Archive for Enviornmental – Page 3

College No. Six figures YES!

What started as a plan to earn money for candy, turned into a 6 figure/ year income for a teenager from Colorado. RJ Duarte was 8 years only when he began his entrepreneurial journey, with a red wagon, a lawnmower, and 5 neighborhood clients RJ began his business. Over time the venture grew, and soon he had a whole trailer park worth of clients. At this point RJ could not keep up with the work on his own. That is when a friend named Owen Johnson became the second member of the workforce. Now on weekends RJ could do more work which increased his income.

For marketing RJ relied on a simple “word of mouth” technique to get new customers on board. And in 2014 the two decided they would take it to the next step and create a legitimate business. They named it GreenWorx. After the hire of another employee, and another big season coming up they decided to try a new marketing technique. After many failed attempts, their story was picked up by a local newsletter that was sent to over 19,000 residents in the area. Let us just say it was a good season for them after that!

By the end of 2016, Green Worx was 300% bigger than the year before. Going into 2017, Green Worx has expanded its team, adding two new labor consultants to help with increasing demand. At this point the two were making six figures a year and growing. After more than five years of working with Green Worx Landscaping, Owen decided to part ways with the company in order to go off to college, but RJ had other plans. He had built something far more than that young 8-year-old in need of candy ever imagined. He decided not to go to college and stuck with the business.

Now with four trucks, and fifteen employees during season the company is bringing in annual revenues close to $750,000/ yr. Thanks to his work ethic, and some strokes of luck, RJ has built a business that will support him for years to come.

NOHBO, Planet-Friendly Personal-Care

Ever wonder when large clunky plastic containers of bathroom hygiene products will be a thing of the past? Nohbo, or NO-Hair-BOttles, has answered this question with, “right now!” Benjamin Stern thought up the innovative idea of Nohbo in his ninth grade biology class and ran with it. At the young age of fourteen, Benjamin watched a documentary about the plastic-bottling industry and how much plastic truly ends up in your bathroom garbage each year, rather than being recycled. He took it upon himself from that day forward to come up with an eco-friendly solution to the limitless plastic waste. His goal was to blend the innovative concept of detergent pods with every-day bathroom products such as shampoo, body wash, and shaving cream. Young Benjamin’s solution was the prototype he created that was a dissolvable ball of product inside of a biodegradable wrapper. He saw the problem of plastic waste in single-use products being mass produced and eradicated this unnecessary abundance with his waste-less product called Nohbo Drops. This product was just the beginning because it soon launched him all the way to the hit TV Show, “Shark Tank.” It was here where he struck an impressive deal with Mark Cuban for $100,000 with a 25% equity stake in his business. Success was bound to happen.

The years following this were big for Benjamin Stern, he not only had Mark Cuban on his side, but he had money and mentorship to aid his growth. On many accounts this young man has found himself deeply appreciative of the amazing business people and scientists that he is surrounded by. They have helped him avoid countless mistakes. In the past three years, Stern graduated high school, raised over three million dollars in business financing, and his Nohbo Drops have been bustling off of the shelves. Though Ben Stern has seen success on all levels, he has hit some pretty significant roadblocks along the way. The most major of the many was the “structurally instability” that the dry dehydrated product form caused within the biodegradable wrappers. This problem was fixed by filling the wrappers with a gel based product which not only worked better and was easier to ship out, but also cut the production cost to a third of what it had been. 

These eco-friendly drops of personal-care products are making Ben Stern a successful young entrepreneur, and they are making the abundance of single use plastic bottles, (that are overused in hotel chains especially,) a thing of the past. These Nohbo Drops melt in your hands once in contact with water and leave no plastic waste to discard following their use. As this environmentally aware entrepreneur has made clear, they [Nohbo] “are a mission driven research and development company founded on the premise of eradicating unnecessary single use plastic bottles in areas where there truly is no need for them.” 

From inspiration to innovation, Benjamin Stern has found a problem and solved it. Today, he continues to work hard behind the scenes at Nohbo. If only he had known that one spark in his mind during a ninth-grade biology class would lead to the prosperity he lives in today. It took only his pursuance of one single idea to inspire a whole generation of young men and women to find problems in the world and try to solve them just like he did. He has not only thought like an entrepreneur, but he has innovated an old commodity like one too. 


For More Information On Nohbo Visit: https://nohbo.com/

Or Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5TMemcpi3w

Sustainable Air Transportation

Wright Electric was founded by Jeffrey Mark Engler to solve the problem carbon emissions by airplanes.  Flying is an essential part of modern transportation, but it can triple a persons carbon footprint.  Wright Electric is working on developing an electric airplane that will have much lower carbon emissions than current passenger jets.  The Wright 1 airplane that is in development will be able to carry 186 passengers, and it will use batteries to power electric motors for propulsion.  Lower carbon emissions will be achieved by using electric power and a more aerodynamic design that reduces drag and makes the airplane more efficient.  Battery powered airplanes are becoming more realistic as a result of research by government agencies such as NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory that are making batteries more efficient and lighter.  An electric airplane has some additional benefits.  Electric motors are much quieter than traditional jet engines, and the decreased use of fuel will make electric airplanes cheaper to fly.  Wright electric is also designing their airplane so that batteries can be quickly swapped at an airport to allow for a faster turnaround time.

