RepaNet
Encyclopedia
RepaNet is an environmental and employment creation project based in Graz
, Austria
. It was part of a development partnership within the EQUAL Community Initiative
, part of the European Union
's Structural Funds.
It is notable for the way it combines three complementary goals: the ecological
goal of cutting waste
by repairing and reusing things instead of throwing them away, the social goal of providing jobs for long-term unemployed people and the local economy goal of supporting small firms and building regional value.
The initiative is a triangular
partnership
involving small firms
as well as NGOs and the public sector
. The co-ordinartors see this as a 'win-win-win situation': The local authority and the ministry
prize the environmental benefits, the chamber of commerce
sees benefits for local firms, and the labour market service sees disadvantaged people back in work.
RepaNet is not just creating jobs that are sustainable in resource terms, but is also building attitudes and practices that are vital for the long-term development of the local economy. It is a training ground where consumers can learn to reuse waste, businesses can learn to co-operate and politicians can learn to think in terms of balanced growth. It thus contributes to the strategy set out in the European Commission’s Integrated guidelines for growth and jobs (2005-2008), COM(2005) 141. http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/pdf/COM2005_141_en.pdf. Guideline 14 encourages the adoption of environmental technologies, guideline 15 calls for local industrial clusters, and guideline 18 recommends measures to include disadvantaged people in the labour market.
The second service hires out recycling catering
equipment for events, and operates out of a warehouse full of racks of plastic tumblers, plates and cutlery, all neatly crated and shrink-wrapped. This service was born in 1999 when Graz won the football cup, and the town's stadium was left littered with disposable cups. The city’s environment department put up €140,000 to buy a large-capacity washing machine
which meant reusable plastic tumblers could be used. The service now reuses over a million tumblers a year – and turnover still peaks when Graz wins at football. There are some 200 regular customers, who value guaranteed quality and predictable costs.
The third Ökoservice operation is the dismantling and recycling
of electrical
equipment, which is done in collaboration with a private company. A fourth ecological service supports the others: a 280 kW combined heat and power
(CHP) station, the result of a university research project, has been installed in a freight container
opposite the warehouse, and turns 70 tons a year of used frying oil into electric power, as well as heating the premises. The service collects 200 tons of oil a year from restaurants. What is not used in the co-generation plant is sent to South Styria for processing into biodiesel
. Some of it comes back as fuel for Graz's buses, lending them a distinctive smell.
It recruits long-term unemployed people, who find it difficult to get a job for any number of reasons – because they are ex-offenders
, migrants
, illiterate, ill, or just women who want to go back to work after raising a family. Most of Ökoservice’s employees have the status of ‘transit worker’ (Transitarbeiter) under Austrian law, which means that for up to 14 months their employer can claim a subsidy
worth 60% of their wages costs from the Labour Market Office (Arbeitsmarktservice – AMS). This brings in a little less than half the enterprise’s €1.3 million revenue, the other half being earned from the sale of services.
Ökoservice is determinedly a business, not a make-work scheme. Legally, it is a share company with two owners, the environmental NGO ARGE Müllvermeidung http://www.arge.at and the repair workshop BAN. It took the form of a profit-making company, because in Austria there is no specific social economy status that a trading firm can adopt. However the tax office recognises it as of being public utility
(gemeinnützig), and so it levies VAT
at 10%, half the standard rate.
Ökoservice is determined to combine social goals with its ecological and economic ones. It has the status of a Beschäftingungsgesellschaft (employment company), which is something special to the Land
of Styria. The advantage of this status is that it brings the incentive to trade profitably like any other company. This is not the case for the so-called sozialökonomische Betriebe (social economic enterprises) which are driven by an administrative logic, not an entrepreneur
ial one, so they are unable to invest
. There are some 200 Sozialökonomische Betriebe all over Austria, and just ten Beschäftigungsgesellschaften, uniquely in Styria.
course during the winter.The syllabus
includes job skills – maybe horticulture
, forestry
or forklift
driving – plus employability
skills such as computing
, using e-mail
, form-filling, CV
-writing, goal setting
, conflict management
, drug
awareness and first aid
. The training is delivered on the premises, and lasts for nine weeks at 35 hours per week. A personal development
counsellor is on hand to place people in an appropriate job. In ten years, 297 Ökoservice trainees have found permanent work, which is a 75% success rate.
