Sustainability in action: Supporting employee projects

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It's just one school on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean formed as the mangrove estuary creates a bend near Puntarenas, one of Costa Rica's primary ports. Though just a 20 minute boat ride from where modern cruise ships dock, the island has no electricity, no telephones and no potable water. The teacher at the island's school manages to teach six grade levels in a confined space. Two of the girls in the 14-person school say they want to become teachers and one of the boys wants to be a principal, but in the past 50 years not one of the school's students has taken a boat ride to attend high school in the big city.

Adrian Gonzalez Alvarado and some of his colleagues at Intel Corporation's plant in Belen, Costa Rica wanted to help bring the tiny school into the 21st century. They hoped to introduce Internet access via five Classmate PC laptops run on solar power from panels on the school's roof that feed into batteries.

Simultaneously, Intel employees Zia Manzur of Bangladesh and Bernd Nordhausen of Singapore saw that the availability of power limits the use of technology education in rural schools in emerging markets, yet there are very few instances where solar energy has been used to power PC deployments in such schools.

Both projects turned to Intel's Sustainability in Action Program which is intended to encourage employees to build the company's environmental leadership. Since the program began in 2006, it has funded a diverse set of projects ranging from environmental education initiatives to ecological restoration and conservation projects, to projects aimed at engaging fellow Intel employees to reduce their environmental footprint while at work. Funding for recent projects has averaged $13,000 apiece.

In the fall of 2009, a small team of recent hires in Hillsboro banded together to help fight invasive species degrading Portland's 5,100 acre Forest Park, one of the country's largest urban forest reserves. With the help of an Intel Sustainability in Action grant, the team joined the Forest Park Conservancy to launch a campaign to raise community awareness about the issue.

The team planted native Oregonian trees on four acres, removed English Ivy on seven acres, created a video encouraging sustainability at the park, initiated a social networking campaign on Facebook and Twitter, supplied the conservancy with topographical software, helped train staff and enhanced the group's website to promote awareness of the invasive species problem and volunteer engagement.

While most of the Sustainability in Action projects have been community-oriented, it is not a requirement. In 2009, for example, the program funded two projects that were focused on Intel employees.

The true test is whether a proposed project is innovative and will produce demonstrable and meaningful results. In 2010, there were projects to pilot a way to grow algae as a biofuel using fab carbon emissions and to implement a successful vermicomposting project at an Intel campus in Malaysia. Other projects developed energy-efficient streetlight technology in Ireland and established a sustainable, urban, organic garden in Hillsboro in partnership with HomePlate, a drop-in center for youth experiencing homelessness.

Meanwhile, two solar installations have been deployed at schools in Bangladesh. One school received a 10-PC lab, while the second school with a smaller student population received a five-PC lab. The solar equipment is enough to power the modern power-efficient PCs for at least four hours per day and the hope is that under good conditions there will be enough power for six hours of use.

Similarly, the students and teacher at the island school in Costa Rica are also breaking new ground. "These little children were thrilled by the idea of having access to computers and took advantage of the knowledge of our Intel volunteers to learn about them," says Alvarado. "The project is now a reality and the kids will never forget the Intel volunteers who changed the way they will learn the skills required for a brighter future."

Now Alvarado is looking forward to replicating the project at other rural schools off the electricity grid.

"We want to make this a copyable program, one that can be replicated so it could be done in a lot of countries with rural areas that don't have access to power and computers," he says. "We need to do this. It is important to educate and reach and enrich the life of every person on earth."

Bill MacKenzie is a Communications Manager at Intel Corporation. For more information on Intel’s Sustainability in Action program, contact him at bill.mackenzie@intel.com.