Wright Electric has partnered with experienced airlines such as EasyJet, Jetex, and VivaAerobus to get commercial, operational, and maintenance insight during the design process.  The Wright 1 will not have a very large range at first with 500km or 311mi flights from London to Paris, but it will be able to get up a 1,280km or 800mi range.  The Wright 1 will also have slower cruising speeds than similarly sized passenger jets, but Wright Electric expects this to be fine for the short flights that they will be starting with.  Wright Electric is planning to perform ground tests of its motors in 2021 and flight tests in 2023.  They are hoping to have the airplane on the market by 2030.

Jasmine Crowe: Goodr

 

Jasmine Crowe is a female entrepreneur who uses her innovation and knowledge to make a huge impact on the food supply chain and hunger in America. In 2017, Jasmine founded Goodr, a food logistics company that takes excess food from large conference centers, airports, and companies, and redistributes it to people who struggle with poverty-related hunger. According to Feeding America, 37 million people in America struggle with hunger (https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/facts) and Jasmine Crowe believes that this number can be significantly lowered by distributing food correctly, instead of producing more.

How does Goodr deliver value?

Goodr has a “triple-win” solution that delivers value to customers, the planet, and those struggling with poverty-related hunger. By donating excess food to food banks and other donation centers, companies can increase their bottom line through charitable tax donations. Additionally, companies are no longer sending the excess food to landfills and creating more greenhouse gases, which improves sustainability in the company and benefits the environment. Finally, Goodr delivers value to communities in need by delivering the surplus food to those who are struggling. Goodr does not deliver the food to communities and leave, instead, they take a hands-on approach to ending hunger. The company produces pop-up grocery stores in low-income communities that allow community members to shop a variety of fresh foods for free. Many of these pop-up grocery stores are sponsored by local companies and corporations, enabling and encouraging these companies to give back and care about the community they are in. In addition to these pop-up grocery stores, Goodr provides demonstrations on how to cook healthy meals.

Goodr has donated over 2 millions pounds of food from companies such as Netflix, Hartsfield- Jackson International Airport, NFL, and many more.

Inspiration

This is not Jasmine’s first innovative approach to giving. She is also the founder of BCG (blackcelebritygiving.com), a non-profit philanthropic company that partners with black celebrities all over the world to use their influence and resources for good. Jasmine is an inspiration to innovators worldwide who seek to make the world a better place through entrepreneurship and service.

To learn more about Goodr and their mission, visit goodr.co

Glass Half Full

For the past decade, young adults are becoming more and more aware of the impact that waste has on the Earth’s oceans and land. There have been multiple startups to help clean the oceans, but what about replenishing the sand on the beaches? Louisiana, the hot spot for hurricane hits, has its coast being greatly eroded every time there is flooding.

But in 2018, three Tulane University students decided to fight for their home. Max Landy, Max Steitz, and Franziska Trautmann started Plant the Peace, a nonprofit organization that “aims to fight climate change at the intersection of education technology and carbon reduction.” This nonprofit’s website has free, educational games that anyone can play. And for every 10 correct answers that a gamer achieves, Plant the Peace plants one tree. This worldwide site is taking a step in the right direction and helping other business become more sustainable as well.

This past year, the students had the idea to replenish Louisiana beaches, and started another nonprofit. How did they begin this? They built a mobile, glass-pulverizing machine that turns glass into sand. It was designed to be mobile so that they could transport it from location to location start the process. Once they began to accumilate large amounts of glass bottles, they bought a warehouse and moved their project inside. They also set up about 20 sites around the city for used glass to be dropped off, and partnered with businesses in the area to house large recycling bins. Over the spring and summer, they touched up and facelifted the warehouse to make it an easier environment to work in. Now, they are working harder than ever to minimize the amount of glass bottles Tulane has, and to make sand for their beaches.

Fair Harbor

 

 

About Them

Jake and Caroline Danehy founded Fair Harbor. It started when they went on shark tank with their idea and won $20,000 for grant money. They go to Colgate University. Jake being 20 and Caroline being 17 they were able to start this company themselves. If you would read their about us on their website you would learn that they loved going to the beach as kids. They grew up in a community that barely had any cars and everyone was barefoot. They were able to walk to the beach without any shoes on; so you could say that they grew up on the beach. With the love of the beach sparked an idea to keep it beautiful.

