Get To Know Us

We are a Nonprofit Organization working to impact the sustainable development in Costa Rica, in partnership with hotels, restaurants and other businesses, throughout the country. We provide a comprehensive solution in Corporate Social Responsibility to our Affiliates Network.

MISSION: To promote change and socio-environmental awareness in the hotels, restaurants and Costa Rica's businesses through the implementation of sustainable practices, responsible and comprehensive recycling service.

VISION: To be the regional leader in providing sustainable solutions for the tourism and industrial companies.

OUR VALUES:

AWARENESS: create awareness of the real problems that affect our society and how we can together provide solutions. We are the generation of change!
COMMITMENT: We're committed to the environment and high-risk populations in our country.
PROFESSIONALISM: We are constantly enabling us to provide the best professional advice to our allies.
INTEGRITY: We are an organization that works with ethics, honesty and transparency.
SOLIDARITY: We believe in the great power we have together, to improve our quality of life and sectors that need us the most.

Conoce acerca de Yo Hago El Cambio

Get to Know our History

We born in 2011, as the non-profit Costa Rican company Ecogetaways Travel Designs organization. A pioneer travel agency Costa Rica that offers exclusive luxury services with high levels of sustainability and commitment to the environment.

One of the promotional tours of the Agency, took us to visit the tour of Biodiesel in Santa Clara, north of Costa Rica, where we discovered the serious problem that exists in Costa Rica and the world due to bad treatment given to the used oil residue in restaurant kitchens.

There are three very serious ways this wrong procedure is affecting our society:

Environmental: The oil is poured through the pipe, the pipe reaching our rivers and seas. One liter of used oil contaminates irreversibly 1000 liters of water. This environmental damage is irreparable.
Animal: The used oil sale and delivery to breeding and slaughtering illegal business without scruples who use it for fattening, causing serious diseases to animals.
Human: as a secondary consumer of these animals that were fed with this toxic oil, it is one of the main causes of cancer today.

Due to this alarming reality, we decided to get into action offering a collecting service for this waste to different restaurants we were partnering the project with, in order to recycle and produce Biodiesel, a clean and environmentally friendly energy.

In addition to the recycling project we started with professional advice in corporate social responsibility based on the international standard ISO: 26000 to educate, encourage and act through the restaurant sector for socio-environmental causes.

In 2015, due to a constant demand from our clients: various hotels and restaurants, Yo Hago El Cambio initiated a successful recycling service: offering a service of collecting waste plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, aluminum, tetra back and used cooking oil. Currently, Yo Hago El Cambio it has managed to diversify its services according to the demand for their Affiliates Network; adding to its Affiliates Network recognized universities, multinational corporations, NGOs and banks, plus companies in the tourism sector, which are provided with a comprehensive solution in sustainability, tackling recycling services, training and corporate volunteering.

Reconocimientos de Yo Hago El Cambio

Recognitions and Scope

We have been awarded with the Award Yo Creo in Costa Rica, granted by the Latin University, Youth Action Net Central and Youth Action Net International thanks to our social enterprise in 2013.

In 2014 we received the Global Award and entered the International Red Laureate Global Fellows, which recognized us as one of 20 leaders and agents of change highlights year worldwide.

Also in 2014, the newspaper El Financiero selected our Director Silvia Isabel Vargas as one of the most influential young entrepreneurs in Costa Rica in its last edition of 40 under 40.

In 2015, we were selected as one of 10 social projects with the greatest impact in the region of Iberoamerica by the Latin American Board of the prestigious Georgetown University, where our founder was awarded a scholarship to study a program of Latin American political and Effective leadership with other social leaders of the region.

Also during 2015, we managed to be among the five finalists in the environmental category, the Stephan Schmidheiny Innovation Award for Sustainability, led by the Center for Knowledge Exchange, where participated over 700 enterprises in the region. In the second half of the year, we were also finalists in the 2015 Green Award Latinoamerica.

Currently we have more than 50 restaurants, hotels and affiliated companies throughout the country.

Some of our achievements are:

We have recycled more than 265,000 liters of used cooking oil for the production of biodiesel and more than 7000 tons of waste plastic, glass, cardboard, paper, tetra pack and aluminum.
We positively impact and lock in over 500 collaborators of our Network members through the practice of volunteering.
We are currently the only social enterprise dedicated recycling endorsed by the National Chamber of Tourism, the Costa Rican Chamber of Hotels and the Costa Rican Chamber of Restaurants.
We have trained more than 600 employees in the field of integrated waste management and recycling.

Yo hago el Cambio it is supported by the following institutions