Skateistan that uses skateboarding as a tool for youth outreach in both Afghanistan and Cambodia. The most recent skate park in Mazar-e-Sharif is an educational safe have for children.The 6000 square meter educational and sport complex was built out of repurposed shipping containers and other locally sourced materials to host 1,000 local children on a weekly basis.

Afghanistan’s skate park is not actually one of its kind in developing container-based education in developing countries. For example Apple‘s rival the Korean electronics chaebol Samsung has also used shipping containers to build schools in South Africa. In Indonesia they have even build shipping container libraries.

It is yet unfold whether the skate park grows the future’s Tony Hawks or even enhances Afganistan’s economy but for the well-being and sophistication of local children the shipping container skate park is in a big role.

Shipping containers are a superior tool for businesses to actualize their corporate social responsibility programs as well as to spread culture and a high level of sophistication to developing countries. In general, we do not have many tools for helping the ones in need but shipping containers are a practical solution.

If you are planning to use shipping containers, please contact us in Shanghai Metal Corporation. We ship standardized shipping containers worldwide and compile prefabricated container buildings for customers needs. For detailed specifications, please visit our website. Please also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Inhabitat, Skateistan

Forget Home Furnishings, IKEA Enters The E-Bike Market

IKEA has certainly surprised us with many clever home-furnishing solutions. Most importantly, IKEA, with its roots in the super “green” country of Sweden, could not leave its homecountry’s highly socially conscious citizens disappointed. When it comes to act environmetally friendly, IKEA comes right up in the top list worldwide as leader of clean technology. In fact, IKEA has big goals for 2020 that includes a plan to obtain 100% of the energy it consumes in its stores and buildings from clean energy and to grow more wood than it uses.

Plastic bags were far gone six years ago, CFLs and LEDs were introduced as replacement for high-energy consuming incandescent light bulbs back in 2010, affordable home solar panels were recently made available in the UK, a number of electric car stations were installed at stores across the world and now IKEA has entered the electric bike market.

Yes, e-bike FOLKVÄNLIG can be found in two IKEA’s retail stores located in Vienna, Austria. Still in its inception phase, the e-bike is expected to become viral and shortly reach out to many different stores. The electric bike’s design has already received various awards at the Taipei Cycle Show, Eurobike and the IF Design Award.

FOLKVÄNLIG in Swedish means ‘user- friendly’, which is probably what IKEA is trying to address here with its sleek e-bike that could take you anywhere within a distance of 60 to 70km, aided by a powerful electric motor of 250Watt that could get you a total pedal-assisted range up to 45mi/72km per charge.

The e-bike also features an easy rechargeable system to its removable in-frame lithium-ion battery pack that takes about five hours to recharge, as well as a Shimano transmission that provides six different driving modes.

Should it prove successful, IKEA’s FOLKVÄNLIG e-bike must also come in a foldable variant, which gives the market even more room for growth.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as aluminum, widely used in beer can manufacturing. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: technologicvehicles.com, treehugger.com, greenoptimistic.com, ubergizmo.com, cleantechnica.com, flickr.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Pay For Your Burger With Recycled Cans

Recycled aluminum cans have never been so wanted these days. Coca-Cola is the greater innovator when it comes to marketing campaigns such as China’s Coke Lyrics and now the partnership with McDonalds’ Australia, Coke Rewards, giving away rewards as you collect tokens.

Now McDonald’s takes one step further as an effort to get its fair share in this endless social marketing industry. Following an eco-conscious marketing move, McDonald’s in Stockholm is using recycled cans as currency in exchange for burgers. Part of an interactive campaign designed to the food chain company the advertising agency DDB Stockholm has created a huge incentive to young Swedes unwittingly clean up after them, especially during the summer time when parks and festivals leave behind piles of emptied aluminum beer and soda cans around the city.

As DDB Stockholm puts it, “you’ll find a lot of young people with empty drink cans and empty wallets”. As Simon Higby, a DDB Stockholm creative, puts it, “Youngsters don’t always have so much cash, but sometimes they can get empty cans. So, accepting cans in return for burgers gets them to McDonald’s and the cans to the recycling depot. Everyone’s happy.”

All you have to do is to fill up a bag provided by McDonald’s with 10 cans in exchange for a hamburger or cheeseburger or 40 cans for a Big Mac. The recycling bags can be found attached to strategically installed billboards, which function as a dispenser for free bags – you just tug on the poster’s bottom to get your bag and you are ready to go to the nearest McDonald’s store to get your free burger.

The Swedish fast food chain now accepts “cards, cash and cans” and is an attempt to align the “making profit” during summer time with environmental concerns. By getting a burger the youngster will ultimately opt for fires or a drink to go with it, increasing sales of such items.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of aluminum sheet (aluminum plate) widely used in the manufacturing of Coke aluminum cans. To find out more about us, please visit our Website, WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21 and Tradekey.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Source and picture: adweek.com, ddb.se, inhabitat.com, adweek.com, creativityonline.com, coloribus.com, 11even.net

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

The WaterLess Jeans

It is no news that most US garment production has moved offshore to countries such as China, India, Bangladesh to take advantage of low production costs. And along with that decision rise questions of whether or not vendors and factories involved in the manufacturing processes comply with ethical, environment and social standards that create the “true” sustainable products.

