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A social enterprise is an enterprise that fulfills a public benefit purpose. The practice in the Czech Republic is mostly such that social enterprises are established for subsidy reasons to obtain funds to support social entrepreneurship.

As a company, we support the principles of social entrepreneurship, but not for subsidy reasons. We have not drawn and do not draw any subsidy for social entrepreneurship, but we have always adhered to the principles and definitions of social entrepreneurship since the very beginning of our business. We would not even want to do business according to other principles, because, as follows from our stated goals, our business must meet ethical, qualitative, environmental, and socially beneficial purposes which correspond very closely to the essence of social enterprise. That is why we have officially proclaimed our adherence to social entrepreneurship. Therefore, you can find us in the Directory of Social Enterprises.

So what do we fulfill and what can we declare?

Socially useful purpose

We have two socially useful goals:

1. The actual subject of our enterprise – production, and sale of cloth diapers contribute to reducing environmental impacts.
2. We employ mothers with children under 10 years of age, including single mothers. These mothers are disadvantaged in the job market and often struggle to find work opportunities.

Social principle

In other words - we are an integration social enterprise.

• 50 % of our employees are disadvantaged workers. In our case, these include mothers with children under the age of 10, including single mothers. At the same time, they are our customers and so we know they often struggle finding opportunities in the job market. Firstly, employers have often been reluctant to employ mothers with young children. Secondly, in some cases, it is nearly impossible to get a full-time job for single mothers. That is why our employees enjoy not only work opportunities in our company, but also the fact that we are happy to “tailor” their employment according to their needs.
• The company headquarters premises are child-friendly, with a designated room for play, rest or study, so in situations when a child is unable to attend their preschool or school, our employees are able to take them to their place of work.
• These employees are trained in accordance with their individual abilities and options. Insufficient qualification at the beginning is no reason to not hire the worker; we are happy to train and educate a new worker.
• We care about our employees and we make sure they feel included in the company proceedings; we make a point of informing them regularly not only about the company operation, position on the market, its successes and goals, but our employees are also involved in the company’s decision-making process.

Economic principles

The basic principle of social entrepreneurship is the different approach of owners to profit from their business. Owners of an integration social enterprise consciously undertake to reinvest most of it (at least 51%) back into the company. Anavy undertakes to reinvest at least 51 % of its profits back into the company for further development of its social entrepreneurship. Reinvesting most of the profit has been common practice in our company for several years and we intend to keep it up.

Environmental principles

• We manufacture our products with respect to the environment.
• It is crucial for us that our Anavy products, by their very nature, help protect the environment. They are an ecological variant of disposable products which burden the environment and leave a deep ecological footprint difficult to remove. In addition to production, we also focus on education, in other words, we do not implement sales marketing but rather awareness marketing to raise awareness of the possibility of replacing disposable aids with washable and reusable cloth products.
• Furthermore, in the actual production process, we always consider manufacturing options and we select those with minimum environmental impact. This also applies to materials we use as well as to the fact that we do not use any unnecessary (plastic) packaging which would end up thrown away, therefore helping reduce the enormous amount of non-biodegradable waste. We then use boxes and materials in circulation for shipment, and we effectively recycle packaging and materials from other suppliers (boxes, bags, fillings…). We also do not waste resources unnecessarily and we sort the produced waste using the Eko-kom system.
• Furthermore, as part of the continuous expansion of our additional range, we are introducing products that are in line with the Zero Waste lifestyle, and we support our customers with our offer and marketing communication so that they are not afraid to take easy and possible steps closer to regulating household waste.
• In 2019, we introduced a new material in the production of children's pant diapers and absorbent cores, namely bamboo terry fabric, in which ordinary polyester yarn is replaced by a yarn made of recycled plastic. Together, we strive to make meaningful use of the enormous amount of plastic waste that is difficult to degrade. With a single diaper with an absorbent core produced by our company, we recycle two plastic bottles!
• In 2020, we made further changes in the choice of suppliers of materials to make sure our other products can be sewn from yarn fabric made from recycled plastic waste. In this way, we gradually progressed and recently achieved a rate of approximately 80 % of our product portfolio made from recycled yarn

Location principle

Our company hires local workers. When selecting new employees, one of the key factors is whether the candidate lives in the proximity of our company. Possible insufficient qualification is no reason not to hire a worker as we are happy to train and educate local workers.

Jana Krátká

Máma tří dětí, příznivec všeho jinakostního (ale zároveň jakostního, tedy i značky Anavy:-)) a naše spolupracovnice.