Maynilad Water Services - Innovation in Energy & Sustainability

Name of Organization / Company: Maynilad Water Services, Inc., Quezon City, NCR, Philippines
Category: Award for Innovation in Energy & Sustainability

Entry Title: Green Badge: Uniform Upcycling Program

Essay

In Maynilad’s desire to protect its brand, the water company developed the Green Badge Uniform Upcycling Program in 2017. The initiative aims to establish a process for the proper disposal of old uniforms, as well as to prevent them from being used in illegal activities. The program eventually expanded to include a social enterprise component for the women of an indigent community in Quezon City, who earn by removing logos from obsolete uniforms and replacing them with new, non-Maynilad-branded badges, washing the rebadged uniforms, and packing them for donation to disaster survivors. In the last two years, the program has yielded 6,266 rebadged uniforms, which were all donated to refugees displaced by armed conflict in Marawi, Lanao del Sur, as well as the survivors of fire tragedies within the 16 cities served by the water company. After going through further training courtesy of Maynilad, the seamstresses are now able to produce non-clothing items such as drawstring bags, neck pillows, coin purses, gadget pouches and tent canopies out of old shirts and other recycled materials like tarpaulins. All these are purchased by Maynilad as corporate gifts, and the company has begun to market the community’s uniform upcycling service to other organizations.

Every 18 months, Maynilad issues a new set of uniforms to its more than 2,000 employees. Once new uniforms are issued, the old uniforms can no longer be worn in any official function or event. Since there is no clear uniform disposal policy, employees are left to dispose of their old uniforms on their own. As a company benefit, uniforms become property of the employees once issued, but the brand carried by these clothing items is owned by the company. Here lies the problem. Employees usually donate old uniforms to charity or to relief drives. Neither the company nor the employees know who ends up using them. As a result, there have been some incidents when old uniforms were used for extortion and petty crimes. For instance, a person pretending to be a Maynilad employee, wearing an obsolete Maynilad uniform, would come up to a customer, asking for payment for service “adjustments” not offered by the company.

Looking for a group who can handle the debranding of uniforms, Maynilad renewed its partnership with the informal-settler community of Riverview, which previously benefited from the company’s water-for-the-poor initiative, Samahang Tubig Maynilad (STM) program. Under the STM program, Maynilad organizes the residents into a water cooperative so they can properly manage their community-based water system. Instead of paying for overpriced water rations, residents now buy cheap water from their own community faucet. Beginning with water, Maynilad further boosted development support for the community through a livelihood program.

Twelve seamstresses (not including packagers and other workers) are currently active in the Green Badge program. Mostly housewives and laundrywomen, they used to have little to no income, and are still taking care of young children and grandkids. Green Badge now provides each member a monthly additional income of P2,000-4,000 ($38-77), supplementing the earnings of their husbands through work that they can take home or do in their free time.

Green Badge also created a venue for employees to participate in one of the company’s social responsibility efforts through the simple act of surrendering obsolete uniforms. They appreciate the fact that old shirts, which used to eat up space in shelves at home, can be turned into decent clothing for the needy and even augment the income of the poor. Maynilad even developed an incentive program, such as raffling off premium giveaways, to encourage employees to turn over more uniforms and improve collection rate.

Green Badge proved to be a cost-effective, multi-faceted and meaningful program, providing wins in all fronts— brand equity, employee engagement, community development and environment.

LINKS:

URL 1: https://www.facebook.com/hugotsatubig/videos/2153602621628489/

URL 2: https://www.facebook.com/hugotsatubig/videos/884045615137497/