K-man initiates paperless digital business cards for NES staff
Cailean ‘K-man’ Henderson was one of the Cook Islands delegates attending the first meeting of the ‘Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee for a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution’ in Punta del Este, Uruguay. While the Cook Islands contributed to the development of this new global treaty, K-man also spotted an opportunity from its informal networking meetings – to create digital business cards.
During one of the lunch breaks, the Cook Islands delegation joined the Executive Secretary for the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions, Dr Rolph Payet. As the Cook Islands delegation exchanged business information by handing out their business cards, Rolph asked the delegation “Why do you still have business cards? You should go paperless, you are environment.” This sparked the initiative to create the business Quick Response (QR) codes for the NES staff business cards.
Since 2022 K-man has upskilled himself in graphic design for NES’s presentations to the Rarotonga Environment Authority and designing social media posts and videos to enhance its communications. With this new skill, K-man embarked on his research to develop the QR Codes for the NES staff. K-man completed the design work and presented the codes to the NES staff in two formats: one code works offline, and the other code is online based therefore requires internet to download the colour and NES brand. Rather than handing over a business card, NES staff can simply retrieve their QR code from their mobile phone for the receiving person to scan with their mobile phone. Once QR code is scanned, it will bring up all the business details of the NES staff including their work number, email, address, department and website link.
More organisations are moving towards digital business cards as an attempt to slow down deforestation. A total of 42% of all wood harvested globally is being used for paper manufacture.
The move to digital business cards will help reduce our dependence on paper, reduce the significant energy and water used to manufacture paper and minimise the removal of trees as they account for half of terrestrial carbon storage.
K-man noted ‘we are pleased with the move to digital business cards as it supports our mandate to conserve the environment. We look forward to other Government agencies participating in this cause and we can share insights on how the QR codes were developed.’
NES will continue to pursue methods that can streamline environmental protection and conservation efforts.
