Staff turnover, a risk to your corporate image
You may have seen people wearing a uniform—a t-shirt, jacket, or garment with their company logo—on your way to work, on a weekend outing, or simply going about your daily activities. The use of uniforms is a positive thing since employees are one of the main assets a company has to differentiate its identity and brand, being a factor that helps the company stand out from the competition and build trust with the customer. Now, imagine seeing someone on the news or on social media one day who was arrested for committing a crime while wearing your company's uniform or a t-shirt with your logo in the trash, polluting the environment and taking more than 50 years to be absorbed by the environment. Before you know it, it's trending, memes and criticisms appear about the poor management and control that the brand and/or company has over this very important element. An event like this can severely damage the reputation and image of any company, regardless of its size or industry. But what can be done as an organization? Employee turnover is one of the biggest problems for the Human Resources departments of any company, and keeping track of the uniforms of each employee becomes an extremely complicated mission. In Mexico, employee turnover reaches a rate of 16.75%, the highest among Latin American countries. For example, in our country, the restaurant industry alone has a value of close to 250,000 billion pesos. According to data from the National Chamber of the Restaurant and Seasoned Food Industry (Canirac), the food sector generates around 700,000 million direct jobs and nearly three million indirect jobs in Mexico, but it is also one of the sectors with the highest staff turnover. Where do all those uniforms that are being left behind end up? What happens to those thousands of garments? Doesn't it make you nervous? Currently, despite these high turnover rates, there are still organizations that do not ensure the proper disposal of their uniforms after their useful life, potentially becoming victims of misuse of their corporate image or being involved in an inconvenient and regrettable incident due to not having taken the necessary measures with a uniform that was incorrectly discarded. That is why at GDI Uniforms, committed to the environment as a Socially Responsible Company and taking care of our clients' corporate image as their best business partners, we offer our clients the Controlled Destruction and Disposal of Uniforms Service, where our business partners protect their brand and have the assurance that their uniforms will only be used to create recycled products and in favor of the environment. Our service ranges from the collection by GDI or shipment by the client of obsolete uniforms, the destruction of garments ensuring that the misuse of obsolete uniforms is avoided, photographic evidence and document certifying the destruction of all garments and the recycling. The resulting material is reprocessed to generate new by-products: carpet fabrics, upholstery yarns, new garments, and so on. Get in touch with us and together we'll develop a program that protects your corporate image and the environment! Vanessa Orendain García – Account Executive at GDI
Circular Economy, a challenge for the textile sector
We live in a world of constant change, in every sense; people, companies, climate, processes, trends, concepts, etc… Evolving is necessary and beneficial if we approach it in the right way. And for those of us who dedicate ourselves to creating/producing, it is no exception. Currently, production in a company is based on a cycle where raw materials are transformed into products, marketed, and then discarded. At GDI, we have adopted the concept of Sustainability as part of our core values. We seek to go beyond recycling and reusing materials, implementing actions in recent years to achieve a Circular Economy. In other words, produce, use, and throw away? No! Our approach is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. “The circular economy advocates using as many biodegradable materials as possible in the manufacture of consumer goods that can return to nature without causing environmental damage when they reach the end of their useful life. In cases where it is not possible to use eco-friendly materials, the objective will be to facilitate a simple decoupling to give them a new life by reincorporating them into the production cycle and composing a new piece. When that is not possible, it will be recycled in an environmentally friendly way.” Some of the principles of the circular economy that we already implement in our operation are: Reuse: reusing certain waste or parts of it, which can still be used to make new products. Repair: giving broken products a second life. Recycling: using materials found in waste. But you might ask: how do you apply it? Which products have it? Well, a few years ago we started with the dream of contributing more and we began with research, tests, many tests with which we achieved extremely valuable processes that we are proud of: Garments made with recyclable material. This consists of the development of garments with fabrics made from PET bottles; it is one of the most convenient ways to recycle plastic bottles and prevent their accumulation. At GDI we produce an average of 230,000 garments annually with 50% PET, which represents the recycling of more than 688,000 PET bottles. Regeneration: Development of new garments with fabrics obtained from the recycling of clothing that has gone through a circular system. At GDI we produce an average of 68,000 regenerated trousers annually using fabrics from recycled garments. Also within this process, through our garment destruction program designed to protect our clients' brands, as part of our care for the environment, the material resulting from said destruction is reprocessed to generate new by-products: Fabrics for carpets, yarns for upholstery, among other things. At GDI, we strive to minimize our environmental impact with eco-friendly products and processes, reducing energy consumption and improving the environmental quality of our processes through sound resource management. Today, given the times we are living in, it is more important to reflect on the fact that we do not live in isolation. We share the same air, the same planet, and therefore, everything you or I do has a ripple effect. This is our small contribution as a responsible company, as the GDI family, for you, for me. Get in touch with us and together we'll develop a program that protects your corporate image and makes you part of this cycle for the environment! Liliana Jiménez Figueroa – Senior Account Executive by GDI
