On October 8th, Net Impact’s Porto Alegre chapter held the event "Innovation and Creating Shared Value: How Employees are Transforming their Organizations from the Inside Out,” which included their second annual Impact at Work awards ceremony. The event also featured four speakers on sustainability and intrapreneurship in Brazil, including one local chapter member Camila Luconi Viana, which drew a crowd of over 100 individuals. The award recipients were chosen by a jury of experts on the topic, including individuals from a sustainability consulting company and the local League of Intrapreneurs.

This year’s Impact at Work awards were won by three local women. Fernanda Pedron is a senior distribution engineer who developed cheaper, longer-lasting, and more environmentally-friendly concrete poles for the utility company she works for. Marta Tocchetto, a professor of industrial and environmental chemistry at the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, founded the innovative Project RElona, which repurposes old canvas banners into handbags, totes, and other fashion items. The objective of Project RElona is twofold -- to avoid having useful materials end up in landfills and to generate profits to donate to its partner, the Association of Support for People with Cancer. Rose Floriano is another professor who brought her coursework to life by engaging her students and the local community in a practical project on Reverse Logistics (which are any activities associated with a product or service after the point of sale, e.g. recycling or disposal).

Porto Alegre is a Net Impact chapter that has taken the Impact at Work program and truly made it their own. They've found their niche in highlighting the great work being done at the intersection of sustainability and intrapreneurship, at both the local and national level, and building out their network around this cause.

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