Hub Coworking Hawaii

Hawai‘i's Best Coworking Space

Sustainable Development Goals

What We Stand For: Taking Climate Action Everyday

As part of the Impact Hub Global network, we have a shared vision for a better future for all. Recently, we made it official as a network to make sure we were accountable to our commitment. We’ve written before about our commitment to social impact, and about our commitment to sustainable development as guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

 

sustainable development goals

Many in the network are deeply inspired by the current swell of climate action happening around the world, and thus global Impact Hub teams have committed to taking their climate action even further by committing to a new What We Stand For proclamation. This agreement gives guiding principles for how we can take climate action each day in our respective locations.

From the collective document, these are the commitments that network leaders have agreed to: 

  • Leveraging the power of our 16,000+ network of changemakers to showcase what is already being done, raise awareness and serve as inspiration for what can be done more.
  • Continue working towards less waste every day, and adding to our efforts of reducing our environmental footprint by having at least one #zerowaste day per month in our Impact Hubs, no matter what activities we are running.
  • We put the planet first by reflecting on how our operations are run, and whenever possible and available, we switch to more climate-friendly practices (reducing food waste, changing to renewable energy sources, avoid single-use plastic, etc.).
  • We share best practices and support each other in making those options available to others.
  • We commit to making conscious and environmental choices when traveling and always offsetting our carbon footprint when journeying to meet in person.

Dozens of other Impact Hub communities around the world committed to this including: Impact Hub Dresden, Yerevan, Hamburg, Budapest, Milano, Belgrade, Donostia, Torino, Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Bern, Tegucigalpa, Leipzig, Florence
Stuttgart, Bergen, Berlin, Trento, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Lisbon, San José, Phnom Penh, Málaga, Curitiba, Madrid, Ottawa, King’s Cross, and in the United States, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Houston and Honolulu!

How can we implement some of these ideas in Honolulu?

Showcase What’s Being Done

We love to highlight our Member organizations and community groups that are striving for climate action, and by offering our space to those groups for events and membership, like Nicole Chatterson of Zero Waste Oahu, and other member organizations like Surfrider Oahu, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, and social impact organizations like Puuhonua o Waianae, Work Now Hawaii, ChangeWorks, FarmLink Hawaii, and more. We also host and promote events focused on climate action throughout the year.

Host a #zerowaste day per month

We are committed to reducing our waste in as many ways as possible. You may have seen the Bokashi bucket near the rubbish bins: this natural compost solution helps us reduce about 20 pounds of food waste each week. We have a collection of zero-waste solutions, like our kombucha, nitro coffee, and  beer on tap, along with reusable containers for meals and bags for shopping. We also require all event hosts to offer sustainable options (or use our kitchen items) for events. We have a strict policy about single use plastic water bottles, and they are not allowed at events. We are always seeking active solutions to reducing paper and other waste streams.

Put the planet first

Last year we swapped all lights for LED lights for lower energy use, and we have recently upgraded to ecobee thermostats making our temperature regulation more responsive, and thus more energy efficient.

Share best practices

We are active in the Impact Hub global community and seek to share our successes with our fellow members and support each other in making those options available to others.

Making conscious choices for travel

We do not yet have an active policy about this, but seems like now is the time to create it!

We are always open to suggestions from members and the community about how we can be a better local and global corporate citizen – so tell us – what commitments would you like us to take on to further our climate action?

Making Impact Every Day: Our Commitment to Social Impact

Impact Hub locations around the world are focused on making an impact, and the Impact Hub network uses the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework for how we define impact. If you not familiar with the goals, check out our article here to learn why we think the SDGs are pretty awesome.

sustainable development goals

Our social impact focus areas here at Impact Hub HNL include sustainability and education, and we work hard to create events for the general public, opportunities for members, and recurring programming that allows our members and community to create impact and build awareness.

As a company focused on impact, we give back. Each of our large events has a direct financial benefit for organizations that we are committed to supporting:

  • Our Grand Opening, in January 2018, was a benefit for Aloha Harvest, and our most recent Bollywood Night was a benefit for Pu’uhonua O Waianae and the Aloha Lives Here campaign.
  • Each of our ImpactART Gallery openings supports a local organization of the artist’s choosing.
  • We teach others how to do well and do good. For our keiki marketplace, student entrepreneurs vote with their dollars to support a local non-profit. We also partner with organizations for coworking and event ImpactMaker scholarships for those doing good in the world.

