ReThink Hong Kong 2022
The change starts with us….
I was super excited to be part of the most anticipated Hong Kong event of the year — ReThink HK’ 2022, #AccelerateTheChange
I attended some interesting panel discussions and learned first hand from a few brands about their products and sustainable practices. When you think you are lost in the ESG journey and then meet fellow sustainability practitioners and enthusiasts, everything all of sudden starts making sense. Being under the same roof with like minded people who are doing their best to fight climate change, contribute to SDG 17 goals and are passionate to bring in positive change in the world was the highlight of the event for me.
Here I have tried my best to encapsulate all my learnings and knowledge that I garnered from the event.
Circular Economy — Sustainable Supply chain:
PVH (Fashion) and PCH (Tech) on the panel.
· A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources.
· Circular systems employ re-use, sharing, repair, refurbishment, re-manufacturing, and recycling to create a closed-loop system to minimize resource inputs and reduce waste, pollution, and carbon emissions.
· The key to building this economy is to keep products, equipment, and infrastructure in use for longer periods of time, which makes these critical resources more valuable.
· End to End Traceability will create new opportunities for supply chains to be more sustainable and resilience.
· Measure carbon foot print accurately
· Collaborate with NGOs like Little bird who work towards enhancing working conditions for factory workers
· We are still far away when it comes to using Metaverse and Blockchain for supply chain sustainability.
· In tech 90% Sustainability is around Supply chain
· We need huge investment in ESG
· Every sustainable project has to make a business sense.
Role of marketing in a sustainable new world:
- Marketeers have a super power to influence.
- 65% want to invest in ethical & sustainable brands, but only 25% buy them.
- Sustainability must be a lifestyle and not a choice.
- Brand locality is the Brand currency.
- Listen to consumer, get insights and evolve. Data is your best friend.
- Offline events and OOH have to be made up of sustainable elements.
- Avoid greenwashing, communicate effective and responsibly.
- Educate your consumers, take them with you in this sustainable journey.
- The often-alarming impact of businesses on society and the environment calls for a more sustainable marketing approach.
- Marketers can work with product developers and other key decision-makers to reach sustainability and profitability.
- By creating strategies that reduce waste and operational costs, marketers can help create a win-win situation for businesses and consumers while still embracing sustainability.
- We are in challenging and volatile times — but they are also times of powerful opportunities and the best time to lead for a better future. Marketers have a key role here — if we take the lead we can create sustainable growth, but it requires us to think and act more broadly and make the sustainable, responsible growth agenda mainstream.
- Brands are taking a more public-spirited approach to their manufacturing and marketing, using their knowledge and market power to help make the world more sustainable and fair.
Inclusive communication:
- Extended part of our body is the mobile
- Be authentic
- Stand for your principles and values
- Don’t do campaign to provoke people or as a PR stunt, believe in it.
- Challenge stereotypes and fight your own biases
- Be a good listener
- Inclusive communication means sharing information in a way that everybody can understand and can relate, no one feels left out.
- Inclusive communication has to be internal and external.
- Its not about just ticking checkboxes, its about building a culture were people are encourage to be humans and be respectful towards each other.
- While executing inclusive communication, be careful that its not offending people.
- Sometime when an inclusive campaign get a backlash, pull back, introspect if its something that fits your brands values and belief and if does, change the execution style next time.
- DE&I is a big challenge, but start contributing by building a diverse team
L’Oréal Sustainable Practices:
- They are reducing the usage of plastic in their product packaging
- Using ship over aircraft to transport goods.
- Working towards reducing the weight of packaging.
- Recycled content in packaging, with the objective of reaching 100% recycled or biobased plastic by 2030
- They are encouraging customer to get their cosmatics refilled instead of buying a new one.
- Watsons Hong Kong has partnered with L’Oréal to roll out the ‘Beauty for the Future’ recycling campaign. From now on, customers can recycle the cleaned containers of any beauty brand, including foundation bottles, mascara wands, skincare tubs, and lipstick tubes at around 170 Watsons stores across the city in exchange for rewards in the city’s largest loyalty platform MoneyBack.
It’s a B2B sustainable asset management business that works with corporations, landlords and developers to facilitate responsible reuse and redistribution of material assets. They have programs that enables organizations to maximize their asset’s value, benefit our community and make a positive impact on the environment. So if you have any unwanted office asset — hit SOS up!
BOB
Can you guess what’s the similarity between bread and beer ? The word “Fermentation”. Maxim’s Group is the largest bakery chain in Hong Kong. They partnered with HKU students who came up with the ideas of upcycling left over unsold bread into brewing beer. BOB is a 5 per cent ABV pale ale, with each bottle containing up to 25 grams of the restaurant group’s milk-free bread. If you are ever in Hong Kong taste this beer.
A free web platform where you can compare brands with their ESG performance and ratings.
Fairtaste, a Hong Kong based organisation, works with producers in developing countries to manufacture goods that will be sold at fair prices. They focus on fair pricing and ethical sourcing of coffee beans and tea leaves. Sales of Fair Taste goods ensure that producers get a fair price, and a voice in a more developed society. They showed me a coffee tumbler which felt like plastic but was made up of waste coffees beans and corn extracts.
They were showcasing ecofreindly brand product packings solutions. Time to say goodbye to plastic bubble wrap.
They make biodegradable face mask and I was so happy to see this product. It is 100% organic plant-based solution mask. Honestly when I tried it….. I could smell grains which is much better then smelling unwanted mask chemicals. They will go commercial soon so watch out for them.
There are so many untold stories of entrepreneurs who are designing products which are sustainable, now its upon us as consumers to go out there and discover stories, products and make responsible choices.
Let us all join hands in Accelerating the change!
