HM Environmental Technologies – Utilisation of Timber Waste: Minimising Used Wood and Exploring Innovative Technology for a Sustainable Future
July 8, 2024
They say pioneers are always slightly different. The same goes for Spare-it. While most brands position their businesses either B2B (Business-to-Business) or B2C (Business-to- Consumer), Spare-it, the green tech startup focuses on an original waste intelligence platform that, albeit targeting on corporate clients, aims at being the “catalyst” of driving behavioural change.
Speaking of brand philosophy, Clement Li, the Business Development Manager of Spare-it Hong Kong, explained, “Our mission is to process waste data in real time, enabling our clients to optimise their waste management performance. We aspire to create a collective consciousness about the waste issue, with a view to driving impactful behavioural change.”
“We did start from a B2C platform of household waste tracing, but soon we transitioned into B2B, a model we believe to be able to create bigger impact and influence.” Clement continued. “Comparing to the market size of sustainability-conscious individuals who care about how much waste they create at home, the business world gives us so much more potentials to ‘talk to the bottom’, making people learn, practise and share the knowledge of sustainability starting from the workspace.”
| Spare-it is a green tech innovation startup founded in 2018 in Boston by Laurent Canneva and Laurent Meunier. Revolving around an employee-centric digital platform, Spare-it collects and analyses real-time data on waste generation and recycling practices. By leveraging advanced analytics, Spare-it provides diverse recommendations to help businesses achieve their waste reduction goals. The intelligence platform goes beyond traditional methods by incorporating interactive and gamified elements to foster employee engagement, heighten their awareness of waste reduction, and progressively cultivate sustainability mindset and culture change. At the moment, Spare-it specialises in six main industries: real estate developers, tech firms, law firms, consultancy companies, luxury goods brands, as well as service providers the like of Swire Properties, CLP Power Hong Kong and MTR Corporation. The dynamic, diverse Spare-it team made up of business development, project management and operation specialists from the USA, France, Mexico, India, mainland China and Hong Kong. |
Real-time Data as Catalyst: Source Reduction right from the Upstream Value Chain
[Innovation]
The Spare-it innovation consists of smart weighing scales and digital data platform which records the real-time waste data of every single bin in a building, and the user can further monitor via a waste assessment app. Clement stated, “Our data portal enables sustainability/facility teams to track the effectiveness and progress of their waste reduction policies, make informed adjustments based on insights from data analysis and share the information using our reporting and corporate newsletter functions. The data, together with educational information and waste reduction tips, would be shared via monitors installed in high traffic public spaces – for example, the staff would be able to learn about sustainability during breaks or lunch time at the canteen or pantry.”
According to the Spare-it official website, the startup has successfully reduced annual waste to landfill by 20%. So how does it work? “Take one of our clients, a law firm, as an example.” Clement explained, “Data said there’s a total of 20kg metal waste every month; later we found out that it was all from their frequent mingling eventsand customer meetings; where they’d end up using as many as 3,500 cans of soda water. We therefore recommended them to invest in a carbonator, which, after months of communications and data monitoring, almost reduced their metal waste to 2,600 cans.”
To address the Hong Kong government’s Municipal Solid Waste Charging scheme this year, Spare-it helps businesses not only reduce waste and save costs by data-driven budget planning, but incorporate those provided data and analysis into their ESG reports. This enables clients to visualise their environmental and social impacts, so that the corporate can formulate their sustainable development strategy and goals.
On the staff-facing side, Spare-it established a “Waste Reduction Challenge” gamifies waste reduction information by offering rewarding challenges to encourage participation and awareness. “For example, a large-scale MNC (Multinational Corporation) can hold an office-wide waste reduction competition, with each floor as a team.” Clement added. “This competition fosters staff consciousness and knowledge about waste reduction. Additionally, the AI-powered Contamination Tracking function helps to identify the waste that does not belong to a specific recycling bin, which helps deepen the knowledge of waste sorting and recycling; to empower all employees and let them understandthe contamination situation within their office.”
The Secret of Gaining Trust from Big Corporate Clients: Being People-oriented
[Customer Supplier Relationship]
The first client of Spare-it in Hong Kong was Swire Properties, who rolled out a seven-month smart waste reduction pilot scheme. Talking about being trusted by one, and more later on, industry giant right from the start of their Hong Kong venture, Clement revealed that the secret was simple: a helpful, reliable hero product aside, the omnipresence of “human” factor throughout their design, analysis and advice.
“In 2020, Swire Properties was looking for a waste management vendor that would not only record waste data but also provide a management system that facilitates data sharing to tenants so as to drive behavioural change and promote green leasing.” Clement continued. “For the project, later named Smart Waste Reduction Challenge 2021, we devised a seven-month team challenge for the tenants of the group’s seven office towers. A total of 15 participating teams competed against each other on waste reduction performance and creating new bin designs.” By promoting bin centralised collection and sorting stations through this fun-filled challenge, the campaign concluded successfully with 14% reduction in total waste per employee and a 41% waste diversion rate achieved.
Another success was seen in Hong Kong’s largest sustainability expo and conference ReThink HK 2023. In the collaboration, all waste bins and recycling stations within the venue were equipped with Spare-it smart sensors to enable audiences to access to live data of four waste streams: general waste, plastics, paper and metal. Customising the smart bins aside, Spare-it provided a report with details about the total/daily amount and types of waste, waste distribution by location, the reduction in greenhouse gases and feasible recommendations.
It is undeniable that cutting-edge technologies play a pivotal role in sustainability transformation, but at the end of the day, behavioural change is all about “human”. “Let’s face it, more often than not, employees are just ‘following’ the green policies of their company. That’s why at Spare-it, we want to be ‘human’ and put ourselves in your shoes. From collecting data, analysing the results, offering insights and advice on improving efficiency and saving costs, to the integration of educational elements, we aim to raise awareness step-by-step and thus create a strong green force in the city.”
Clement concluded, “We all need to give people a ‘reason’ to change their behaviour so that more of them will take the initiative to support environmental protection.”
Spare-it is one of the invited exhibitors of “Knowledge Primer 5 – Scaling Circularity Through Transformative Technologies and Business Model Innovation” of Partnership for Sustainability Leadership in Business (PSLB). The PSLB project is initiated by the Centre for Civil Society and Governance, The University of Hong Kong, and supported by The Hongkong Bank Foundation. It is aimed at fostering sustainability leadership and collaboration in the business sector of Hong Kong through knowledge transfer, capacity building, and network development; in particular, the Project strives to foster strong partnerships between big corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in pursuit of sustainability.