Moving offshore does not imply fewer challenges for the apparel companies, but more intricate responsibilities to ensure that “making profits” can be done without compromising the quality of life of those involved in the process, as well as the future of the environment. In order to address these social challenges, the American Denim giant, Levi Strauss, launched its Water<Less jeans collection in 2011 – designed to reduce the water used in the finishing process by an average of 28 percent and up to 96 percent – and its 100% recycled water standard, a first for the apparel industry.

If the new Water<Less jeans can really save water? Well, Levi’s announced during the World Water Day on March 22 this year that the line has saved over 770 million liters of water — enough to supply drinking water for 811,000 people for one year — since its launch. The company also planned to make extra 9 million units of the Water<Less jean, saving 71 million liters of water, according to Environmental Leader.

During the full product cycle of Levi’s single pair of typical 501 jeans more than 3,000 liters of water are used. Almost half of it (49 percent) is used to grow the cotton, while 45 percent is used when customers wash their jeans, typically about 100 times. The remaining 6 percent of the water is used during the manufacturing process of the jean, which required an average of 3 to 10 spins in cavernous washers and dryers to give it its unique appearance.

Now, the new Water<Less jeans combines the multiple wash cycles into a single wet-cycle process, followed by the ozone processing (dry or raw denim). When the ozone decomposes, it reverts to free oxygen, not requiring washing the pair of jeans after the dyeing process. That was exactly where Levi’s could exert the most control of the usage on water and energy: the manufacturing process.

To celebrate the denim brand’s Water<Less jeans over 100 pairs of the jeans were fixed together forming a fluid whirlpool design. The art piece was inspired and designed by British architect Ian McChesney as part of the Regent Street Windows Project in London and used more than 1,000 copper rivets.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of copper rivets in varying sizes and forms, widely used in the manufacturing of art sculptures such as the Water<Less jeans in London. To find out more about us, please visit our Website, WordPress, LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code. Moreover, we sell directly from Alibaba , EC21 and Tradekey.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Source and pictures: sustainablebrands.com, greentechcorp.net, fibre2fashion.com, fashionsustainability.weebly.com, theguardian.com, hmvm.co.uk, celsias.com, greenglobaltravel.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Cheers To The Naked Greener Coke Can!

Imagine a time when we recycle all aluminum cans in the world. Now imagine a time when all aluminum cans are “greener” than they claim to be. That is what the Ryan Harc design studio had in mind when a Coca-Cola can was re-created without toxic paint that tends to sink into the metal.

Being a leader in the soft drink industry and having the US as the largest market, followed by Mexico and China, the Coca-Cola Company owns the most innovative marketing campaigns worldwide. We saw the latest marketing campaign launched in China, Coke Lyric bottle, and Chok, the so-claimed best marketing campaign in over 35 years released last year in Hong Kong, reaching the top of the local app downloads for iOS in a single day, 380,000 downloads in one month, and over 9 million total views for the television commercial.

Although seen as an innovative player in the marketing space the Coca-Cola Company has yet a lot to catch up on the sustainability side. It is true that the aluminum cans are 100% recyclable, but it does not mean that the cans are as green as they could be. The current design favoring flashy colors uses toxic ink that tends to seep into the metal. What the consumers don’t realize is that the memorable experiences promoted by the marketing efforts tag along the risks for their own health and the environment that surrounds them.

In an endeavor to address such an issue, the NY-based Design studio Ryan Harc created a colorless can design that will reduce the cost of recycling and pollution. At least elegant, the minimalist touch given to the Coke can uses a pressing machine to insert a convex logo as an alternative to the colorfully toxic sprayed can.

The gains in environment benefits when skipping painting are huge if looked from the right perspective. Based on Alcoa statistics for aluminum can recycling, over 112 billion aluminum beverage cans are sold per year in the USA alone. But before aluminum cans can be recycled, the coating that goes on the cans to make them more beautiful and appealing on the shelves must first be produced, which in other words means CO2 emission by thermal or chemical burn-off. According to a report examining the potential coatings market opportunity for soy-based products estimates that 33 million gallons of coatings are sold per year in the US (2007 data).

Although only present in the design studio, the colorless pressed cans could also become a real product along with last summer’s Coca-Cola’s refreshing Ice Bottle packaging. Introduced in Cartagena, Colombia, consumers were seen enjoying a bottle of Coke direct out of ice instead of plastic or glass bottles; very practical, innovative and eco-friendly Coke packaging as the Ice Bottle melts away right after use.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Sources: gamification.co, trendhunter.com, psfk.com, treehugger.com

Pictures: bevreview.com, greenerpackage.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor