Maaike van Oss

VerPot

VerPot is the first ever online supermarket that is also entirely plastic free. Instead of plastic packaging they use recycled glass pots and paper bags. Ramon Caljouw is the man behind the company. He came to this idea when he started separating his waste and saw how many products are unnecessarily packaged in plastic.

The reason this supermarket is not a physical store, but an online one is because of the reusable glass pots. Ramon thought it would be easier and more customer friendly if he were to deliver the groceries in their heavy pots himself and pick them up again when they’re empty. According to him, many physical stores have gone bankrupt, because it costs a little more energy for people to carry the glass with them to the physical store, instead of throwing away their plastic waste. (VerPot, de verpakkingsvrije online supermarkt, sd)Currently, VerPot is only situated in Leiden, but you can fill in your location on their website and you’ll get a notification when they are ready to deliver to a location near you!

(Remon Caljouw, Verpot, sd)

Le Compostier

Le Compostier is an idea from Rowin Snijder. He designed the first every worm hotel that’s made specifically for composting vegetable, garden and fruit (VGF) waste. After six months of composting, you are able to harvest from it. These worm hotels are made for restaurants, hotels, companies within the city and regular residents.

In Amsterdam and Amstelveen, a city south of Amsterdam, there a many different neighbourhoods in which people use these worm hotels to compost their waste. In fact, it has become so popular that Snijder goes to these neighbourhoods to give lessons in composting and regularly stops by to check on the worms. (Menkhorst, 2017)

(Le Compostier, 2017)

City Office Venlo

The municipality of Venlo has re-opened its new city office in October 2016. This new city office has been built according to the Cradle to Cradle principle. This principle is essentially a new view on sustainable design and a waste free world. The name stems from the idea of a life cycle, but instead of going from cradle to grave, it goes from cradle to cradle. To make this a little clearer: normally after using a product you throw it away, but now instead of throwing it away you use it for another product.

The building of the city office is not just sustainable, but it also positively contributes to people and the environment. By using solar panels, they use clean energy throughout the entire building. One side of the building is entirely covered in more than 100 varieties of greenery which purify the surrounding air. The greenhouse on the roof also purifies the air, but also delivers heat throughout the entire building in the winter, since the glass of the greenhouse heats up by the sun.

Within the building the recycle all the waste they produce. (City Hall Venlo more than merely sustainable, 2015)

(Mara van den Oetelaar, 2017)

Sustainability is important, because our entire future and life on this earth depend on it. Climate change has been a big issue for decades, but only recently you can see a rise in small independent companies that are trying to do something about it.

We can speak of a megatrend, because sustainability has been a known development since the late 80’s. (Do you know when sustainability first appeared?, sd)This means that it has been known for almost 40 years. Another reason why this is a megatrend is the important shift in society. People are more conscious of the way they live, and municipalities offer help, so everyone can be as sustainable as they want to be. To name an example: in many municipalities there are free plastic trash bags which are used to separate your plastic waste from the rest of your waste. Then the garbage trucks will come and gather these big bags full of plastic once every three weeks. This is just one example of how people’s behaviour has changed over the last couple of years in favour of sustainability.

Nowadays, people value sustainability and green energy a lot more than earlier days. They feel a need for security in the future but are unable to get it due to climate change. Many also want stability for their children because they will have to live in the future that is still so unsure.

The most logical aspect to link this megatrend to is, of course, the ecological aspect. Sustainability is all about preserving the natural resources we have left and finding new alternatives for them. The rise of solar panels in the Netherlands is a great example for this. In total, there are 12 million solar panels in the Netherlands, which are being used by approximately half a million households. (Korndewal, 2018)

According to Lucas LaRochelle (sd) “The intent of the Queering the Map project is to ‘queer’ as much space as possible, from park benches to parking garages, to mark moments of queerness wherever they occur.” Another reason why this website is so important right now, is because of the current president and the hate he brings forward. In 2017, an 86% increase in anti-LGBTQ was recorded by NCAVP. (Waters, Pham, Convery, & Yacka-Bible, 2018)There is a need for a safe space online filled with positive, heartwarming and emotional stories for queer people and by queer people.