Ökoservice has become a local institution, and is seen to create a range of benefits: an appropriate type of work for the target group
, a variety of different jobs that workers can switch between, and the opportunity to get a qualification
. It offers services that would not be offered in the market, and employs people who would not be employable in the open labour market. It gives these people support and mentoring
, and raises public awareness of ecological and labour market issues – Graz is an EU ‘Eco-city’ and Ökoservice was selected as a Local Agenda 21 good practice. It has opened a branch in St Veit am Vogau, 40 km south of Graz, and an extension to Vienna
is under consideration.
The Ökoservice business model
has worked well for a decade now, but there is a cloud on the horizon. The Arbeitsmarktservice, which has no way to measure the quality of the service it is paying for, wants to reduce the allowance it pays to integrate unemployed people.
and household equipment. Like Ökoservice, BAN, which was founded in 1983, earns about half its revenue from selling goods and services, and makes up the difference with the grants it receives in return for integrating long-term unemployed people. About two-thirds of household equipment that people throw out can be reused. So Graz saves €100,000 a year in landfill
costs. The 50 workers repair about 1,000 items a year. An upstairs room is the meeting point for the Graz Repair Network, which brings together representatives from a score of local businesses, who energetically debate their collective image and plan promotional events. Many traditional crafts are built on the idea of durability and repair, and jewellers, watchmaker
s, cobbler
s, tailor
s, plumber
s, carpenter
s, smiths
, electrician
s and bicycle
shops have all joined the networks. RepaNet members agree a quality standard which commits them to attempt any reasonable repair, to deal with at least five different brands of equipment, and to charge a set amount for a binding quotation.
, 120 kilometres northwest of Graz amid the mountains of Northern Styria. This industrial town of 7,000 was once the home of state-owned engineering firm VÖEST Alpine
. The works closed down in the 1990s with the loss of over a thousand skilled craft jobs. GBL (Gemeinnützige Beschäftigungsgesellschaft Liezen) http://www.gbl.at has created products that make good use both of these specialist skills and of traditional local materials. The most original line produced is water wheel
s. The workshop helped renovate three old watermill
s and the idea grew from there. The normal size is one-and-a-half metres across, but they make them as big as three metres. And they are all made from local larch
wood. The company has found a niche market
at the intersection of tourism
, the environment and science education
, and also fabricates items such as Archimedes screws, which make popular hands-on exhibits at a local water theme park.
The waterwheels are GBL’s trademark, but its high skills base means that the enterprise can fabricate all sorts of metal or wood prototype
s and is always on the lookout for new product ideas. It has contracts to make high-end wooden office equipment and mountings for diesel engine
s, and is experimenting with ideas such as ceramic
plaque
s and wooden toy
s.
Of course it also renovates and repairs household equipment, especially white goods (washing machine
s, dishwasher
s, tumble driers, electric stove
s etc.), which it sells with a one-year guarantee. It also offers a wide range of services both in the open air – cleaning historical monument
s, landscaping
, building footpath
s, cycle paths and ski trails
, clearing snow
, maintaining playing field
s and other open spaces
– as well as indoors, such as house clearance.
GBL’s workshop is open-plan
, as it is important for customer confidence that they can see the repairs being done. This means they both have trust in the quality of the renovation, and can identify with the enterprise’s social values. The enterprise works as part of the local Repair Network, along with 25 other local businesses. They pay an annual fee of €100. Working together means they have a more prominent brand
and can refer customers to the best specialist.
, metalwork and electronics
– to see what suits them best. It finds that women want part-time work and flexible
working hours, but the problem is that AMS can normally only find full-time posts. Each job costs an estimated €25,000 to fill – but there is a significant saving as regards the economic and social costs of unemployment.
The Institut für Höhere Studien in Vienna investigated the issue of costs in a study of RUSZ, a similar workshop in Vienna, which places 55% of its trainees in permanent jobs. It found that if they stay employed and pay tax for 3.5 years, then the state breaks even. Even if they do not find an external job, keeping someone in unemployment benefit for a year costs the state about €43,000, but supporting a job in the social economy costs only half that.
to the provision of social services in today’s cash-strapped climate. The demand
for social services is rising, but the resources to meet it are not. So the social economy has been seen as a substitute for public or private action. But the project does not see itself as a substitute, and believes that triangular partnerships are needed.