5 companies in Mexico with sustainable practices
Restoring our Earth must be a priority for everyone to stop and reverse the degradation it has suffered. The interest in sustainability is not a fad; it is our opportunity to rebuild the environment and is a movement that is moving towards a long-term investment strategy and that in 10 or 15 years will be completely commonplace in global markets. Being a company with Sustainable Development strategies has several benefits. Incorporating these strategies benefits our companies, as it demonstrates transparency, creates financial value, improves our organization's reputation, promotes continuous improvement, helps manage regulatory compliance, strengthens risk management and stewardship, improves the management system and decision-making, attracts and retains key talent, attracts long-term capital with more favorable financial conditions, and improves our competitive position in the market. Below, we show you different sustainable actions that some of the most important companies in our country are implementing. At GDI Uniforms we are your suppliers and strategic partners to work together to reduce our environmental impact. The company has PetStar in Mexico, the world's largest recycling plant, and IMER, the first recycling plant built in Latin America. Together they can process more than 85,000 tons of this material per year, which is equivalent to filling the Azteca Stadium three times. This investment includes initiatives for recycling plant infrastructure, collection and recycling in a three-year plan and strengthens its commitment as the main recycler of food-grade PET in the country, IMCC (The Mexican Coca-Cola Industry) detailed in a statement. They have a joint work plan with their Private Label suppliers to achieve several milestones. Among these, the following stand out: 100% recyclable packaging, certification of the use of palm oil and its derivatives, as well as certification for the use of paper, cellulose and wood in the manufacture of its packaging, as well as the objective that all products containing soy or those derived from the meat marketing chain are produced without risks of deforestation. With a focus on tackling environmental problems, they also announced their commitment to drastically reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions in their operations by 2040. The Sustainable Barley Innovation Program (PICES) offers support to farmers to provide them with the best technologies available in the sector and thus seek to achieve the best yields, income and obtain a higher quality barley grain for Heineken beers. This initiative for the countryside seeks to sustainably impact the agricultural sector in Mexico. It has a Sustainable Uniforms program, through which uniforms for its employees were acquired that are made of 50 percent cotton and 50 percent recycled PET fibers. These uniforms, when they reach the end of their useful life, are transformed into rags and other products; in 2020, 16,657 pieces were collected, equivalent to 5,552 kilograms of fabric. We have sustainable programs such as regenerated garments, sustainable garments and uniform destruction, each of them aligned with our strategic pillars of: At GDI Uniforms as your strategic partner, we take care of your brand and we take care of the environment.
Do you know the difference between Sustainability and Sustainable Development?
According to their root meanings, "sustainable" and "sustainable" do not mean the same thing, but they are two words we often use as adjectives to describe environmentally friendly processes and activities. Unfortunately, they are not synonyms, and using them interchangeably is incorrect. The difference between "sustainable" and "sustainable" is not that complicated to understand; each has characteristics that make them distinct. Below, we explain their respective characteristics. SUSTAINABILITY. The dictionary of the Spanish language defines sustainability as "that which can be supported or defended with reasons." Sustainable development is making proper use of current resources without compromising those of future generations. This development includes sustainable processes to preserve, protect, and conserve current and future natural resources. It does not take into account the specific cultural, political, and social needs of human beings. Herman Daly, an American ecological economist, professor, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1996, defined some principles of sustainability. Daly also states that we should promote technologies that increase the productivity of natural resources (greater benefit from resource use) and reduce those that require a greater quantity of natural resources to produce the same output. SUSTAINABILITY refers to the pursuit of social and economic progress that ensures a healthy and productive life for human beings, but without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Based on the global importance of natural resources and the need for their rational use according to Daly's principles, sustainability seeks social development that contributes to improving the quality of life, health, education, and culture of all people. At GDI, we are convinced that by implementing these types of actions, the world will be more inclusive, improving the quality of life for everyone. Therefore, both concepts are put into practice at GDI because we care about the future of the ecosystem and strive to make proper use of all natural resources. We seek the appropriate way to perform our work under the corresponding human processes, taking into account constant innovation, without neglecting the care of the environment, trying not to generate waste and seeking alternative inputs that are environmentally friendly.
