By Hannah Koh
Thursday 15 September 2016
Originally published here

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability are no longer issues relegated to a company’s CSR department; and firms that fail to adopt sustainable practices are not only making a poor ethical decision but also a lousy business choice.

This was the consensus among CSR and sustainability experts at the CSR and Social Innovators Forum, held in the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre earlier this month.

The forum, jointly organised for the first time by Global Compact Network Singapore and Singapore Innovation Park (SIP), gathered some 350 delegates from sectors such as investment, real estate, academia, manufacturing, and social enterprise, to discuss ways to transform the economy such that social objectives matter as much as financial gains.

The theme, “Co-creating the future economy through sustainability and social innovation”, reflects how the spotlight has shifted globally towards corporations and their social and environmental impacts in recent years.

Speakers including Georg Kell, founding director of the United Nations Global Compact, and Richard Welford, chairman of sustainability consultancy CSR Asia, pointed out that the case for integrating sustainability into business operations has been proven in up to 300 academic articles highlighting the link between a company’s bottom line and sustainability.

Panellists also emphasised that CSR is no longer solely about philanthropy or donations. Aramex International Logistics’ chief sustainability and compliance officer, Raji Hattar, said: “It’s about the core competency of the company, what you can present to the community, and start creating value out of.”

Rather than donating cash, Aramex helps start-ups grow by offering discounts on shipping and therefore, access to the wider markets.

All companies, big or small, should be treating sustainability as a competitive advantage, said Eco-Business editor Jessica Cheam, who spoke at the second plenary of the forum.

“MNCs do have more resources, but SMEs need to see it as a competitive advantage and apply best practices… this will lead to efficiencies, cost-savings, and improved reputations,” she noted.

By incorporating social objectives into their operations, companies can kickstart a positive cycle simply by using what skills and resources they already have, said speakers.

CSR Asia’s Welford said that if companies want to become more responsible, they should think about having a clear social purpose and identify social needs that they can meet through their assets and expertise.

“This is an infectious argument,” said Welford. “If I can meet social needs in a way that makes profits, then those profits becomes magical because that encourages me to meet more social needs.”

Panellists also observed that external factors such as government regulations or shareholders pushing for more sustainable practices are compelling reasons for companies to get moving.

To keep firms accountable, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) made sustainability reporting mandatory for all Singapore-listed companies as of June this year.

Yeo Lian Sim, SGX’s senior advisor, said that investors have a “part to play in telling companies what they’d like to see and what’s important to them”, adding that early adopters of reporting have already seen efficiency gains.

One such early adopter is property developer City Developments Limited, whose chief sustainability officer Esther An said that the combination of commitment from management in early days, and later on, investors expecting a good environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance which indicates a good level of social responsibility, continues to drive the company’s push for sustainability.

Also attending the forum, Grace Fu, Singapore’s Minister for Community, Culture and Youth, shared that the Singapore government grants tax relief on products and services for companies willing to invest in CSR, with the objective of having them “embrace social objectives, not just donations but to get skillsets involved”.

If I can meet social needs in a way that makes profits, then those profits becomes magical because that encourages me to meet more social needs.
Richard Welford, chairman, CSR Asia

Why big businesses
The role of social enterprises and how businesses can team up with them to achieve positive social impact also came up in the discussion.

Aramex’s Hattar pointed out that often, the conversation revolves around how companies can get involved in CSR projects, but it takes two hands to clap.

Addressing non-government organisations (NGOs), he said: “Don’t just treat companies like ATMs”, adding that the private sector has more resources for NGOs to tap than just cash. Poor economic conditions today could also make businesses more reluctant to make financial donations.

“If NGOs come to me and say, ‘We need a hundred thousand dollars’, I will think about the request about 20 times,” said Hattar.

“But if they come to me and say, ‘We need your finance team to help us build our accounting system’, or the IT team to build the IT system, that would be way easier (for me to agree),” he added.