Based on this principle, RepaNet brings in not just the local authorities, labour market service and environmental activists, but also local SMEs. When it builds up a local Repair Network, it can bring local small businesses on board because they gain market contacts and benefit from sharing know-how, as well as providing jobs for the trainees. Partnership with the companies means that RepaNet is kept abreast of the skills that are in demand, and can recruit trainees with matching aptitudes and desires. The EQUAL project gives each network a kick start by supporting the costs of two key workers – a trainer and a strategist
.
The development partnership also has a vertical
dimension. It links the regional networks with the key decision makers at national level, including the environment ministry, employers and trade union
s. But the key relationship is with the local town councils, the Gemeinden. Shared environmental goals mean that a close relationship is relatively easy to establish. A shared history also helps: ARGE Müllvermeidung, which was founded in 1982, has since 1986 run educational courses for 300 waste advisers. Many of these people are now working in local authority environment departments, and are partners in the project via the Abfallwirtschaftsverein. The ARGE is well known, and the connection between the social economy
and ecology comes easily to people’s minds. Nevertheless, local businesses sometimes fear that employment companies may constitute unfair competition
, so it is an asset to have the ministry and chamber of commerce
(Wirtschaftkammer) behind it.
Institutional anchoring is vital to the RepaNet idea. So although its primary ideological
drive is to reduce environmental damage through waste minimisation, it sometimes seems reluctant to go out and sell the products it so inventively designs and manufactures. It does not want to forget what sort of a business it is – one that integrates unemployed people back into the workforce.
, video
and computers, in Liezen white goods, in Ried im Innkreis
bicycles, in Vienna computers – and multifunctional Hohenems
tackles white goods, computers and bicycles. Under the aegis of the national federation, two more regional networks are in their formative stages.
The national federation Reparaturnetzwerk Österreich is in turn a member of the European network RREUSE (Recycling and Reuse European Social Enterprises) http://www.rreuse.org, which was established in 2001. Most environmental legislation is decided at European level now, so having an EU-wide voice is seen as vital. RREUSE holds meetings with the Environment Commissioner
and European parliament
arians, and seems to have had a real influence on the WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) directive. It has also submitted a joint response to the public consultation on the EU sustainable development
strategy.
for policy
change, RREUSE helps its members to develop the best delivery mechanisms. Its 1,000 member enterprises employ 16,000 people across ten countries of Europe. In March 2004 RREUSE members came to Graz to take part in the exchange mart the RepaNet DP organised within their transnational partnership SENECA. It allowed them to swap ideas for new environmental businesses in the social economy.
To build a new trade sector you need both customers and producers. Customer awareness is built through the visibility of the services offered to the public, such as the BAN repair workshop or the garden waste composting service. On the supply side, the regional RepaNet networks bring in small businesses and enable them to swap skills and knowledge to their mutual advantage.
National and international networking also gives access to economies of scale
in marketing
. A number of RREUSE member firms have established an EEIG (European economic interest group) called Serranet to carry out marketing at European level, using such channels as the internet or a catalogue.
RepaNet’s work was taken forward in two new development partnerships in the second round of EQUAL: Econet Austria focused on setting up integration firms in the recycling of electronic waste, while PSPP' (Public Social Private Partnership) aimed to take social enterprise into new fields.
DP ID: AT-3-08/135
National partners: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Müllvermeidung (lead), Abfallwirtschaft Tirol Mitte GmbH, BAN – Beratung Arbeit Neubeginn, Verein zur Beratung und Beschäftigung von Arbeitslosen, Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft, Caritas der Diözese Feldkirch, Die Umweltberatung – Verband österreichischer Umweltberatungsstellen, Gemeinnützige Beschäftigungsgesellschaft mbH Liezen, Rieder Initiative für Arbeitslose, Verband Abfallberatung Österreich, Verband Wiener Volksbildung – Projekt RUSZ, Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Österreichischer Abfallwirtschaftsverein, Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund
Transnational partnerships: TCA 237 SENECA – Social economy network for environmental co-operation activities
Contact: Berthold Schleich
Address: Dreihackengasse 1, 8020 Graz, Austria
Website: http://www.repanet.at
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. It was part of a development partnership within the EQUAL Community Initiative
EQUAL Community Initiative
EQUAL was the ‘Community Initiative’ within the European Social Fund of the European Union. It concerned “transnational co-operation to promote new means of combating all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market”...
, part of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
's Structural Funds.
It is notable for the way it combines three complementary goals: the ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
goal of cutting waste
Waste
Waste is unwanted or useless materials. In biology, waste is any of the many unwanted substances or toxins that are expelled from living organisms, metabolic waste; such as urea, sweat or feces. Litter is waste which has been disposed of improperly...
by repairing and reusing things instead of throwing them away, the social goal of providing jobs for long-term unemployed people and the local economy goal of supporting small firms and building regional value.
The initiative is a triangular
Triangle
A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....
partnership
Partnership
A partnership is an arrangement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests.Since humans are social beings, partnerships between individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments, and varied combinations thereof, have always been and remain commonplace...
involving small firms
Small and medium enterprise
Small and medium enterprises or small and medium-sized enterprises are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits.The abbreviation "SME" occurs commonly...
as well as NGOs and the public sector
Public sector
The public sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector, is a part of the state that deals with either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.Examples of public sector activity range...
. The co-ordinartors see this as a 'win-win-win situation': The local authority and the ministry
Ministry (government department)
A ministry is a specialised organisation responsible for a sector of government public administration, sometimes led by a minister or a senior public servant, that can have responsibility for one or more departments, agencies, bureaus, commissions or other smaller executive, advisory, managerial or...
prize the environmental benefits, the chamber of commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
sees benefits for local firms, and the labour market service sees disadvantaged people back in work.
RepaNet is not just creating jobs that are sustainable in resource terms, but is also building attitudes and practices that are vital for the long-term development of the local economy. It is a training ground where consumers can learn to reuse waste, businesses can learn to co-operate and politicians can learn to think in terms of balanced growth. It thus contributes to the strategy set out in the European Commission’s Integrated guidelines for growth and jobs (2005-2008), COM(2005) 141. http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/pdf/COM2005_141_en.pdf. Guideline 14 encourages the adoption of environmental technologies, guideline 15 calls for local industrial clusters, and guideline 18 recommends measures to include disadvantaged people in the labour market.
A Green way of life
A range of low buildings in a yard near Graz’s railway station is home to Ökoservice http://www.oekoservice.at, and the base for several different environmental services. The first is chopping, removing and composting garden waste, for the local authority environment department and for local householders. There is a steady demand.The second service hires out recycling catering
Catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, public house , or other location.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose...
equipment for events, and operates out of a warehouse full of racks of plastic tumblers, plates and cutlery, all neatly crated and shrink-wrapped. This service was born in 1999 when Graz won the football cup, and the town's stadium was left littered with disposable cups. The city’s environment department put up €140,000 to buy a large-capacity washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
which meant reusable plastic tumblers could be used. The service now reuses over a million tumblers a year – and turnover still peaks when Graz wins at football. There are some 200 regular customers, who value guaranteed quality and predictable costs.
The third Ökoservice operation is the dismantling and recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
of electrical
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
equipment, which is done in collaboration with a private company. A fourth ecological service supports the others: a 280 kW combined heat and power
Combined Heat and Power
Combined Heat and Power may refer to:* Cogeneration* Combined Heat and Power Solar...
(CHP) station, the result of a university research project, has been installed in a freight container
Containerization
Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...
opposite the warehouse, and turns 70 tons a year of used frying oil into electric power, as well as heating the premises. The service collects 200 tons of oil a year from restaurants. What is not used in the co-generation plant is sent to South Styria for processing into biodiesel
Biodiesel
Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....
. Some of it comes back as fuel for Graz's buses, lending them a distinctive smell.
The business of integration
The Ökoservice workforce numbers 45. Of these, 10 are ‘key workers’, 27 temporary Transitarbeiter – long-term unemployed people employed on subsidised contracts of up to 14 months – and the rest ex-Transitarbeiter who have graduated to permanent contracts.It recruits long-term unemployed people, who find it difficult to get a job for any number of reasons – because they are ex-offenders
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, migrants
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
, illiterate, ill, or just women who want to go back to work after raising a family. Most of Ökoservice’s employees have the status of ‘transit worker’ (Transitarbeiter) under Austrian law, which means that for up to 14 months their employer can claim a subsidy
Subsidy
A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...
worth 60% of their wages costs from the Labour Market Office (Arbeitsmarktservice – AMS). This brings in a little less than half the enterprise’s €1.3 million revenue, the other half being earned from the sale of services.
