To describes the principles of our green and sustainable product portfolio is following we are using a framework set up in the Brutland Report which was published in 1987 by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development which defines sustainability as a three-legged stool of people, planet, and profit1
For TheCityFarm it is extremely important to secure that in all our action people are the most important thing, they are always in the foreground. The companies products are designed to help people living a better live, equal if it is getting healthier, greener, cleaner or just more relaxed. In the best case TheCityFarm can achieve all these goals at the same time.
The lowest level on which TheCityFarm's products can improve peoples lives is the stage of creating "just" a more relaxed and happier life for them. We can manage to do so, if we build systems which are only designed to look beautiful, systems which do not produce any eatable vegetables but only trees and flowers. With these systems we simply try to create oasis of relaxation where stressed urban managers relax during a lunch break, before or after work. We want them to get rid the gray everyday routine when they are surrounded by the beautiful environment of our aquaponic systems.
The level of life improvement we can reach with our products is the level of providing a healthier, greener, cleaner and living environment. The more of our systems are installed on the roofs or the claddings of a city, the greener this urban environment becomes. And it not only become greener, it also becomes cleaner, because the products TheCityFarm sells are cleaning the air and absorbing CO2-emissions simply by existing, growing and looking beautiful. This effect leads to cleaner air and more well-being of all people living in a city, not only for our clients.
The highest level of advancing the life of people we can achieve when we deliver a system to our clients which will influence all parts of their life. These systems are the ones which not only provide the advantages mentioned before but also will deliver eatable fish and vegetables. Further the clients or their employees can bring themselves completely in the system. Really dealing with our aquaponic systems can become a great leisure time activity for many people who are willing to take care. At the same time the system will produce healthy nature, directly grown at the place of consumption, without any herbicides, insecticides or other harming chemicals. This is the ultimate stage of well being, health and being green and feeling green. This is how TheCityFarm cares about people.
Although TheCityFarm considers people as the first thing the company looking at when we planning actions, TheCityFarm never disregards the planet or more concrete our natural environment during this process. We try to act as sustainable as possible whenever we interact with environment and we try to design our products in a way that helps the planet to stay green or to become more green.
Very important in the development and design of our products is the focus on a product life-cycle which is green from the beginning and continues our sustainable idea even after the actual use of the product. During this design process we have mainly seven steps in mind2 .
If somebody may argue, that the previous six steps can also be part of a conventional product life cycle, just to save costs or to please consumers by delivering a high quality product, the seventh and last step is what makes our design really green, sustainable and more tolerable for our planet. It is the afterlife, the end of every products live, but we consider it from the beginning. Having an afterlife means for a product that it will not fill waste disposal sites after having fulfilled its original purpose. Our products are designed in a way which allows us to recycle nearly all components used. Here we have different possibilities. Some components are designated to be directly reused in new products we assemble. But as this is not always possible because of the depreciation process of some materials and technical progress, TheCityFarm is working together with specialised recycling companies. These companies know the exact technical and chemical structures of the products we use and can guarantee the most effective re-use of all resources TheCityFarm once integrated in its products.
As our company is green from the bottom to the top, the work of our Finance department is also inter stratified with our aim. At the same time our company is set up to create profit, thus the main task of the finance department is to combine both objectives. First step our Finance department will take to reach these aims is to find the right bank to cooperate with. It would be very contradictory in our point of view to work together with banks who use our money to finance non/ecological projects, support big multinationals that work against our aims, perhaps invest in the development of oil fields or use our money the speculate with it on the international capital markets.
A way to solve these problems, we found is to become client of the GLS-bank3 . This German based bank is Europe is oldest bank which is only investing in economically, ecologically and socially reasonable projects. It is their objective not to gamble with their clients and the clients' money, but to deal with social challenges and develop sustainable and creative solutions. With this approach the bank is meeting our requirements and makes itself the ideal business partner for us.
Another basic rule our Finance department has set up for itself is to keep clear and honest accounting standards. Meaning that we will show to our investors a clear picture of the company's financial situation, white-out hiding facts and problems behind unclear numbers and figures. For the sustainability purpose we decides not to present quarterly balances and profit&loss statements which would force us to think in shorter terms just to meet our investors' expectations. Offering the reports only annually gives us the chance to think in longer terms also in the financial sector. Further it is self-evident from our point of view that we will pay taxes in the countries we earned the money in and not to shift them to tax havens. This is part of our responsibility towards state and community.
Another practice making TheCityFarm a real green and sustainable company, is our re-investment policy. Meaning that we are not skimming the biggest part of our earnings and transfers them as yields on private accounts. It is our company's aim to keep house sustainable, therefore we are re-investing a huge percentage of the earned profits back into the company. This gives us the chance the keep step with latest developments on the one hand and on the other hand gives us the chance for a steady improvement of our product quality through own R&D.
The re-investment policy further allows us to finance the majority of our project without debt from banks, because we can pay them with our own funds.
But TheCityFarm is not only re-investing into its own company. As we see that most of the profits we gain are caused by the factors people and planet, we want to re-invest in them. Meaning that our company is supporting many social and environmental projects with the main aims to save natural environment, to make cities greener and to allow people a better living in cleaner and greener cities. Although we are not generating direct profits with this kind of investment, we see it as our duty to give back what we got and create a sustainable environment for all of us.
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