Fellow panellist, CSR Asia’s Welford, said that big corporations have a specific ability that social enterprises cannot replicate.

“There’s a role for social enterprises and SMEs, but it’s the big corporations of the world that need to take on the big challenges (in social issues),” Welford said, explaining that social enterprises perform well on a niche level but tend not to scale.

“What the private sector does really well is scaling up, and when dealing with the world’s biggest issues, we need to do it at scale,” he added.

The two-day programme saw the launch of the SIP Empower for Good Programme, which offers training, mentorship and workplace exposure to Institute of Technical Education students studying information and communications technology and engineering.

The CDL-Compact Singapore Young CSR Leaders Award ceremony also took place during the forum, recognising the teams with the best and most feasible CSR strategy for new business cases from multinational and large organisations such as Hilton Worldwide, NatSteel Holdings, and DNV GL.

SEP 13, 2016 | 12:05 PM

SINGAPORE is ranked the most sustainable city in Asia, and second in the world, according to the Sustainable Cities Index 2016 from global design and consulting firm Arcadis.

This marked a major improvement from its 10th global position last year when the index was first launched.

Zurich has maintained the top-ranked city globally, while the third, fourth and fifth places are taken up by Stockholm, Vienna and London respectively in the overall global ranking.

Among Asia-Pacific cities, Seoul is ranked seventh globally, followed by Hong Kong (16th) and Canberra (18th). In the 2015 report, Singapore was ranked lower than Seoul (seventh) and Hong Kong (eighth).

No North American city made it into the index’s top 20.

The Sustainable Cities Index was conducted by the Center for Economics and Business Research and explores social (People), environmental (Planet) and economic (Profit) demands to develop an indicative ranking of the world’s leading cities.

Apart from being the most sustainable city in Asia, Singapore also tops two out of the three sub-indices in Asia: Planet and Profit.

But factors such as high cost of living and lack of work-life balance cause Singapore to be placed seventh in Asia and 48th in the world for the “People” sub-index.

Arcadis Singapore city executive director Eugene Seah pointed out that Singapore has its unique set of challenges as an island nation, such as limited land to develop and a lack of natural resources.

“Therefore, Singapore has to be innovative and cultivate a durable and productive management system in order to stay sustainable moving forward,” he said.

There has been a major drive in Singapore to be more sustainable on several fronts – ranging from smart logistics planning and master-planning, smart and green buildings, and construction productivity.

John Keung, CEO of the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore, said: “We are heartened that Singapore’s green building movement and green building masterplans have played a pivotal role in placing Singapore on the world map as the most sustainable city in Asia.

“It was not just a conscious, top-down approach but also the commitment and close collaboration of the public, private and people sectors that made such an achievement possible for Singapore,” he said.

“We will continue to push the boundaries with more focus on research and innovation, as well as more engagement with building users to initiate ground-up action for the green building movement.”

By Vaidehi Shah
Friday 15 April 2016

Non-profit group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has published a report shining an uncomfortable spotlight on Asian consumer firms, which finds them severely lagging behind international standards on sustainability.

The international group said the lack of sustainability among Asian manufacturers of food, household, and personal care products is in part due to a lack of scrutiny from financiers.

In a new report, titled ‘Asian Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) – A Sustainability Guide for Financiers and Companies’, WWF noted that Asian companies and their investors are not doing enough when it comes to managing their environmental risks.

The report, launched at the third Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources conference organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, analysed sustainability and annual reports from 26 Asian FMCG firms to see how they managed the environmental impact of the three most important elements of their operations, namely water use, packaging, and ‘soft commodities’ such as palm oil, sugar, and meat.

The 26 firms – which all had a market capitalisation of at least US$1 billion each – were picked from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Jeanne Stampe, co-author of the report and Asia finance and commodities specialist, WWF, shared that the analysis revealed that overall, Asian companies were less aware of environmental, social, and related business risks than their western counterparts.