For this signal, the underlying values are inclusion and belonging. People want to belong in this safe space online. Their needs are respect, safety and self-worth. Because if you’re not accepted by friends of family it can have quite an impact on the way you view yourself.

This signal is related to the social aspect of STEEP because queer people have a need for feeling more acceptance online. Especially, because some are not able to get any acceptance for their sexuality or gender identity offline. There is a need for feeling like you belong in a certain community. To me, personally, as a queer person I feel a need to see positive stories about same sex relationships, because often you hear a lot of negativity in forms of anti-LGBT statements or hearing about a queer couple that got attacked. Queering the Map feels like a diary that you share with all queer people around the world, a secret place where no hate and disrespect is allowed.

(http://www.forflo.com.au/, sd)

Women that menstruate every month use approximately 16,000 pads or tampons throughout their lives. These sanitary items can be harmful to your body, because of the toxins that they contain. The reason your tampons and pads look so clean and crisp, is because they get so white through chlorine bleach. (Mercola, 2013)The cotton that is used for pads and tampons comes from cotton crops which have been sprayed by pesticides. Another worrying issue is that pads can contain the same amount of plastic as 4 plastic bags. And for the same reason people warn you about drinking from the same bottle of plastic for too long, there should be warnings for using pads. Plastic can be very harmful to your body, because it can contain bisphenol-A. This chemical can have extreme effects on your body such as: kidney stones, narrowed arteries, obesity, cancer, increased risk of heart diseases and it can interfere with egg development. This can cause miscarriages, Down syndrome and birth defects. This is the same chemical that you are putting into your body when using traditional sanitary products.

There’s time for change and luckily, it’s made possible with the many new options that have come to the market in this day and age. The reusable pads by hannahpad contain none of the chemicals above. They use only 100% certified organic cotton, which has not come in contact with bleach or dye. (hannahpad, sd)

(hannahpad, sd)

More often do people talk about the issues that come with the traditional forms of pads and tampons, but there’s still a taboo. Not many people want to talk about it and especially not the companies that produce these products. This is the reason I link this signal to the social part of STEEP.

People that are interested in this signal, often value honesty of companies about for example, the ingredients that their products contain. Some of their needs are clear communication, security and safety.

The megatrend that lies behind this signal is transparency. Nowadays people are more interested where their products come from, what exactly is in them and whether it’s actually as healthy as everyone thinks it is. It’s important to know exactly what you buy. In this day and age, it’s so much easier to find everything you want to know about a product or a company on the internet. You can find reviews, ingredient information, background information on the CEO, anything you want to know you can find. Consumers ask more of companies than ever before: products need to be vegan, cruelty free, ethically made, carbon emission-free, but also as cheap as possible.

More often you see big companies offer vegan options on their menus or in their stores. Just think of the vegan meatballs at IKEA, or the Meatless Mondays at Bijenkorf. Veganism is on the rise.  People have now realised that there are other options aside from eating potatoes, vegetables and some meat next to it every evening. Many have now come to the conclusion that eating less meat and more plant based is better for the environment. It’s difficult to know the exact number of people that have chosen to take on a plant-based diet, since it’s becoming more and more popular and people chose to leave meat behind every day. However, according to the Vegetariërsbond (sd), which is Dutch for Vegetarian Federation, 4% of the people in the Netherlands that do not eat meat. This means there are approximately 700,000 vegetarians.

If we take a look at the megatrend that lies beneath this rise of plant-based diets, we can link it to Inclusion. Many people that do not eat meat or dairy do this because they feel like animals are not products to be used but living beings that need to be treated with respect. They are not our possessions and we, as humans, are not above them.  

A value that many people share is justice. First, it was justice for black people, justice for LGBTQ+ people, but nowadays, more often you also see that people want justice for animals. Some needs that connect with this are therefore, respect, inclusion, empathy and wellbeing of others.  

The ecological aspect of veganism is the most interesting one to me, because a popular motive of taking on a plant-based diet is the environment. So, let’s dive into the facts and figures of how the meat industry impacts the environment.

51% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world come from livestock. This equals 32,564 million tons of C02. (Goodland & Anhang, 2009) This means that whatever you personally do to try and reduce the CO2 emissions, by for example, going by bike instead of taking your car or doing your laundry on a lower temperature, it won’t fix the problem. If the core of the problem lies within the big companies within the meat industries, why don’t we hold them responsible instead of trying to fix the problem individually?