The Importance of Renewable Energies
Renewable energies are also known as alternative energies or green energies, and they are energy sources based on the use of natural resources: the sun, wind, water, or plant or animal biomass. They are characterized by not using fossil fuels, but rather natural resources capable of unlimited renewal. One of their strengths is their very low environmental impact, since in addition to not using finite resources, they do not generate pollutants. Producing more and more renewable energy and abandoning conventional sources is a necessity shared by all countries of the world. What are renewable energies? Below we mention the main renewable energy sources that exist today: What characteristics do renewable energies have? These energies possess various characteristics; we will mention some of them: The use of renewable energies contributes to homes becoming much more self-sufficient in their electricity consumption. In the not-too-distant future, all newly constructed buildings will have to have their own solar panels; self-consumption of electricity is much easier to achieve than we imagine. Renewable energies come from freely accessible natural resources. By generating energy from natural sources, they can be found anywhere in the world; therefore, any corner of the world can generate its own energy and be self-sufficient. Advantages of renewable energies Compared to conventional energy sources, we can list the following aspects as the main benefits of renewable energies:
How to achieve Business Sustainability
Corporate sustainability encompasses the efforts a company makes to sustain its economic activity, considering social and environmental factors, and ensuring responsible resource management. What are the five principles that any company aspiring to achieve business sustainability must adhere to? How can corporate sustainability be achieved? In this regard, organizational culture plays a key role in establishing internal practices for the efficient use of resources, considering all the aforementioned variables. The company must take into account the value chain (inputs, processes, and outputs), and it must also consider the constant evaluation of actions that involve resource expenditures in order to improve and manage them better, thereby maximizing efficiency and, consequently, the company's profitability. Another important aspect concerns how corporate sustainability is communicated and how consumers and clients validate it. When companies successfully communicate their actions toward achieving greater sustainability, consumers can question, accept, and/or support them. In short, developing a sustainable business is no easy task. It requires willpower, talent in business management, and a broad and deep understanding of the environment, allowing us to identify the elements that must be carefully considered during the production process. At GDI, we understand that this is hard work, but little by little we have undertaken the task of implementing the necessary measures to become sustainable, starting internally with our employees in their daily work. We are committed to having a company that is environmentally friendly and responsible towards everything around it. We are the future, and therefore we must comply with everything that safeguards the well-being of the company and the ecosystem.
What measures can you take for sustainable development?
Sustainable measures for the use of natural resources are important to avoid environmental degradation, prevent the development of climate change, and ensure air quality. Ecologically sustainable development is only possible if people identify with the problem and show a genuine willingness to participate in measures to conserve natural resources. That is why we present below five sustainable measures for the use of renewable and non-renewable natural resources. The starting point begins in each community. It is suggested to reuse all items or products as much as possible before disposing of them. For example: sheets of paper can be used on both sides. Organic waste, such as fruit and vegetable peels, food scraps, grass, leaves, branches, among others, should be placed in a special container. Similarly, inorganic waste (aluminum, cardboard, paper, glass and plastic) must also be collected in specific containers according to its classification. Approximately 93% of the world's energy sources are fossil fuels, and renewable energy accounts for only about 7%. Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide emissions, which is the greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and severely damages planet Earth. Renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectric power, solar power, and wind power, are renewable, efficient, and non-polluting, or cause little pollution. Burning trash, leaves and other objects should be avoided, as well as making campfires in forests or in the middle of the city. Likewise, if an effort is made to change the fuel dispensing mechanism in vehicles from gasoline or diesel to natural gas, emissions during the combustion process would decrease considerably. Water is an extremely scarce resource worldwide, making its care and rational use essential. For this reason, it is recommended not to leave sink taps or faucets running unless strictly necessary. Shower water and washing machine waste can be reused for cleaning and watering. Reducing the duration of showers can also be a sustainable measure. According to studies conducted by Greenpeace, for every kilowatt of electricity saved, approximately 800 grams of carbon dioxide emissions will be avoided. Therefore, saving electricity is a key point. To achieve this, it is recommended to switch to energy-saving light bulbs, thus reducing electricity consumption by up to 75%. Lights should also be turned off when no one is home. Unplugging electrical appliances is a very effective way to save energy. The GDI family works daily for sustainable development, taking care of energy with the help of energy-saving LED light bulbs, both in the offices and in the plant. We seek to minimize waste and reuse other materials; we try to minimize the use of paper. Small changes produce big changes, and it's something we should all be concerned about, for ourselves and for future generations.