Ökoservice is determinedly a business, not a make-work scheme. Legally, it is a share company with two owners, the environmental NGO ARGE Müllvermeidung http://www.arge.at and the repair workshop BAN. It took the form of a profit-making company, because in Austria there is no specific social economy status that a trading firm can adopt. However the tax office recognises it as of being public utility
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
(gemeinnützig), and so it levies VAT
Vat
Vat or VAT may refer to:* A type of container such as a barrel, storage tank, or tub, often constructed of welded sheet stainless steel, and used for holding, storing, and processing liquids such as milk, wine, and beer...
at 10%, half the standard rate.
Ökoservice is determined to combine social goals with its ecological and economic ones. It has the status of a Beschäftingungsgesellschaft (employment company), which is something special to the Land
States of Austria
Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states, known in German as Länder . Since Land is also the German word for a country, the term Bundesländer is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitution of Austria uses both terms...
of Styria. The advantage of this status is that it brings the incentive to trade profitably like any other company. This is not the case for the so-called sozialökonomische Betriebe (social economic enterprises) which are driven by an administrative logic, not an entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
ial one, so they are unable to invest
Investment
Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...
. There are some 200 Sozialökonomische Betriebe all over Austria, and just ten Beschäftigungsgesellschaften, uniquely in Styria.
Training that leads to jobs
The staff are flexible, having at least two skills, which brings some variety into their working lives. Business peaks in the summer, so Ökoservice runs its trainingTraining
The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...
course during the winter.The syllabus
Syllabus
A syllabus , is an outline and summary of topics to be covered in an education or training course. It is descriptive...
includes job skills – maybe horticulture
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
, forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...
or forklift
Forklift truck
A forklift is a powered industrial truck used to lift and transport materials. The modern forklift was developed in the 1920s by various companies including the transmission manufacturing company Clark and the hoist company Yale & Towne Manufacturing...
driving – plus employability
Employability
Employability refers to a person's capability of gaining initial employment, maintaining employment, and obtaining new employment if required . In simple terms, employability is about being capable of getting and keeping fulfilling work...
skills such as computing
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
, using e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, form-filling, CV
Résumé
A résumé is a document used by individuals to present their background and skillsets. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons but most often to secure new employment. A typical résumé contains a summary of relevant job experience and education...
-writing, goal setting
Goal setting
Goal setting involves establishing specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-targeted goals. Work on the theory of goal-setting suggests that it's an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants in a group with a common goal are clearly aware of what is expected from...
, conflict management
Conflict management
Conflict management involves implementing strategies to limit the negative aspects of conflict and to increase the positive aspects of conflict at a level equal to or higher than where the conflict is taking place. Furthermore, the aim of conflict management is to enhance learning and group outcomes...
, drug
Drug
A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage.In pharmacology, a...
awareness and first aid
First aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
. The training is delivered on the premises, and lasts for nine weeks at 35 hours per week. A personal development
Personal development
Personal development includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations...
counsellor is on hand to place people in an appropriate job. In ten years, 297 Ökoservice trainees have found permanent work, which is a 75% success rate.
Ökoservice has become a local institution, and is seen to create a range of benefits: an appropriate type of work for the target group
Target Group
Target Group is a provider of software and outsourcing solutions to financial services and insurance companies. It specialises in delivering business solutions to the following markets: loans and mortgages, investments, general insurance, utilities and finance brokers.Target operates...
, a variety of different jobs that workers can switch between, and the opportunity to get a qualification
Professional certification
Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task...
. It offers services that would not be offered in the market, and employs people who would not be employable in the open labour market. It gives these people support and mentoring
Mentoring
Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
, and raises public awareness of ecological and labour market issues – Graz is an EU ‘Eco-city’ and Ökoservice was selected as a Local Agenda 21 good practice. It has opened a branch in St Veit am Vogau, 40 km south of Graz, and an extension to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
is under consideration.
The Ökoservice business model
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
has worked well for a decade now, but there is a cloud on the horizon. The Arbeitsmarktservice, which has no way to measure the quality of the service it is paying for, wants to reduce the allowance it pays to integrate unemployed people.
