??PalUpNow!'s Environment, Social, And Operational Sustainability

Collaborators

PalUpNow! is grateful to the following contributors:

a. Bitasta Roy Mehta, Mindfulness and Sustainability Coach at PalUpNow!

b. Sourish Sen, Sustainability Lead and Sr. Manager, Business Operations, Ontario, Canada at PalUpNow!

Here's how PalUpNow! is striving to achieve the UN SDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals).

About PalUpNow!

PalUpNow!'s vision is to improve accessibility and create economic opportunities for those who can help.

PalUpNow!'s mission is to connect people, who need assistance on flights and rides, with Pals.

PalUpNow! creates jobs for Pals that:

??have flexible working hours and locations (including contactless options)

??enable Pals to keep ??% of the fee/gift offered by people seeking Pals

??protect private data

Here's how PalUpNow! works:

??Community members?privately?sign up for help with an offer price (or, gift) for the Pals.?

??Flight Pals, Ride Pals, and coaches sign up with their expectation and keep ??% of what they receive from the community.

??In deserving cases, PalUpNow! makes discretionary contributions.

Read founder Juni Mukherjee's note for more details.

PalUpNow! Is Sustainable

Our planet has a biophysical limit. Sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations. PalUpNow! is designed for sustainability, and we’ll illustrate how.

?? Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is about using our planet’s resources in a way that doesn’t harm the environment or deplete its resources. Let’s take a look at the designs of both PalUpNow! Flights and Rides and understand how they make for a sustainable business.

1. PalUpNow! Flights

PalUpNow! Flights is an online marketplace that connects anxious Flyers with Flight Pals, who are fellow passengers on the same flight, and who can assist with check-in, baggage claim, security, paperwork for immigration and customs, language barriers, and other light tasks. This is an end-to-end experience that beats disjoint airline/airport services.?

Anxious Flyers, who previously needed friends and family to fly with them and/or hired expensive flying companions, can now rely on Flight Pals, who’re already on the same flight. PalUpNow! Flights saves fuel and the cost overhead of the additional companion. This overhead is significant for short flights and is huge for international and long-haul flights.

2. PalUpNow! Rides

PalUpNow! Rides is another online marketplace that connects anxious Riders, who need rides and accompaniment, with Ride Pals, who drive our users and/or accompany them for shopping, vaccination, fitness, mindfulness, companionship, doctor visits, and other light tasks. This is an end-to-end experience that beats regular taxi/cab drop-offs.?

Anxious Riders can now carpool with Ride Pals, who aren't just drivers, but also assist in completion of tasks. This minimizes fuel emissions from unnecessary vehicles.

Also, as a significant boost to the environment, anxious Riders, who're generally nervous about taking public transportation on their own, can now do so confidently alongside Ride Pals. Some of our Ride Pals are advocates of “Go Green” initiatives, and regularly serve their community via public transport.

Moreover, our Ride Pals aren’t just drivers, and don't always need vehicles. They are encouraged to avoid physical meetings if the issue can be resolved online, or if the Rider prefers a contactless interaction over a face-to-face meeting. Contactless options shot to fame during the pandemic era, and has remained a popular option for some of our users who’re comfortable with the shift to digital. As a huge boost to our economy, Pals from all around the world can now help people who need assistance by phone, chat, SMS, and audio-video calls.

?? Social Sustainability

Social sustainability is about identifying and managing business impacts, both positive and negative, on people.?Social sustainability blends traditional social policy areas and principles, such as equity and health, with emerging issues concerning participation, needs, social capital, the economy, the environment, and more recently, with the notions of happiness, well-being, and quality of life.

Dr. Purba Das from Ohio University analyzed how and why PalUpNow!:

??. enforces all four dimensions of a community?

??. enhances community capacity with Flight Pals, Ride Pals, and coaches

??. builds communities via the internet

??. facilitates the integration of the weaker sections of our society by including children (under adult supervision), young adults and octogenarians under one platform.

The dimensions of social sustainability are:?

1/5. Quality of life

We don’t monetize your online presence, since we understand the downside of such morally bankrupt business strategies and their negative impact on the well-being of our society. You visit PalUpNow! only when you want to, not because we lure you with ads and notifications.?

If anything, we nurture your mental health by partnering with wellness coaches, who invest time in your mental and physical health.

2/5. Equality, Equity, And Justice

Social systems aren’t naturally inequitable. In certain cases, they’ve been intentionally designed to reward specific demographics for so long that the system’s outcomes may appear unintentional but are actually rooted in discriminatory practices and beliefs.?

A. ????? Equality for LGBTQIA+ users

Instead of users signing up with their gender, we ask for only their pronouns. This is to learn how everyone else should address them. This helps reduce discrimination against an already disadvantaged group.

B. Equality for elderlies

Age is often used to categorize and divide people in ways that lead to injustice and erode solidarity across generations. This is ageism: the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or ourselves based on age.

Instead of users signing up with their age, we ask for only a range. This helps reduce discrimination against ageism.

C. Equity for the technologically-challenged

PalUpNow! deviates from the tradition of accounts and passwords, since this provides members with impairments a seamless experience by removing the hassle of remembering and resetting usernames and passwords. More often than not, they tend to forget their login credentials, and then face difficulties in restoring their accounts, only to forget their usernames and passwords again. Worse, they write their passwords in clear text so they can refer to them later, and sometimes lose these notes. Or, they share their passwords with others, who they can ask later. These practices are risky, and we’ve taken the first step to help them have better cyber hygiene.?

We're passwordless. Removing passwords prevents further marginalization of the already marginalized sections. See how it works.

