DA.AI Technology: The First Green Social Enterprise

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 Who would have thought the South Asian tsunami in 2004 unexpectedly gave birth to Taiwan's first green social enterprise, DA.AI Technology.

That year, Tzu Chi International Humanitarian Aid Association (TIHAA)visited the worst-hit Aceh, Indonesia, saw people of different skin colors, and religion beliefs, flew in from different parts of the world for only one sole purpose, which is to provide aid and relief to the victims, and as entrepreneurs, what more could have done?

After returning from Aceh, five Taiwanese industrial Tzu Chi volunteers refined TIHAA, which was set up in 2003, and created five functional groups. The functional groups are Food, Clothing, Housing, Transportation, and IT. With the five entrepreneurs as conveners of each functional group, TIHAA begin its work on the recycled PET project. They integrated the supply chain vendors from the textile/garment industry, combining PET bottles recycled by the Tzu Chi environmental volunteers, and created the eco-friendly blanket. This is the prototype of DA.AI Technology. As the chief convener, Walter Huang has devoted his full support in making it happened, and even set up a specialty department with listed budget.

But he soon discovered, "Tzu Chi has a huge amount of resources, the more I do the more anxiety I get. I realized that no matter how much fund, and manpower are put in, it is never fast or thorough enough.” As a result, the five conveners proposed to establish a profit-making enterprise with an unique business model that is different than others. The net proceeds will be donated to Tzu Chi Foundation. After raising enough fund, they proposed the project to Master Cheng Yen, and it took two years of endeavoring before Master Cheng Yen grant her approval. DA.AI Technology was finally born in December 2008.

In the past, TIHAA made recycled PET bottles into blanket for disaster reliefs, now, DA.AI Technology turn recycled PET bottles into various daily products including casual ware, baby ware, accessories, and etc.

Since its inception, regardless of the market value, DA.AI Technology continues to offer one dollar (NTD) above market price to purchase Tzu Chi recycled PET bottles. Therefore, the rumor that DA.AI Technology is successful because they get their recycled PET bottles for free is not well-founded.

Although the technology to manufacture recycled PET fabrics was developed since the inception of TIHAA, but the yield rate took two years to reach the high of 80%.

Developing everyday casual ware actually requires more considerations. DA.AI technology hopes to keep all of its products free from chemical dye so water consumption and toxic substances can be reduced. The lack of colors makes the product design more challenging, and the simpler the designs are, the more they cost to be manufactured.

In addition to Internet sales, the products made its way into Jing Si Bookstore last year. This year, DA.AI Technology will also launch its first physical store.
 
Every DA.AI product is labeled with the number of recycled PET bottles it is made from, the amount of water consumption reduced, and carbon dioxide emission saved. Some consumers are very cute, and they will ask questions such as whether if they can bring in their recycled PET bottles in exchange for products. Clearly, the average consumer is still unfamiliar with DA.AI products. In March, DA.AI officially introduced its Production History Tag on polo shirts, and hopefully, the tag will be seen on every DA.AI product soon.

As a pioneer in the green social enterprises, we hope that by seeing the successful story of DA.AI Technology, more people will be inspired and encouraged to join social enterprises.

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