Report global citizenship - Essay Example

Cicadania’s Environmental Plan Cicadania is basing its environmental goals on 4 main domains of footprints, being production and transport, in store, after sales and overall. In all of these four domains there are clear guidelines that Cicadania wants to achieve over time as most of them demand a fair share of investment.1. Production and TransportThe production section has a huge potential towards lowering its footprint, going from the production of the raw materials used in the clothes to the production in our own factories.

Cicadania understands that this will take a long time, but has set the first steps towards reducing the environmental footprint. This is necessary because the textie industry faces the biggest criticism with regard to its environmental policies. The high resource consumption and waste management are the biggest criticism against the textile industyr. Cicadania would impose environmental regulations on itself by complying with ISO regulations.The ISO 1400 series specifically deal with enviromental management (Joshi, 34).

This set of regulations requires Cicadania to plan, implement, control, monitor, review and improve environmental pratices. The process moves in a loop which has been represented below: Committment For transport, the company would consider using biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel fuel has the lowest carbon footprint when compared with other types of fuels. Goals:organic cotton: The amount of water involved in the production of cotton is enormous and literally drains seas like the Aral sea.

On average there is 10.000 liters of water needed per kilogram of cotton or 2500 liters per shirt or 8000 liters for a jeans. Therefor Cicadania is buying its cotton from China where only 6000 liters per kilo is needed.Recycled cotton and other materials: In order to further reduce the amount of new produced cotton, Cicadania engaged itself in introducing recycled cotton from used clothes and will introduce plastic fibres recycled from other plastics.Production electricity carbon neutral: through solar power panels placed on top of the manufacturing plant.

In Brazil the amount of sunshine per year is sufficient to produce enough for day and night electricity. Extra electricity during the day flows into the net and at night the net gives back to the factory.transport: The efficient transport plan introduces smart packaging reducing the amount of plastics and cardboard and smart pile up will increase the amount of clothes to be shipped in one shipment of course reducing the amount of CO2 emitted per piece of clothing.2. In storeThe in store saving is a combination of both a set of mentality and small easy adaptations of the the store.

The company would aim at creating eco friendly stores. These would paying attenion to the use of lighting, conditioning and heating in the stores. Goals:Electricity savings: Light saving: through the use of dynamic lighting, making use of as much natural light as possible during the day should make it possible to reduce the artificial lighting to a minimum. Next to that the lights in certain parts of the store like the fitting rooms will only light up when movement is detected.Climate control: The rise or drop of 1 degree in the climate control depending on the country’s climate could make a huge change in annual electricity savings.

Therefor every Cicadania store will be a bit warmer or colder than an other store. Packaging savings: Chicadania has completely stopped the use of plastics. Paper bags or cloth bags would replace the plastic bags. The company would also develop a policy of recyling certain items such as hangers and security tags. This would help save unecessary usage of pastic used in hangers and security tags. Since plastic has one of the highest environmental footprint, this policy would have good impact on the environment. 3. After SalesThrough after sales, the company would be focusing on how the product is being used after it has been bought.

Cicadania has also developed a policy for improving after sales environmental policies by reducing the water and electricity usage in washing clothes. Water reduction and electricity usage: Cicadania would be using Ultra-Ever Dry material. This material repels dirty water and thick oil. Dust, dirt, bacteria and other such elements accumulate on the material’s superhyrophobic coated surface This is then removed by lightly spraying water over the surface. As a results, aashing of clothes to be limited to once a year with Ultra-Ever dry.

Lower temperatures: Cicandia would also promote the concept of washing clothes at lower temperature. Lowering the temperature of the washing machine saves energy usage of the washing machine. This then means less energy use in the long run. 4. OverallIn all its stores, offices and production facilities, Cicadania would be monitoring its carbon footprint. In order to reduce company’s footprint on a general basis, the following steps would be taken:Employees’ housing and buses: Cicadania would be introducing its own bus system to transport employees from offices to their homes.

The company policy would be frown down upon the usage of personal cars. The aim would be to reduce fuel usage by using one big bus instead of many small cars;The company would also be implementing solar voltiac panels to save fossil fuel costs. These panels would save daylight energy from the sun to power offices and production facilities. Only when solar energy would not be sufficient for the company, then fossil fuel would be used. Work CitedJoshi, Mangala, Environmental management systems for the Textile Industry, Indian Journal of Textile and Fiber Research, Vol.

26, 2001, pp. 33-38