Category: social impact

We are saving more than just paper

We care about the planet and have always been proud that we advise corporate clients all over China to adopt sustainable solutions in their workplaces. Therefore, it only makes sense for us to incorporate these environmentally-friendly initiatives into our own internal office habits.

What is Paperback?

The Paperback Program aims to provide corporations and businesses in China with the means to recycle paper responsibly and raise awareness in order to reduce paper waste.

According to Green Initiatives Director Ashley Fernandes, the waste paper gets collected, processed with other virgin pulp and then is remade into new industrial grade paper, which is supplied to other paper products manufacturers. What makes this program unique is that the Green Initiatives team has verified the recycling process at Asia Pulp and Paper’s facility in Ningbo, China. Ashley explains, “At Green Initiatives, before we launch any project, we conduct due diligence that the partners we work with are reliable and deliver what they commit to.”

In December 2018, our management team took some time out of their busy schedules to gain a deeper understanding of the Green Initiatives Paperback Program. Founder Nitin Dani gave our team a great presentation about the purpose of the Paperback Program. At Life Solutions, we are excited about the positive impacts that this project can bring about. The facts below are more than convincing!

What we learned.

For each ton of recycled paper, we can save up to:
– 26,500 liters of water
– 4,000 kilowatts of energy
– 1,440 liters of oil
– 17 trees
– 2 cubic meters of landfill

The team was surprised at the amount of natural resources we can save by recycling in our office. We understand that as our company grows in numbers, our consumption of paper is likely to increase. This opportunity to make a positive difference for the planet is the main reason why we decided to partner with Green Initiatives on their Paperback Program.

Join us!

As we are continually looking for ways to save natural resources and improve our company as a whole, we are proud to participate in this important Corporate Responsibility program. Our printing corner is now equipped with classified recycling bins as well as informative posters to increase internal environmental awareness around the office.

If you would like your company to help the environment by reducing waste, you can find out more about this program here: http://greeninitiatives.cn/view-project/paperback

We work hard at Life Solutions to provide educational presentations and seminars that broaden and deepen knowledge for clients, charities, schools, universities and social enterprises about water quality and efficiency in the Asia Pacific region as well as the global pollution caused by the plastic bottle industry.

At Life Solutions, we continue to deepen our understanding of water risks and scarcity, and to share our knowledge with business and residential clients, staff members, suppliers, volunteer organisations and the general public across China.

This is one way we live our mission of inspiring China’s transition to clean and healthy drinking water through outstanding customer service and environmentally friendly solutions

If you would like us to speak at your conference, trade show or event, would like copies of past presentation slides or have any questions about our high-quality products or our reliable services, feel free to contact us at enquiry@lifesolutions.com.cn.

We save 37,500 litres of water every Meat Free Monday!

What Meat Free Monday?

Meat Free Monday is a movement started in 2009 by Paul, Mary, and Stella McCartney.The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of the detrimental environmental impact of eating meat, and to encourage people to help slow climate change, conserve precious natural resources and improve their health by having at least one meat free day each week.

Animal agriculture facts

• Global animal agriculture water consumption ranges from 34-76 trillion gallons annually.
• Most of the water humans consume is not from homes or day to day use. In fact, only 5% of water consumed in the US is by private homes. However, approximately 55% of water consumed is for animal agriculture. Animal agriculture uses 20%-33% of all fresh water consumption in the world today.
• Animal agriculture makes up 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, which is more than all of the emissions caused by all types of transportation combined.

Moreover, water contamination is also a huge problem caused by livestock. A lot of water from industrial waste goes back into usage without full, correct treatment. That water is then used for agriculture. More damagingly, manure contains nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous, which in overabundance of causes water pollution and can cause algae blooms, which can harm or even kill marine life. The cycle then repeats itself.

Agriculture takes up 70% of the earth’s fresh water resources, which is dominated through the rearing of livestock. Based on several studies, producing 1 kg of rice takes approximately 3,500 liters of water while 1 kg of beef requires about 15,000 liters!

What are we doing about it?

There are many more disturbing statistics like the ones above and that is why, at Life Solutions, we have committed to reducing our meat consumption with Meatless Mondays. Every Monday, our in-house cook provides freshly cooked vegetarian and sometimes vegan dishes that are not only delicious but environmentally friendly.

Our cook estimates that she would normally purchase 2.5 kgs of meat when she visits the fresh markets each morning for ingredients to cater for our office of over 20 people. Therefore, according to the above statistics, by removing meat from our lives every Monday – for just one day of the week, we are saving up to 37,500 liters of water, every Monday, every week. Life Solutions saves nearly 2 million liters of water every year!