Moreover, the technologically-challenged struggle with smartphones, mobile apps, and other fancy features, which they can’t use and don’t want to deal with. PalUpNow! has a simple web app that gives them the basics without embellishments.

D. Justice for Pals

PalUpNow! is a rare marketplace that enables Flight Pals and Ride Pals to keep ??% of the fee/gift they earn.?

In deserving cases, PalUpNow! makes discretionary contributions to help vulnerable members of our society who can't otherwise afford our services.

3/5. Diversity

Although PalUpNow! is based in the US, we’re global citizens.?

A. Multilingual Web App

Our web app is available globally and automatic translations are available in Arabic, French, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog. This is convenient for people who do not speak/write English and conduct business in their preferred language.?

B. Diverse Pals

Our Pals are geographically distributed within their own service areas and understand the local dialect, conditions, and challenges. This avoids miscommunication and misunderstandings.?

C. Diverse users

PalUpNow! welcomes all users 18 years of age and above, regardless of their culture, ethnicity, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, caste, and creed. Minors can participate under adult supervision.?

4/5. Social Cohesion

PalUpNow! Charity?? shares donations with nonprofits in India and Kenya that share our vision of serving underserved communities. We’ve collaborated with three nonprofits to reach out to marginalized populations.

a. Cancer Foundation of India, where we support cervical screening of women and HPV vaccination of adolescent girls from underserved communities

b. Ethical Traveling in Kenya, where we improve online infrastructure like website development and internet connectivity to advance experiential traveling in underserved communities

c. Towards Future in India, where we address the socio-economic needs of kids from underserved communities Through each of these international liaisons, PalUpNow! is able to: a. find vetted Ride Pals on the ground in India and Kenya, who’re fully equipped to handle local conditions and challenges. PalUpNow! is based in the US and this proved to be an effective technique to scale and grow outside the US. b. extend help to Riders, who needed assistance with not just rides but with life essentials. c. validate the international user experience of the platform and address feedback to the best of our ability.

5/5. Democracy And Governance

A. Governance of user data

We anonymize user profiles for Flights and Rides. We don't share personally identifiable information (PII), like name, email, phone, age range, and pronouns, till users are matched.

B. Democracy of user data

Users have control of their data.

If users don't want to be matched and would like us to hide their anonymized profile(s), they can temporarily deactivate and later reactivate with no activation fee. Users can also choose to delete their data forever.

C. Governance for stakeholders

The quality of a company’s engagement with its stakeholders is critical. Since its inception, PalUpNow! has preserved an open kanban in public view. PalUpNow! has slowly evolved from feedback received from early contributors/reviewers across multiple geographies and demographics. Regardless of how many of those we can address, we send personalized emails to our early adopters and reviewers to update our status.

D. Governance for users

Difficult as it might be, PalUpNow! reserves the right to evict offensive users from the platform based on reviews and feedback.?

?? Operational Sustainability

Manufacturing sustainability isn’t relevant for us, since we have no tangible physical product, paper footprint, plastic footprint, and/or other tangible advertising material. Our gift card is digital.

Instead, we have invested in making our operations sustainable.

1. Operational sustainability of web app

Through our automated web app, users can sign up, get matched, and leave reviews without human intervention or human bias. This low-maintenance automated platform operates 24/7 on a global basis. See how it works. For transparency, we keep the platform’s availability metrics in plain view.

2. Operational sustainability of social media

We strongly discourage team members from spending too much time on social media. Instead, we encourage them to write, draw, animate, take photographs, create digital media like images and videos, and invest in social media automation. We spread the good word via our mostly automated social media channels, like Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Pinterest, Quora, Scoop.it, Threads, and YouTube.

3. Operational sustainability of service distribution

Melvin Conway stated that any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure. PalUpNow! is franchisable, and we operate globally out of service areas. We strive to honor Conway’s Law, and our organization follows our architecture.

?? Economic Sustainability

1. Economic sustainability of Pals

PalUpNow! creates jobs for Pals that enable Pals keep ??% of the fee/gift offered by people seeking Pals. By reducing administrative/management overhead and investing in automation, we've redirected funds into incentivizing our Pals, who keep ??% of the fee/gift offered to them.?

Community members privately sign up for help with an offer price (or, gift) for the Pals. Flight Pals, Ride Pals, and wellness coaches sign up with their expectation and keep ??% of what they receive from the community. Payments to Pals are made in cash or in kind. PalUpNow! doesn't keep any percentage of the offer price/gift.?

2. Economic sustainability of PalUpNow!

PalUpNow! generates revenue from PalUpNow! Premium, if and when users request background checks globally and motor vehicle records in the US and Canada.

?? Urban Sustainability

Urban Sustainability refers to urban planning actions and guiding principles to improve and build our workplaces without actively using our resources forever.?

We work from home/anywhere, and don’t invest in office buildings. Instead, we invest in processes and tools that aid team members to collaborate and contribute from different time zones.?

????Be A Pal. Get A Pal.

PalUpNow! sustainably improves accessibility of humans and creates economic opportunities for those who can help.?

Sign up at PalUpNow! as a:

1. Flight Pal, if you can help your fellow flyer in airports and in the aircraft.?

2. Ride Pal, if you can give rides and accompaniment for life essentials

3. Flyer, if you need assistance in airports and aircrafts from your fellow flyer

4. Rider, if you want someone to drive or accompany you while you take care of life essentials.

Help us better serve underprivileged communities by making a donation and helping someone upgrade to PalUpNow! Premium by sending them our Premium gift card.

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