BAN on waste
Another social enterprise, BAN (Beratung, Arbeit, Neubeginn – ‘Advice, Work, New Start’) http://ban-soeb.at, is to be found in an old house in the inner-city neighbourhood of Gries. A pair of furniture vans stand in the yard, and the verandah is stacked with cupboards and similar items. BAN’s main activity is collecting, renovating and selling old furnitureFurniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
and household equipment. Like Ökoservice, BAN, which was founded in 1983, earns about half its revenue from selling goods and services, and makes up the difference with the grants it receives in return for integrating long-term unemployed people. About two-thirds of household equipment that people throw out can be reused. So Graz saves €100,000 a year in landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
costs. The 50 workers repair about 1,000 items a year. An upstairs room is the meeting point for the Graz Repair Network, which brings together representatives from a score of local businesses, who energetically debate their collective image and plan promotional events. Many traditional crafts are built on the idea of durability and repair, and jewellers, watchmaker
Watchmaker
A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since virtually all watches are now factory made, most modern watchmakers solely repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts, by hand...
s, cobbler
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
s, tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
s, plumber
Plumber
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...
s, carpenter
Carpenter
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
s, smiths
Smith (metalwork)
A metalsmith, often shortened to smith, is a person involved in making metal objects. In contemporary use a metalsmith is a person who uses metal as a material, uses traditional metalsmithing techniques , whose work thematically relates to the practice or history of the practice, or who engages in...
, electrician
Electrician
An electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance and repair of existing electrical infrastructure. Electricians may also...
s and bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
shops have all joined the networks. RepaNet members agree a quality standard which commits them to attempt any reasonable repair, to deal with at least five different brands of equipment, and to charge a set amount for a binding quotation.
Innovation - Making the wheels go round
A more specialised operation is based on an industrial estate in LiezenLiezen
Liezen is a municipality in the Austrian federal state of Styria, district capital of the district of the same name and economic center on the River Enns.Liezen covers a surface of 56.36 km2 and has a population of 6,991 people, as of the 2001 census...
, 120 kilometres northwest of Graz amid the mountains of Northern Styria. This industrial town of 7,000 was once the home of state-owned engineering firm VÖEST Alpine
Voestalpine
Voestalpine AG is an international steel company based in Linz, Austria. The company is active in steel, automotive, railway systems, profilform and tool steel industries....
. The works closed down in the 1990s with the loss of over a thousand skilled craft jobs. GBL (Gemeinnützige Beschäftigungsgesellschaft Liezen) http://www.gbl.at has created products that make good use both of these specialist skills and of traditional local materials. The most original line produced is water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
s. The workshop helped renovate three old watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
s and the idea grew from there. The normal size is one-and-a-half metres across, but they make them as big as three metres. And they are all made from local larch
Larch
Larches are conifers in the genus Larix, in the family Pinaceae. Growing from 15 to 50m tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south...
wood. The company has found a niche market
Niche market
A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing; therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact...
at the intersection of tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
, the environment and science education
Science education
Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
, and also fabricates items such as Archimedes screws, which make popular hands-on exhibits at a local water theme park.
The waterwheels are GBL’s trademark, but its high skills base means that the enterprise can fabricate all sorts of metal or wood prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
s and is always on the lookout for new product ideas. It has contracts to make high-end wooden office equipment and mountings for diesel engine
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...
s, and is experimenting with ideas such as ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
s and wooden toy
Toy
A toy is any object that can be used for play. Toys are associated commonly with children and pets. Playing with toys is often thought to be an enjoyable means of training the young for life in human society. Different materials are used to make toys enjoyable and cuddly to both young and old...
s.
Of course it also renovates and repairs household equipment, especially white goods (washing machine
Washing machine
A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
s, dishwasher
Dishwasher
A dishwasher is a mechanical device for cleaning dishes and eating utensils. Dishwashers can be found in restaurants and private homes.Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies largely on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, typically between ...
s, tumble driers, electric stove
Stove
A stove is an enclosed heated space. The term is commonly taken to mean an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated or to heat the stove itself, and items placed on it...
s etc.), which it sells with a one-year guarantee. It also offers a wide range of services both in the open air – cleaning historical monument
Monument
A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...
s, landscaping
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
, building footpath
Footpath
A Footpath is a thoroughfare intended for by pedestrians but not by motorized vehicles. The term is often for paths within an urban area that offer shorter quieter routes for pedestrians, they may also provide access to the surrounding countryside or parks...
s, cycle paths and ski trails
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
, clearing snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
, maintaining playing field
Playing field
A playing field is a field used for playing sports or games. They are generally outdoors, but many large structures exist to enclose playing fields from bad weather. Generally, playing fields are wide expanses of grass, dirt or sand without many obstructions...
s and other open spaces
Public space
A public space is a social space such as a town square that is open and accessible to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. For example, no fees or paid tickets are required for entry, nor are the entrants...