Did you also know that one hamburger wastes as much water as you would during two months of showering? (Walsh, 2013)

Often you hear people scold you for not taking shorter showers or separating your trash, but if you take a closer look and do some research you find out that there’s a larger problem, namely the entire meat industry.

Because these families often have multiple jobs and are always on the go, their only options for take away food are unhealthy. With the introduction of Everytable, this is no longer an issue. Local chefs prepare the healthy meals offered at Everytable, for which they use fresh ingredients. These meals are sold in a grab-and-go manner, which means you can either buy a packaged meal and take it home or heat it up in the microwave they offer in their stores. (Everytable, sd)  

(Everytable, sd)

To quote David Foster: “We wanted to make the food as accessible as possible so that we could hopefully make some strides toward getting people what we think is a human right, which is access to healthy, fresh, delicious food.” (Delgadillo, 2016) Every single human being needs healthy, nutritious food in order to function properly. Especially those who juggle between multiple jobs and work harder than others to maintain their families.  America is most famous for its fast food chains and unhealthy eating habits. However, I believe there has come a turning point in regard to fast food, predominantly in the United States. Take a look at the number of documentaries made with the consequences of fast food as a main topic. People want change.

(la-explorer.com, 2017)

If we take a look at the economical aspect of Everytable, there is something really interesting to be mentioned. The prices of the meals that Everytable sells are based on the average income of the neighbourhood they are situated in. So, for example, in a lower income community a meal costs $5, but the same meal can cost $8 in a higher income community. The reason for this is to ensure that everyone can afford to buy a meal and the higher prices in higher income neighbourhoods will result in more money that Sam and David will use to open up more locations. Beneath you can take a look at their business model.

(Everytable, sd)

An important need here is the need for healthy options because these people value their health. Another one is justice, because the most hard-working people have such limited healthy options. Usually, people of lower income families have jobs that are more physical than those of people from higher income families. Thus, it’s more important for them to take good care of it.

Since many victims of sexual assault or rape go into shock during these events, they are unable to call for help or escape. The heart monitor in the bra will be able to measure the drop in your heart rate when this state of shock occurs.  This can all count as evidence against your rapist, which is something that many victims of sexual assault struggle with. They have no evidence, there were no witnesses and because of that, their rapist is still able to walk around freely.

“When just my word is no evidence” (Vorgers, 2016)

‘Soutien’ represents the need for justice, especially for victims of sexual harassment and rape. Which is a very hot topic, especially right now. Just think of all the hashtags going around on social media. Everyone has access to social media and can contribute to a hashtag.  This bra is so attractive right now, because in this day and age people are confronted with stories and hashtags almost every day, which can make them feel unsafe. ‘Soutien’ is of use to all women or others that wear bras. It will make them feel a lot safer in their daily life, or during certain events, such as going out. Of course, the bra would not be able to protect them from being harassed or raped, but at least they will have the certainty of evidence. The recording equipment will help in making sure the perpetrator will be punished and will be prevented from harming others.  (Kurpershoek, 2018)

This bra can be related to especially the social aspect of STEEP since it’s about people’s behaviour and the way they treat one another.

However, a more interesting insight is the political one. Are there any laws that can prevent this bra from being manufactured? Is it illegal to record people without them knowing? If we take a closer look at the Dutch laws regarding recordings, it says that as long as the person that’s recording participates in the conversation, it’s legal. (Wetboek van Strafrecht, sd)

The underlying need for this signal is the security of having evidence. Of course, it will not prevent rape or harassment entirely, but it’s one step closer to the value of trust of the goodness of humanity and self-control. 

In my opinion, this bra has a great future potential, in the sense that women will feel more safe and secure wearing these types of garments to events or occasions where they normally would not feel as safe. It will also spread the word that women are not to be messed with any longer. And it might even greatly impact the numbers of sexual assault and rape, because now people know that this recording equipment exists. However, I’m not too sure if many people will buy a bra like this. In my opinion, people are too sceptical to have all this equipment in their bras. Especially in this day and age when people are scared of being watched or eavesdropped. So, although I think this is a very innovative and great idea, I feel the world is not yet ready for it.