Saving the planet, one loyalty token and green screen swimwear at a time
This series of articles explores the journey of the winners of the EIG Sustainable Goals Student Ideas Competition.
The EIG Sustainable Goals Student Ideas Competition is focused on inspiring students to contribute towards tackling the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set by the United Nations. The RGU Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group (EIG) led competition aims to encourage students to take innovative, creative and proactive approaches to tackling these challenges through supporting sustainably focused early-stage business innovations while also strengthening future employability.
Sponsored by the RGU Foundation Annual Fund, every month students can win cash prizes, raise their profile, give back, and be rewarded for thinking innovatively.
November’s winner of this monthly competition from RGU’s EIG was Obianuju Iheji, a student from the Aberdeen Business School.
Her idea focussed on how she could encourage people to becoming active and continuous recyclers in order to combat many of the global problems as set out by the United Nations.
By introducing a loyalty scheme, Obianuju is confident that more people would be enticed into recycling more regularly.
“There are so many health and environmental benefits of recycling and the aim of this initiative is to promote and encourage active recycling, while providing loyalty tokens to participants through a wireless card that I’ve named RE-TAP Loyalty Card (Recycle and Tap).
“I believe that more people will be deliberate about recycling when they are aware that there are personal benefits attached to it.”
The initiative would involve various supermarkets being onboard who would issue cards and be the central point for receiving the recycled materials.
Participants of the scheme would tap their loyalty card against a scanner at the point of recycling which would accumulate and be akin to current loyalty schemes – building up to the point that money can be discounted from their shopping at the supermarkets involved.
“I always love being part of growth and development and knowing that my idea could actually help the United Nations solve several global problems will definitely encourage me and open my mind to many more sustainable ideas for our wonderful planet.
By winning, Obianuju is a very happy recipient of a £100 voucher: “I'm very overwhelmed and excited to have won this award!”
Zainab Mahjoub from the School of Computing received the highly commended award of a £50 voucher thanks to his idea of a web application that addresses food waste by redistributing surplus food to animal shelters.
“My idea consists of creating a web application based on a Geographical Information System that contains 3 major actors: animal shelters; households or businesses such as hotels and restaurants as they record increasing rates of food waste; and couriers.”
The web app relates to the UN’s 12th SDG, responsible consumption and production.
Expanding on his potential innovation, Zainab said: “Each person or organisation noticing that they have food waste, regardless of the quantity, can upload their request via the web application and a nearby courier will be assigned to the mission in order to receive the food package and take it to the animal shelter.
“I think winning the prize is the proof that my idea is worth execution. It’s definitely the sign that I must implement it in the real world as soon as possible!”
Mirroring Zainab’s highly commended award is a team led by Wiktoria Sznura from RGU’s School of Creative and Cultural Business (CCB). Their idea involves creating swimwear that integrates green screen technology to change consumer behaviour in the swimwear fast fashion industry.
“The swimwear industry is currently facing great challenges towards sustainability and in the UK, 64% of women aged 16-24 are likely to buy new swimwear every time they go on vacation.
“Our team’s idea is to create a swimsuit that would work like a green screen, allowing customers to digitally remove the solid colour to apply visual effects on it.
“This solution would enable consumers to post pictures of themselves on social media wearing various styles of swimwear without buying new fashion items. This innovative idea would help to bridge the potential disconnect between sustainability and swimwear.”
The CCB team’s swimwear idea aims to address four of the UN’s SDGs: industry, innovation and infrastructure; responsible consumption and production; climate action; and life below water.
“We are currently working on a business idea for a new swimwear brand. Winning the prize is a motivation for us to continue the research on the correlation between swimwear consumption and the environment, for our future brand to be as sustainable as possible.”
The competition is relaunching this month after a short break over Christmas with EIG keen to receive student entries throughout February, March, and April.
Image shows L-R: Obianuju Iheji and Wiktoria Sznura.