– as well as indoors, such as house clearance.
GBL’s workshop is open-plan
Open plan
Open plan is the generic term used in architectural and interior design for any floor plan which makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices...
, as it is important for customer confidence that they can see the repairs being done. This means they both have trust in the quality of the renovation, and can identify with the enterprise’s social values. The enterprise works as part of the local Repair Network, along with 25 other local businesses. They pay an annual fee of €100. Working together means they have a more prominent brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
and can refer customers to the best specialist.
Cost-benefit: Breakeven for the benefit system
GBL employs 21 handicapped people, 12 long-term unemployed ‘transit workers’ and 17 key workers, and has a 70% success rate in placing people in permanent jobs. New employees rotate round the different jobs for the first few months so that the enterprise can find out where their strengths and interests lie. Especially for women, GBL runs a taster course where they can try three different professions in a week – carpentryCarpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
, metalwork and electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
– to see what suits them best. It finds that women want part-time work and flexible
Flexible
Flexible may refer to:* Flexible electrical cable, also known as a power cord* Flexible electronics* Flexible response* Flexible mold* Flextime* Flexible-fuel vehicle* Flexible rake receiver* Flexible spending account, a tax-advantaged savings account...
working hours, but the problem is that AMS can normally only find full-time posts. Each job costs an estimated €25,000 to fill – but there is a significant saving as regards the economic and social costs of unemployment.
The Institut für Höhere Studien in Vienna investigated the issue of costs in a study of RUSZ, a similar workshop in Vienna, which places 55% of its trainees in permanent jobs. It found that if they stay employed and pay tax for 3.5 years, then the state breaks even. Even if they do not find an external job, keeping someone in unemployment benefit for a year costs the state about €43,000, but supporting a job in the social economy costs only half that.
Triangular Partnership
RepaNet is based on the principle that a table needs three legs, or it will fall over. It applies this analogyAnalogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
to the provision of social services in today’s cash-strapped climate. The demand
Demand
- Economics :*Demand , the desire to own something and the ability to pay for it*Demand curve, a graphic representation of a demand schedule*Demand deposit, the money in checking accounts...
for social services is rising, but the resources to meet it are not. So the social economy has been seen as a substitute for public or private action. But the project does not see itself as a substitute, and believes that triangular partnerships are needed.
Based on this principle, RepaNet brings in not just the local authorities, labour market service and environmental activists, but also local SMEs. When it builds up a local Repair Network, it can bring local small businesses on board because they gain market contacts and benefit from sharing know-how, as well as providing jobs for the trainees. Partnership with the companies means that RepaNet is kept abreast of the skills that are in demand, and can recruit trainees with matching aptitudes and desires. The EQUAL project gives each network a kick start by supporting the costs of two key workers – a trainer and a strategist
Strategist
A design strategist has the ability to combine the innovative, perceptive and holistic insights of a designer with the pragmatic and systemic skills of a planner to guide strategic direction in context of business needs, brand intent, design quality and customer values...
.
The development partnership also has a vertical
Vertical market
A vertical market is a group of similar businesses and customers that engage in trade based on specific and specialized needs. Often, participants in a vertical market are very limited to a subset of a larger industry...
dimension. It links the regional networks with the key decision makers at national level, including the environment ministry, employers and trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s. But the key relationship is with the local town councils, the Gemeinden. Shared environmental goals mean that a close relationship is relatively easy to establish. A shared history also helps: ARGE Müllvermeidung, which was founded in 1982, has since 1986 run educational courses for 300 waste advisers. Many of these people are now working in local authority environment departments, and are partners in the project via the Abfallwirtschaftsverein. The ARGE is well known, and the connection between the social economy
Social economy
Social economy refers to a third sector in economies between the private sector and business or, the public sector and government. It includes organisations such as cooperatives, non-governmental organisations and charities....
and ecology comes easily to people’s minds. Nevertheless, local businesses sometimes fear that employment companies may constitute unfair competition
Unfair competition
Unfair competition in a sense means that the competitors compete on unequal terms, because favourable or disadvantageous conditions are applied to some competitors but not to others; or that the actions of some competitors actively harm the position of others with respect to their ability to...
