Sustainable Strides at The Women’s Bakery
Rwanda has been an innovative leader for promoting environmental sustainability for more than a decade. In fact, the country has incorporated environmentally friendly initiatives into their broader development plan, known as Vision 2020, which was created in 2000. The plan includes three intersectional focus areas to help advance their developmental goals including:
Gender Equity
Natural Resources and the Environment
Science, Technology, and Information-Communications Technology
One of the measures that Rwanda has taken to advance this plan includes banning the use of plastic bags back in 2008. Importing, using, producing, and even selling plastic bags is outlawed. Many of us might be familiar with the fact that plastic bags take several hundreds of years to decompose and that they hurt our oceans impacting marine life. In Rwanda, plastic bags are a culprit for increased flooding and decreased plant growth since they create a barrier barrier between the water and plants when they end up on the ground.
So what does all of this mean for The Women’s Bakery?
We are committed to contributing our part in community advancement, which includes promoting environmental sustainability through what we do best - gainfully employing women and providing quality breads to communities in East Africa. We see how all of these issues are linked to one another and have worked on innovating ways to make our bakery operations more sustainable. One of the main ways we have tackled this issue through the packaging of our bread. While compostable packaging has become popular in the U.S., we found that there are not quite as many options available in Rwanda. So what did that leave us with? Eco- friendly wax paper bags! Wax paper is biodegradable and can be composted in communities where composting facilities are available. One challenge we have encountered with the wax paper packaging is that it does speed up the staling process of our breads, but this is a small price to pay so that we can continue making our breads preservative-free!
While wax paper bags are helpful for single loaves or servings of bread for one consumer, it’s not quite as cost efficient for bulk orders. If you follow us on social media, you may have noticed our hardbodies filled with large buckets of bread. To avoid using wax paper bags for bulk orders, our team came up with the idea of packing our bread in large reusable containers for daily transport to our bulk order customers like schools.
This brings to how we transport our bread. When The Women’s Bakery first opened, bread was delivered on foot which is the most eco-conscious mode of transportation, but we quickly realized that it may not be the most efficient. This led us to deliver bread by bikes, though our demand quickly outgrew our capacity to continue only using bikes. Back to the drawing board, we had to come up with a cost effective and eco-friendly way to deliver more bread which led us to the hardbodies. A hardbody is a modified motorbike in front with a covered truck bed in the back and can hold about 75 to 100 kilograms- or 165 to 220 pounds - of bread at a time! For our current delivery range, the hardbodies are more efficient than cars in terms of fuel, cost, storage capacity, and range. While there are certainly areas for more growth in terms of making our bakery operations more eco-friendly, we have come a long way since The Women’s Bakery opened.
How have you and your workplace taken additional steps to become more environmentally friendly in the past year? Share them in the comments below!