Are we sustainable? Yes!
Sustainability is becoming more and more important for our planet, for us as heijar team and also for our customers. Therefore, we try to act environmentally consciously and encourage our customers to do so likewise with the help of AR.
Sustainability? A definition
Sustainability focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
The concept of sustainability is composed of three pillars: economic, environmental, and social—also known informally as profits, planet, and people.
(Brundtland Comission, 1987)
As a start-up, we cannot afford a certification at the moment. We yearly self-assess ourselves and look for ways of improvement. However, with the help of the concept Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) we tried to summarize our efforts (in a qualitative way) below.
Heijar LCA
Sourcing
All our servers run with renewable energy (100 percent carbon dioxide-free and environmentally-friendly hydropower and wind power). It is known that the extraction of rare earths and conflict minerals can be socially and environmentally problematic, this is why all our devices are bought reused and thoroughly reconditioned – in order to prolong their life-cycle (what makes the carbon footprint better) and avoid the use of new materials.
Production/Development
Our office is powered by renewable energy as well. Our team is reaching the office with mostly public transport & bikes. In addition, we encourage the Heijar team to follow green office guidelines provided by the University of Graz (https://static.uni-graz.at/fileadmin/projekte/plattform-nachhaltigkeit/Downloads/Green_Office_Leitfaden.pdf ).
The Heijar team is of course also taking care of itself. There are core office hours where everyone is required to be in office to guarantee an efficient information flow, but there are also flexible hours.
Use phase
Our product does only require energy, which can be sourced renewable. We want to encourage our customers to do so as well.
No extra purchased devices are required. The end-customers can just use their mobile phone and our customers only has to use our software.
With Heijar’s software solution our customers save material: print material, construction material, extra devices etc.
Information flows are more efficient which also means a more sustainable approach concerning people‘s time.
(Furthermore, also the content shown in the Heijar app can lead to a more sustainable behaviour. The Heijar app can be used to inform that you should not leave the path here or about regional environmental friendly products/food.)
End-of-life
The Heijar app itself is an intangible product, therefore there is no need to take care of “waste” here.
However, in order to use our software solution devices such as mobile phones and tablets are used by our end-customers. Due to this reason we want to promote a long use and reusing of electronic devices. In addition, in Europe the European Rare Earths Competency Network (ERECON) and the European Rare Earth (Magnet) Recycling Network (EREAN) are looking for economically efficient recycling methods, we are curious!
Resilience
Having a look at resilience, the Heijar app is perfect as it is flexible and it is possible to adapt our software solution fast to occuring needs and scenarious. For example, heijar`s “download in advance” feature saves content (after manually triggered) on the phone temporarily locally. So in the case of a short WLAN breakdown, the AR experience will run smoothly for our end-customer. (Of course, there are also limits, in the case of a nationwide blackout, heijar wouldn`t work, but then we would all have other problems anyway.)
Don`t hesitate to ask us questions!
The heijar Team