, so it is an asset to have the ministry and chamber of commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
(Wirtschaftkammer) behind it.
Institutional anchoring is vital to the RepaNet idea. So although its primary ideological
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
drive is to reduce environmental damage through waste minimisation, it sometimes seems reluctant to go out and sell the products it so inventively designs and manufactures. It does not want to forget what sort of a business it is – one that integrates unemployed people back into the workforce.
Transnational Vision
The project has a vision that builds from the bottom up to European level. Thanks to the support of EQUAL, the RepaNet model has spread from Vienna and Graz to five other regions in Austria. Altogether, the five enterprises employ 90 people and repair 4,000 items of equipment a year. Each repair centre has its own speciality: in Graz it is audioSound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
, video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
and computers, in Liezen white goods, in Ried im Innkreis
Ried im Innkreis
Ried im Innkreis is a town in the state of Upper Austria in Austria, approximately 70 km west of Linz and 60 km north of Salzburg...
bicycles, in Vienna computers – and multifunctional Hohenems
Hohenems
Hohenems is a town in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg, in the Dornbirn district. It lies in the middle of the Austrian part of the Rhine valley. With a population of 15,200 it is the fifth largest municipality in Vorarlberg...
tackles white goods, computers and bicycles. Under the aegis of the national federation, two more regional networks are in their formative stages.
The national federation Reparaturnetzwerk Österreich is in turn a member of the European network RREUSE (Recycling and Reuse European Social Enterprises) http://www.rreuse.org, which was established in 2001. Most environmental legislation is decided at European level now, so having an EU-wide voice is seen as vital. RREUSE holds meetings with the Environment Commissioner
European Commissioner
A European Commissioner is a member of the 27-member European Commission. Each Member within the college holds a specific portfolio and are led by the President of the European Commission...
and European parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
arians, and seems to have had a real influence on the WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment) directive. It has also submitted a joint response to the public consultation on the EU sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
strategy.
Into the mainstream market
As well as lobbyingLobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
for policy
Policy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
change, RREUSE helps its members to develop the best delivery mechanisms. Its 1,000 member enterprises employ 16,000 people across ten countries of Europe. In March 2004 RREUSE members came to Graz to take part in the exchange mart the RepaNet DP organised within their transnational partnership SENECA. It allowed them to swap ideas for new environmental businesses in the social economy.
To build a new trade sector you need both customers and producers. Customer awareness is built through the visibility of the services offered to the public, such as the BAN repair workshop or the garden waste composting service. On the supply side, the regional RepaNet networks bring in small businesses and enable them to swap skills and knowledge to their mutual advantage.
National and international networking also gives access to economies of scale
Economies of scale
Economies of scale, in microeconomics, refers to the cost advantages that an enterprise obtains due to expansion. There are factors that cause a producer’s average cost per unit to fall as the scale of output is increased. "Economies of scale" is a long run concept and refers to reductions in unit...
in marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
. A number of RREUSE member firms have established an EEIG (European economic interest group) called Serranet to carry out marketing at European level, using such channels as the internet or a catalogue.
RepaNet’s work was taken forward in two new development partnerships in the second round of EQUAL: Econet Austria focused on setting up integration firms in the recycling of electronic waste, while PSPP' (Public Social Private Partnership) aimed to take social enterprise into new fields.
Contact
DP name: RepaNet – Reparaturnetzwerk ÖsterreichDP ID: AT-3-08/135
National partners: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Müllvermeidung (lead), Abfallwirtschaft Tirol Mitte GmbH, BAN – Beratung Arbeit Neubeginn, Verein zur Beratung und Beschäftigung von Arbeitslosen, Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft, Caritas der Diözese Feldkirch, Die Umweltberatung – Verband österreichischer Umweltberatungsstellen, Gemeinnützige Beschäftigungsgesellschaft mbH Liezen, Rieder Initiative für Arbeitslose, Verband Abfallberatung Österreich, Verband Wiener Volksbildung – Projekt RUSZ, Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Österreichischer Abfallwirtschaftsverein, Österreichischer Gewerkschaftsbund
Transnational partnerships: TCA 237 SENECA – Social economy network for environmental co-operation activities
Contact: Berthold Schleich
Address: Dreihackengasse 1, 8020 Graz, Austria
Website: http://www.repanet.at