R3-Online Latest News

New Website For Recycling Company The Sofa Project

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:11:00 GMT

The Sofa Project are a furniture and electrical goods recycling service based in Bristol that sell new and secondhand products.

They have been a using the R3-Online recycling software for quite some time now, so when they decided that they needed an update to their existing website, they came to Urban Element who as well as being behind the environmental software, they also have a vast amount of experience in website design.

The Sofa Project felt that their existing site had started to look very out of date and no longer reflected the size of the charity. As part of the creation of this fresh new site they had also identified the need for the addition of an e-commerce section, allowing their products to reach a much wider audience. This was in line with the expansion of the charity who had previously operated from just two shops in Bristol but now have the ability to sell products nationally and deliver to anywhere in the UK.

The new website is now live and everyone at The Sofa Project are really pleased with the results and looking forward to the challenge of delivering nationwide.

Recycle Week 2011 – recycling solutions for Home and Away

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:26:00 GMT

This week sees the start of the seventh annual recycle week and this year’s theme is Home and Away.

In previous years the focus of Recycle Week has predominantly been on domestic recycling but this year the focus has shifted to encourage recycling at work and when you’re out and about.

The Recycle Now website is full of tips and advice on how you can get involved in Recycle Week and also contains information on a variety of recycling solutions. They have also teamed up with Keep Britain Tidy and their Tidy Up campaign to show what a difference tidying and recycling can make.

At the R3-online Office we have been trying out various ways to make our office greener, from changing the light bulbs to making better provisions for recycling our waste material. We are also pretty big fans of things like Google docs to share documents without the need for printing.

For tips on how to recycle in your office visit take a look at some of the answers to our Quora question or to get involved in recycle week visit the Recycle Now website.

The Success of R3-Online at the FRN!

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:53:00 GMT

Following on from the success of the FRN Conference in January, we have been embarking on a number of road trips recently to demonstrate R3 Online to businesses and charities who are searching for software to aid them with their recycling management.

The organisations that took a particular interest in our furniture recycling software over the course of the event were:

Bryson Electrical Recycling in Belfast

Craft in Aberystwyth

Create in Liverpool

CFP in Newbury

Sofa Reuse in Loughborough

This has taken us all around the UK to a number of very different furniture and white goods recycling organisations over the last three months, with the road trip continuing this week as we head to Loughborough to meet with Sofa Reuse, a charity who work to recycle and reuse furniture and electrical items.

Bryson Electrical Recycling is the biggest white goods reuse company in Northern Ireland. They were so impressed with our initial visit, that in March they travelled across to one of our existing customers, the Sofa Project in Bristol, to attend a workshop and tour of their facilities to see R3-Online in action!

We are delighted to have also now sold the software to Craft, an independent not for profit company based in Wales who not only deal with the reuse of furniture and electrical items, but also toys, clothes and homeware to name but a few. We look forward to implementing the software with them in the coming weeks.

Urban Element shortlisted for a West Oxfordshire Business Award (WOBA) thanks to R3-online!

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:41:00 GMT

Last week it was announced that Urban Element have been shortlisted in the innovation category for the West Oxfordshire Business Award, based on their development of the R3 Online environmental software package.

The award recognises businesses which have demonstrated an innovative approach to product development, business processes, client relationships or any other notable business innovations.

The winners will be announced at an awards dinner which takes place at Eynsham Hall on Friday 11th March. This event which promises to be a lively and fun celebration of West Oxfordshire's economy will also be a completely carbon neutral event, with OxTreeGen planting trees to offset the carbon usage caused by the event.

Trip to FRN Conference Inspires a Greener Office

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:59:00 GMT

Last weekend Fergus Reid and Jon Ellard attended the FRN Conference on behalf of R3-Online to demo its new features and show how it can help furniture reuse projects with their recycling management. Both came back to the office brimming with ideas and were full of great feedback. Some of their highlights included; talks from Richard Featherstone and Caroline Lee-Smith from the London Reuse Network , a discussion with Chris White, MP for Warwick and Leamington on Social Enterprise and Social Value, as well as a “very motivational” presentation from Kelvin Hughes of the Community Furniture Project.

On top of the weekends scheduled events, the pair also got a chance to meet representatives from a variety of furniture reuse organisations including The Mustard Tree from Manchester, Bryson Electrical Recycling from Belfast and Craft in Aberystwyth. Jon is now talking of plans to do an R3-Online road trip to tour the UK’s furniture reuse organisations to gain and even better insight into their needs and how R3-Online can work for them, so watch this space!

