Yo Me Reh-Uso

Yo Me Reh-Uso

B5B7 Aa72

Author

Ana Maria Penagos

Ana Maria Penagos

School

Audencia Business School

Audencia Business School

Professor

Camilla Quental

Camilla Quental

Global Goals

5. Gender Equality 10. Reduced Inequalities 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities 12. Responsible Consumption and Production

Keep this story going! Share below!

Summary

  1. Reduce consumer waste and by-products while increasing social awareness and conscious consumerism
  2. Reuse, transform, and resell used products considered "waste" into new products.
  3. Provide jobs for women and mothers from socially difficult backgrounds in the local areas.
  4. Create a more sustainable environment through a social development project to reduce over-consumption.
  5. Profitable business with little outsourcing and a long-term plan of expansion.

Innovation

“Yo Me Reh-Uso” was created in response to the ever-growing demand of consumerism and its harmful by-products, waste and rubbish. When the founder, Diana Avellaneda, became aware of this problem, she designed and created a social development project to help reduce the consumption of resources as well as reduce the waste produced. Diana’s company employs women, mostly unemployed mothers who come from difficult social backgrounds, in the hopes of making a difference in their lives and helping them receive employment, which would otherwise be difficult in the place they live. Social inequality is still a main concern for Colombians because not only does it exist, but in recent years it has been rising, causing a larger rift between social classes.

Yo Me Reh-Uso

Inspiration

“Yo Me Reh-Uso” seeks to comply with 4 of the 17 sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations. These goals are: gender equality (5), reduced inequalities (10), sustainable cities and communities (11), and responsible consumption and production (12).

First of all, we believe that “Yo Me Reh-Uso” helps gender equality and reduces inequalities because the company offers decent work to women, which provides them with a steady income, which in return creates a more sustainable economy and benefits societies. Providing women with jobs also empowers them to make their own decisions, whether in the workforce or in the privacy of their own homes. It gives women more independence and decreases discrimination against them. Also, being a small company, they are inclined to hire people from the community that surrounds them. This helps reduce inequalities in developing countries, such as Colombia, with the aim to include people from marginalized societies as well as reduce poverty in these same excluded areas of the country.

Furthermore, “Yo Me Reh-Uso” helps aim for a better quality of life for those around them and for the society they live in. They are helping to make a big impact on reducing future economic, environmental and social costs in Colombia. This coincides with goal 11, ensuring sustainable cities and communities, where the aim is to help a society grow and thrive while improving resource use and reducing pollution.

Finally, the company we have chosen has its main aim of impact in goal 12, responsible consumption and production. This goal is the core belief of “Yo Me Reh-Uso.” By collecting unwanted products and giving them a new use, it allows for improving resource use and reducing waste. It aims to help build a more sustainable city for their society to live in. Even though this UN aim is mainly related to urban planning and sustainable living, we believe it to be related to our business of choice for the larger picture of what responsible consumption and production means. Not only is it about our household waste like electricity consumption or water usage, it also has to do with our wasting of material goods. Our company is helping reduce this household waste output in a different aspect of the meaning.

Overall impact

“Yo Me Reh-Uso” is a small, profitable company that is a good example of a company that looks to better the society it lives in. It is not only seeking to make a profit, but also provides jobs to women in need, reutilizing products that are considered waste and reducing garbage in general. Also, it is trying to increase social awareness about waste to help people become conscious consumers instead of being unconscious consumers and wasting uncontrollably. “Yo Me Reh-Uso” uses social media as its main channel to connect with people to transmit its message. All in all, we strongly believe that this company helps make a difference in Colombia and maybe in the long-term, the world.

Business benefit

The company's market revenue is based on the amount of products they sell on the market. Their output costs are low considering they collect or are donated the materials they work with. They are only concerned with paying wages and general costs of production of their products.

Social and environmental benefit

  • Hiring women at risk of poverty and social discrimination
  • Reducing waste of consumer items
  • Raising social awareness about unconscious consumerism
  • Reducing general waste
  • Teaching people about recycling

Interview

Diana Avellaneda, Yo Me Reh-Uso: Social & Environmental Entrepreneurship

Business information

Yo Me Reh-Uso

Yo Me Reh-Uso

CO
Business Website: http://yomereh-uso.com/
Year Founded: 2010
Number of Employees: 11 to 50
“Yo Me Reh-Uso” is a company based in Colombia that aims to reduce waste produced by an over-consuming country. The company has implemented methods to reuse, transform and resell used products such as clothes, bedsheets, towels, metal and other by-products of consumerism. “Yo Me Reh-Uso” started out as a simple project in university, but since then has grown to become a very popular business within Colombia and other countries, giving itself the push it needed to become its own profitable business