Continuity in the future, in the environment
The term environmental sustainability is widely known, with its scope and renown extending worldwide. When we talk about environmental sustainability, we refer to the social, economic, and environmental balance that, as far as possible, guarantees continuity in the future. Advantages of Environmental Sustainability: Among the main advantages, we can mention: At GDI, we care about the environment, which is why we take action to support sustainable development. In our facilities, we use energy-saving LED lights to minimize energy consumption, we separate waste into the appropriate containers, and we provide corporate transportation for employees, thus reducing the use of various modes of transport and minimizing pollution. Let's take care of the environment and be more conscious of our actions; little by little, they can generate a great change.
Biodiversity conservation post COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed nature and health at the forefront of the agendas of governments and businesses. The pandemic has forced us to prioritize the health of our planet and all its inhabitants. The agenda has shifted, and therefore, in 2021, tangible solutions are expected to be sought for both economic recovery and the fight against climate change, the great challenge of our time. The COVID-19 pandemic has produced significant social and economic impacts on a regional and global scale. The direct consequences of the mobility restrictions implemented by governments in the region are well known, but the key relationships between natural resources and the factors that triggered the pandemic, the spread of infections, and the impacts of the virus itself have not been explored in greater detail. The relationship between natural resources and the COVID-19 pandemic is multifaceted. On the one hand, they are essential for controlling the crisis (food, drinking water, biodiversity, and electricity), and on the other hand, they are impacted by its consequences (use of fuels, minerals, etc.). Quarantine measures have led to a temporary and sustained decrease in fuel use and, consequently, in associated emissions and pollution, as well as in the exploitation of resources themselves. COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease (transmitted from animals to humans) but has spread very easily from human to human due to the high levels of overcrowding and connectivity in our social structure. In all studies exploring the causes of the spread of zoonotic diseases, land-use change is the most significant factor. The primary factors are: Evidence suggests that the conservation of biodiversity and its ecosystem services is necessary to protect human health, both directly and indirectly.
A correct way to consume goods and services
Sustainable consumption is a way of consuming goods and services to meet our basic needs, contributing to a better quality of life, while reducing the consumption of natural resources and toxic materials, and decreasing waste and pollutant emissions throughout the product or service's life cycle. All of this is aimed at not compromising the future of the next generations. Every day, at every moment, we make some kind of purchase, whether large or small. Sometimes it's in response to a basic, fundamental need, and on many other occasions, to a desire or whim. We are always immersed in constant commercial exchanges, yet we almost never stop to think about the implications of this daily action. And the fact is, buying has environmental and social consequences. By acquiring a certain good or service, we can be promoting an important environmental action or participating in a social inclusion initiative that benefits vulnerable sectors of the population. This is precisely what sustainable consumption is about: acquiring products or services that take the following into account. In other words, sustainable consumption encompasses the three pillars of sustainable development. The COVID-19 pandemic has offered countries the opportunity to develop recovery plans that reverse current trends and shift our consumption and production patterns toward a more sustainable future. Sustainable consumption and production mean doing more and better with less. It also involves decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation, increasing resource efficiency, and promoting sustainable lifestyles. It can also contribute substantially to poverty alleviation and the transition to green, low-carbon economies. At GDI, we strive for responsible and sustainable consumption, considering our planet and the future. We aim to produce minimal waste; for example, in the production of our products, we use a cutter that makes more precise cuts, thus generating less fabric waste. We strive to make our products environmentally friendly, so that when our customers use them, they know they're helping to improve the planet. That's why we include sustainable clothing items (vests, pants, and face masks) in our product line. Consume responsibly and think about the future.