We offer scholarships to increase access to innovation for everyone:

  • Last year we gave over $10,800 in ImpactMaker scholarships and we are projected to give at least $15,000 in 2019!
  • We started the ImpactSCHOLAR program in an effort to support local university and college students. We offer 5 unlimited memberships to every accredited college program in the state annually – that’s over $75,000/year in scholarships to grow entrepreneurship here in the islands. As we grow, we look forward to having students on neighboring islands and other communities join us in impact.

When our space made its Magnum P.I. debut before the holidays, we gave the proceeds back to our members and spent the rest on Holiday BBQ for Ka Po’e O Kaka’ako (KPOK, The People of Kaka’ako), the local houseless community in Kaka’ako. After the initial BBQ, we were so inspired by their community-building efforts, we started participating in weekly park clean-up efforts to beautify the area surrounding the Children’s Discovery Center and surrounding streets; many on our team volunteer regularly at the KPOK weekly neighborhood cleanups- and you can join too!

We are also home to a variety of sustainability-focused member organizations that make a huge difference in our local and global community, like Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, Surfrider Foundation, Conservation International, Zero-Waste Oahu, Kanu Hawaii and more.

Providing inspiring spaces for collaboration between local social impact organizations is what we do at a basic level; making introductions, seeking out like-minded organizations and seeing what they do together lifts the whole community.

Here’s a highlight of some of the recent sustainability-focused programming and  events:

We also focus our efforts to support educators, students, and policymakers and empower the community with a range of business and personal educational opportunities.

Some of the education-focused events we host include:

  • A free, monthly Freelancer & Entrepreneur event to help support small businesses;
  • A free, bi-monthly Women’s Finance event, to educate and empower women to learn more about business & personal finance;
  • We are a community partner with Hawaii Women in Filmmaking and PBS Hawaii for the Indie Lens Pop-Up Film Series, which highlights important social justice issues across the US;
  • Our annual Keiki Marketplace, which supports over 25 student entrepreneurs to develop sustainable businesses with social impact in mind.
  • Education policy events: we provide space free of charge for educators, parents, students, and administrators to discuss education policy that improves public education. We have hosted Hope Street Group, Teach For America, Hawaii KidsCAN,  and a new group of inspiring educators who support each other in writing real stories about education in Hawaii, WRITE with #Educate808

In these ways and many others, we demonstrate our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, and as a company we hope to inspire other individuals and organizations to continue to do well, and do good in our community. This mission of helping businesses do well and do good, will continue to guide our programming and offerings, and we look forward to growing our impact together.

What are the Sustainable Development Goals (and why are they Important)?

Impact Hub HNL is committed to building a more sustainable working environment – not only is this the best thing to do for our community and our planet, it also is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals are a framework for building a better world, and Impact Hub global is committed to working towards these goals.

Building a better and more equitable future for all is the goal of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the SDGs are the guiding framework for this plan. The SDGs map out the various ways that we can achieve a more sustainable world, including gender equity, improved health and education, elimination of poverty, better cities, and so much more.

Read more about the history and future of the SDGs here, or watch the video below.

Impact Hub global uses the global SDGs, “as a lens through which to view our impact in the world.” So how do Impact Hubs around the world work toward the SDGs:

  • 51 Impact Hubs take part in waste recycling
  • 46 use recycled or sustainable office stationery
  • 45 use energy efficient or energy saving practices
  • 35 use reclaimed or reused office furniture
  • 34 use reusable or compostable catering supplies
  • 20 use green or renewable energy sources

Here at Impact Hub HNL, we have our own sustainability policies in place:

  • We choose only organic coffee and tea for our member beverages, meaning better working conditions and less pesticides in the environment (and in your body)
  • We support local companies to make our beer, ‘booch and nitro, meaning less transport costs and fuels
  • We now have paper recycling in addition to our Hi-5 item recycling. Unfortunately, recycling in Hawaii (and everywhere) is going through a major shift because of China’s recent decision to no longer accept recyclables from the US; we’ll continue to do as much as we can to reduce.
  • For our events programming, we don’t allow single-use plastic (bottles, cutlery, or containers) for our events programming, and generally we are working towards being a zero-waste facility.
  • Our facility uses super energy-efficient LED lighting
  • Much of our furniture is upcycled, recycled or secondhand. DYK the long tables in the front are former bowling lanes handmade by our very own George? Or that our wooden phone booths were custom-made from recycled materials by ARCH Hawaii.

We also work with local organizations and partners for events focused on the SDGs. Most recently, we hosted the ABCs of the SDGs event to highlight local groups that are implementing the SDGs locally. Groups like Zero Waste Oahu, Surfrider Foundation, Aloha+ Challenge, Hawaii FoodBank, WorkNow, and many more were present to share their work, and how the community can get involved.

Finally, we are committed to helping companies doing well to do good, and helping those companies doing good, to do well. We see Impact Hub HNL as a unique space when we facilitate these connections with our members, partners, and the broader community.

sustainable development goals

Announcing our 2019 Impact Partners

Impact Hub HNL is fortunate to partner with select local businesses to help make a bigger impact in our community.

Impact Hubs worldwide are united in the commitment to make social impact in the community, and locally we are grateful for the support of our 2019 Impact Partners.

These companies have demonstrated their support for the growing entrepreneurial and small business community in Honolulu. All Impact Partners are dedicated to bettering Hawaii through their thoughtful business actions.

Our Impact Partner Circle serves as a valuable advisory council that provides sponsorship of events and memberships, strategic insights, and thought leadership for the Impact Hub HNL community. We are proud to announce continued partnership with the following organizations: :

airbnb

Airbnb is a homeshare and experience app that helps create a world of global citizens. With 4,500,000 listings in over 65,000 cities in 191 countries, Airbnb offers the widest variety of unique spaces for rent, whether you want a room, a house, a boat, a tent, or a castle (along with offering other awesome experiences.)

airbnb’s work supports the following SDGs:

American Savings Bank

American Savings Bank is one of the primary financial institutions in the state of Hawaii, and have been serving Hawaii’s businesses and communities since 1925. ASB provides a full range of financial products and services, including business and consumer banking, home loans, insurance and investments.

We’ve partnered with ASB for many events at Impact Hub HNL that help grow financial literacy in the community, including the free public event entitled Building Community with Women Entrepreneurs that aims to build communication and connection between female entrepreneurs and freelancers in our community.

ASB’s work supports the following SDGs:

Elemental Excelerator

One of the leading cleantech incubators in the world, Elemental Excelerator is committed to deploying solutions that make direct impacts on our energy and water usage across the state and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. They work in partnership with the Emerson Collective’s Elemental platform, which is focused on balancing the needs of humanity and nature by supporting scalable, equitable, and innovative solutions.

Elemental Excelerator’s work supports the following SDGs:

Hawaii Investment Ready

Hawaii Investment Ready (HIR) is an accelerator program designed to help Hawaii businesses thrive. Their statewide peer-to-peer learning program has been created to support the sustainability of island social enterprises so that they can scale their businesses in Hawaii and beyond.

HIR’s work supports the following SDGs:

simplicityHR by Altres

ALTRES Staffing is Hawaii’s largest staffing and recruiting company, with seven offices across the state, and simplicityHR by ALTRES serves as the human resources “back office” for more than 2,200 local businesses. For nearly 50 years, they have been Hawaii’s #1 HR outsourcing company and is ranked as one of Hawaii’s Best Places to Work.

Altres’ work supports the following SDGs:

Ulupono

Ulupono Initiative is a local non-profit that invests in a more sustainable Hawaii. Founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidiyar. Ulupono seeks to invest in and help grow local organizations involved in clean/renewable energy, diversified agriculture, and waste-to-energy management – choosing to invest in projects that have high potential for creating large-scale social impact. They invest in companies focused on improving the local energy, food, water, and waste sectors.

Ulupono’s work supports the following SDGs: