Innovation

The business started from the awareness to manage garbage and turn it into wanted, attractive products. A young socio-preneur, Mrs. Aling Nur Naluri Widianti, together with her friends, established the company called CV. Salam Rancage. Salam is the abbreviation of "Sekolah Alam" (school of nature) whilst "Rancage" is from the local Sundanese dialect, meaning skilled.

“We want to run a business which is based on creating shared-value with our surrounding community. The value that could make a bonding between the business and the people,” said Mrs. Aling, quoting her vision.

The value she mentioned is no other thing but "hope" – hope for a better future/life/planet. "A craft of hope" is then taken as the tagline.

“Our philosophy in running this business is like a trickle of water – go deeper then spreading. In the beginning we started with only 6 women, convinced them regarding the shared-value and trained them to be craftsmen. Now we have quite many people joined with us (mostly housewives), and if we refer back to the philosophy, what I need to do is to keep the water dripping”, she further explained.

As to the concept, the product should have an attractive design and up-to-date, functional, durable and of good quality with eco-friendly added materials, as shown in the photo. Examples are a pencil case, small table, vase, tray, slipper, laundry basket, etc. Salam Rancage has leveraged the least value of reused newspaper to become materials that could be assumed as substitution to rattan.

Inspiration

From simple things (waste material, people, workplace) produce high value products.

“This business is actually has 2 wings – social benefit (for the people & our planet) and business scale to make it sustainable,” she further added.

Her business had inspired KOMPAS (one of the renowned newspaper in Indonesia) which then asked her to assist for its CSR program by replicating the practice and supervise the implementation for the community nearby Kompas’ office in Jakarta.

Overall impact

Salam Rancage has set a good example of how to run a business now and in the future.

Starting with building public awareness of the importance of keeping the environment, the company empowers the community through specific activity which the company innovatively finds ways of leveraging the economical value resulting from upcycle activities.

Businesses can grow in line with the public benefit and environmental awareness. The society gets benefits (social harmony and extra income) and the company gets the security of supply of materials and labour in order to sustain the business.

Business benefit

Surrounding community gets extra income and the business itself grow positively. Now the revenue is reaching hundreds of millions rupiah per month and keep growing, as the profits are reinvested.

Social and environmental benefit

Currently CV. Salam Rancage is employing over 90 craftsmen (all of them are housewives) from surrounding area.

The awareness towards environmental issue of the people has developed in the form of cleanliness, more concern on hygiene, stop littering, etc. “I run this business with good faith, hence despite all the challenges or obstacles that come I believe God will show me the way”, she put as her closing remarks.

Interview

Mrs. Aling Nur Naluri Widianti, Founder