We care for our planet and our team’s health, so we have taken these steps to reduce our meat consumption, thereby decreasing our water waste as well as our energy and resources consumption. This one of the ways that Life Solutions lives our mission of inspiring China’s transition to clean and healthy drinking water through outstanding customer service and environmentally friendly solutions.

We are happy to give talks about Meat Free Monday and any other social impact initiatives we do. For more information, please contact us below.

We believe that a good internship program is key to the empowerment of young, aspiring professionals.

Benefits of an Internship

Internships have become a very popular option for students to gain opportunities for employment and to hone their skills. At Life Solutions, we see it as a mutually beneficial partnership. Both parties, the intern and us, will grow tremendously together through the duration of the internship.

1. Youth Empowerment and Social Responsibility

At Life Solutions, we recognize how much an internship could help students take their first step into their professional career. By offering an internship program, we are encouraging skills development by teaching and mentoring aspiring professionals to hone their communication, cultural diversity, interpersonal, and business skills. Moreover, we believe that our internship program helps students not only build their resume but creates opportunities for their future. Internships are catalysts for students to position themselves to open doors for future professional opportunities. They are one of the key empowerment sources that boosts confidence for a young, growing, eager-to-learn student just beginning to discover their passion and career focus.

It’s a well-known fact that graduating students with paid or unpaid internships on their résumé have a much better chance at landing a full-time position upon graduation. Internships provide opportunities to building industry contacts, add value to their resumes and on occasion these may develop into permanent positions.

2. Cultural Diversity

Not only do internship programs encourage students to discover their passion, they promote cultural diversity at the work place. At Life Solution, we work with Waterloo Works, a Co-op program offered by the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Canada is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world and so we get students from diverse backgrounds. This diversifies our human capital and experience sharing for all members of our team. Not only can Life Solutions learn from their fresh, worldly perspectives, our interns also get to learn about how we do business in China and manage day-to-day operations in the exciting city of Shanghai.

3. Unique Perspectives

One of Life Solution’s core values is to be open to new ideas. Bringing in young interns from different university programs and cultural backgrounds adds value to what we do through the sharing of unique perspectives. Not only is there a cultural gap, there is also a generation gap that allows for fresh ideas that would have otherwise taken more time to curate and identify. Having social media and internet-savvy minds, interns are quick to gather the information they need to learn in order to do tasks. Their fresh young minds and extra sets of hands are helpful to the team as well as giving them unique insights, which can help us to better meet the needs of our of diverse customers.

Colleen Yu (Video)

Tristan Lin (Article)

Mengxi Wu (Video)

We see it on our social media feeds, we hear about it in documentaries, we may have been taught about it in school: Plastic.

Just one single plastic foam cup takes 50 years to degrade. Plastic bottles, one of the most commonly used plastics, can take up to 450 years to degrade! Here at Life Solutions, we wanted to see how these kinds of numbers come to life in Shanghai and to make a positive difference to improve water quality and ecosystem health.

On August 8th 2018, Life Solutions partnered with Green Initiatives to learn more about our local environment and make a positive difference for marine life and ecosystems.

The team was briefed with facts and statistics before and during the rubbish clean up. The location Green Initiatives chose was Baoshan Wusong Pao Taiwan Wetland Forest National Park. This important National park is a “protected” area located on the last section of the Yangtze delta, facing the northeast shore of Chongming island.

“It is an ecosystem of special interest, adapted to changing conditions of a littoral marshland with fluvial and oceanic influences. Besides a rich variety of flora, supported by rich alluvial sediments and abundant humidity, the salty winds and flooded soils’ variable conditions affect the development of wetland communities. The shoreline is permanently exposed to the influence of tidal oscillation, water currents and the river flow, resulting in a high erosion of nutrients and soil particles that are dynamically balanced with the constant input of rich river sediments.”

Life Solutions and Green Initiatives staff worked all day picking up trash along the Yangtze River. Feeling this was an important educational and socially impactful experience, we felt proud to help protect the river water and the organisms living in the wetland.

At Life Solutions, we constantly work towards our mission of inspiring China’s transition to clean and healthy drinking water through our water filtration products, services and our Corporate Social Responsibility work with our partners.

To address global challenges like plastic waste, water pollution and water quality, we need to collaborate. Here are some examples of how we work with our not-for-profit and social enterprise partners to create value and social impact.

In order to create true social impact, support environmental sustainability and long-term, mutual business success, we look for partners who share similar values and goals, have the capability to create shared value and commit to the long term. If this sounds like you, feel free to get in touch with us: enquiry@lifesolutions.com.cn.

In the videos below, our sustainability partners discuss the work we do together.