As well as meeting new people, the pair have also come back with loads of ideas on how to build on our existing office environmental policy. As part of Urban Element, R3-Online already aims to become a paperless office but where necessary, uses recycled paper and a naturally responsible printing process provided by Seacourt, a local company that produces 0% waste. The furniture in our office is a combination of recycled and new furniture from companies that support the FRN, and we have also changed all the lights in our building from T8’s to T5 energy efficient bulbs. Despite this there is still a lot more both R3-Online and the whole of Urban Element can do to reduce our environmental impact. There are now plans to improve our current recycling process and we are investigating into fitting solar panels on the office roof.

As well as these efforts we are looking for more innovative ways we can make our office greener, if you have any ideas or advice why not contribute to our Quora question or @reply us on Twitter

R3-Online off to FRN Conference 2011

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:43:00 GMT

This weekend we will be heading down to the 2011 Furniture Re-use Network Conference to showcase R3-Online’s new features and branding.

Building on a successful few days at last year’s event, we’ll be hoping to meet even more furniture reuse organisations and discuss with them how R3-Online can help them with their recycling management needs.

The conference looks set to be a packed weekend of activity with speakers and trainers from government, industry and third sector partners & practitioners. Our team will be documenting the weekends activity on our live Twitter Feed so stay tuned to see how they got on.

R3-Online - Special Offer and Support

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 11:11:00 GMT

We want R3-Online to be the leading furniture and WEEE recycling software and so we’ve put a package together with the aim of creating an offer too good to refuse:

Free initial consultation to help you decide whether R3-Online is right for your organisation
Access all the benefits R3-Online can bring at a price developed with charities in mind
We can support you in fast tracking a funding request to support your implementation of R3-Online

And additionally if you sign up to R3-Online by March 2011, we will give you:

2 years with no licence fee, worth £2400
A FREE SEO (search engine optimisation) audit to help you gain more traffic to your website from people who may donate to you or buy from you
We can only make this offer available for a limited time, so hurry and book your demonstration of R3-Online today

SOFA Project Bristol to Host R3-Online Workshop

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:49:00 GMT

On Wednesday 16th June 2010 R3-Online will be on demonstration throughout the day at The SOFA Project Bristol. Julian Williams and his team have been testing the R3-Online application for the last two months and are almost ready to go live.

On the 16th June we will be on site all day running practical workshops and demonstrating the application. If you are interested in seeing R3-Online in practice please contact Jon Ellard on 01993 776999 or email jon@urbanelement.com.

The SOFA Project is based at:
48–54 West Street, St. Philips, Bristol BS2 0BL

FRN Conference 2010 prompts plans for an R3-Online Road Trip

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:53:00 GMT

Urban Element were delighted to have the opportunity to demonstrate our R3-Online program for recycling organisations at the recent FRN Conference. Over the three days we met recycling projects from the third sector ranging from single sites to organisations with over 160 sites.

The feedback from these discussions was largely the same with the following requirements being mentioned time and time again:

accurate stock control management
accounting for gift aid
managing delivery & collections
accurate reporting
reducing administration time

R3-Online already goes a long way in meeting these needs but we’re keen to demonstrate the further benefits of R3-Online and enhance our offering. To fulfil our customers’ requirements we want to get to know individual projects inside out while gaining an even better understanding of the industry. With this in mind Urban Element will be meeting with the FRN, Veolia and IKEA in the coming weeks. More importantly we are organising a road trip across the UK to explore as many projects as possible and spread the R3-Online message.

Urban Element will be attending the FRN Annual Conference 2010

Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:55:00 GMT

14th–16th January, Cranage Hall, Cheshire

For more details please visit Annual Conference.

Urban Element launch new version of the R3-Online application

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:54:00 GMT

Following the implementation of the SOFA Project application Urban Element have decided to make stock control and barcode readers an integral part of the R3-Online package.

R3-Online is a web application that fully supports the collection and delivery aspects of the business, along with some fairly straightforward stock management and sales invoicing features.

The Sofa Project signs up for R3-Online

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:55:00 GMT

Urban Element were delighted to sign The SOFA Project in November 2009. The SOFA Project are a reasonably large scale household goods collection, processing, resale and delivery operation based in Bristol. Following a meeting with Julian Williams it was decided that the main R3-Online application only met 75% of their requirements. It was therefore necessary to add AIMS to the solution. AIMS is our barcode based stock control system.