The Idea

As they got older they noticed more and more plastic was being washed up on the beach. Will their love of the beach and the environment they had an idea to help with the problem but also make some money. Their idea was that they would make swim wear out of the plastic they find on the beach or in the ocean. This is how they decided to do something about the problem

Delivering Value

To make swim wear out of used plastic is a mystery for me, but these two have figured out how to not only make the clothing but also to deliver quality value. Their swim outfits also have some new qualities two them that most companies don’t have yet; like they got rid of the mesh in their swimming shorts for men. We all know how irritating those nets can be. If you would go to their website it looks very updated and easy to use.

https://www.fairharborclothing.com/pages/custom-about-us

Leigh-Kathryn Bonner with “Bee Downtown”

Leigh-Kathryn Bonner, a student at North Carolina State University and fourth generation beekeeper, needed somewhere to keep her beehive while at college. Unfortunately, dorms have pretty strict policies about what you can and can’t bring to college — and beehives weren’t exactly encouraged.

With the permission of the company she was interning for, she was able to keep her beehives on their roof. Shortly after, other companies heard about this project and wanted to be able to make an impact with bees in their companies and communities.

Bee Downtown soon became a business born out of Leigh-Kathryn’s pure love for bees. They now have over 250 hives at 40+ corporate locations such as Chick-fil-a, Burt’s Bees, Delta, and IBM are among a few of the companies that have participated. IMG_7506.JPG

The honeybee hives are installed and taken care of by Bee Downtown. They offer additional programming for their company partners such as hive tours, team building, and leadership development. The companies involved have access to exclusive events and contacts through Bee Downtown.

Not only is Bee Downtown helping the bee population grow, it is helping companies to grow through employee engagement and interaction. Bee Downtown is a great example of a company with a social mission that will impact many.

Bonner hopes that Bee Downtown will continue to “positively impact the environment, educate the public, and provide a turn key sustainability program for businesses.”

 

Me & the Bees Lemonade

 

We often think of a kid making a lemonade stand as a starting place for entrepreneurial ventures, but Mikaila Ulmer found a way to market her lemonade to a mass market at just the age of four.

According to Mikaila, when she was four years old, her parents encouraged her to make a product for a children’s business competition and Austin Lemonade Day.  She says that while she was trying to come up with ideas, she got stung by a bee and later, Mikaila’s great-grandma sent her family her old cookbook with her recipe for flaxseed lemonade.

After this, she became fascinated with bees (though simultaneously a little scared of them) and learned all she could about them.  She says that one day she thought what if she could make something that helped honeybees and used her great-grandma’s recipe.

Me and the Bees utilizes her great-grandma’s recipe and local honey as a sweetener.  She says on her website that every year she sells out of her lemonade at youth entrepreneurial events.  A portion of the profits always goes to organizations that help to protect honeybees – thus the origin of her slogan, “Buy a bottle, save a bee!”

In this video, Mikaila shares some of the things she’s learned about being an entrepreneur.

 

Mikaila is now 14 years old and is working hard in school, but Me and the Bees continues to grow and can be readily found in Whole Foods Market.

The Ocean Cleanup

At only 20 years old, a young entrepreneur and environmental activist Boyan Slat founded The Ocean Cleanup. At the age of 14, he saw the problem of more and more trash accumulating in the oceans and researched all throughout highschool. In 2014, with the help of crowdfunding, he was able to set his plan into motion. They use the natural circulation of the ocean to their advantage and use what they describe as a “passive system” to collect trash, using currents to sweep up garbage. They began rolling out some systems last year and plan to begin their full-scale operation by sometime in 2020. He left his aerospace college studies and decided to pursue and tackle a problem that affects us all, in one way or another. Boyan is a great example of someone who saw pain, but unlike almost everyone who also recognizes this pain, he formulated a plan to combat this and make the world a better place.

Sarah Tulin: A Solution for Air Pollution

As Sarah was walking the city streets on her way to work, a giant puff of bus exhaust filled her longs, burned her eyes, and covered her clothes. Between gasping for air, Sarah Tulin mulled over a solution for the increasing amount of air pollution affecting everyone walking out and about. Oxie was born to help protect people from the abundance of harmful  chemicals flying around in the air. Oxie is the first smart, wearable, air purifier that “purifies your air without masking your smile”. Tulin designed Oxie so that the purifier could easily fit underneath your shirt collar and remain discrete. Tulin had dust masks in mind when pondering how to reduce the amount of pollution we breathe in, but she was displeased by how unattractive and poorly functioning they were.

Not only does Oxie protect people from harsh chemicals, but it also filters out viruses, bacteria, pollen, and other particles that can make humans feel under the weather. This subtle collar filters everything so that humans can live a healthier lifestyle.

Another interesting feature of this device is that it has the ability to monitor everything. Oxie can track how much pollution is being filtered from your air in real time, which can then be tracked and recorded. This research can be used to monitor how serious the problem of air quality changing, and researchers can determine what pollutants are the most common.

I am curious to see how this product takes off. There is still debate whether people will wear this or not, but I can see the benefit of using Oxie. Not only are you protecting yourself, but you are also contributing to the research going towards air quality. Tulin recognized a serious problem and created a solution that is more effective than the other solutions in this market. Also, she adapted her plan to include how to research and monitor air quality, which is important for the world. Air quality purification is not a crowded market, so I am curious to see how successful this product will be, or if a better designed product will take its place.

https://youtu.be/EjIdEVmpYjI