This is evident from their lack of responsible practices such as sourcing certified sustainable commodities and policies requiring a company’s suppliers to reduce their water use, among other things.

“Corporate disclosure, investor engagement, and due diligence by lending banks are also low in the region, though this is starting to change,” said Stampe.

Consuming the planet
The industry, which is a major driver of economic growth in Asia, also has a huge impact on the environment, said WWF in its report.

For example, growing agricultural commodities in Asia have often been linked to deforestation and illegal activities such as burning to clear land. This in turn generates millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions which drive climate change.

FMCG companies are also heavily reliant on water for irrigating crops for consumption and livestock cultivation, factory operations, and producing beverages, among other things. As consumer demand in Asia increases, the sector’s water footprint will also grow.

These firms also use extensive amounts of packaging, which is vital for protecting products from damage, but geenrates waste that is not always biodegradable or recyclable.

FMCG companies which are responsible for such damage may “emerge unscathed” from economic consequences in the short run, but these pressures will catch up with them in the mid-to-long term, said WWF. This is because depleting the very resources companies rely on for revenues and growth will undermine their ability to survive in the future.

They also face operational risks if environmental impacts continue unchecked. For example, a lack of clean water could bring a factory’s production to a halt, and floods can also disrupt a firm’s operations, as was seen in Thailand in 2011 when floodwater destroyed many factories in Bangkok.

Furthermore, environmental awareness among consumers is growing, and many retailers are also pledging to only stock products that are made by environmentally responsible companies.

Errant firms risk damage to their brand reputation and may lose revenues as the public and stores reject their products.

Ben Ridley, Asia Pacific head of sustainability affairs at Credit Suisse, which sponsored the WWF report, said that “the FMCG sector’s vulnerability to extreme weather events and water and food crises emphasises the need for companies and financiers involved in the sector to better understand and manage such risks”.

“Active participation through multi-stakeholder platforms to jointly develop, implement and promote practicable and acceptable sustainability standards has now become imperative,” he added.

Growing sustainably
While poor environmental management can leave an FMCG company exposed to various risks, choosing to operate sustainably can have many benefits including positive branding opportunities and a reduced chance of violating regulations on sustainability and social responsibility, said WWF.

Many global groups of investors are also moving to shift their funds to more sustainable assets.

One of the many initiatives which support this includes the United Nations-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, which has 1,325 signatories with a combined US$45 trillion in assets under management. These investors have committed to engage companies in their portfolio on environmental and social risks.

WWF, in their report, recommended practical ways for companies to cash in on these benefits by practicing sustainable commodity sourcing and good water stewardship, and reducing the environmental footprint of their packaging.

For soft commodities, environmental certifications such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and Marine Stewardship Council are one of the best ways to ensure sustainable supply chains, said WWF.

WWF’s analysis showed that only eight out of the 26 Asian companies surveyed sourced certified commodities, including Unilever Indonesia, Hindustan Unilever from India, Nestle Malaysia, and Malaysian firm Dutch Lady Milk Industries.

FMCG companies should also reduce the water that is used in their own operations and also by their upstream suppliers and downstream consumers, said WWF. But while most of the 26 companies reported measures to reduce water use in their own operations, only five had measures in place to encourage suppliers and consumers to do the same.

Among these were Hindustan Unilever and Unilever Indonesia, which are guided by their parent group’s commitment to sustainable agriculture and its mandatory requirements for suppliers on water use and management.

Meanwhile, Chinese firm Want Want China Holdings addresses water scarcity by encouraging farmers in its supply chain to grow plants which require less water to grow, and training them on water saving irrigation methods.

When it comes to packaging, companies not only need to improve the resource efficiency of their boxes and bottles, but also make them easy and convenient to recycle, urged WWF.

There are advanced options available to do this, such as a technology developed by Unilever Netherlands and their partners to inject gas into bottles while moulding them, so they use less plastic but are still recyclable.

But simple solutions such as printing a label directly on a bottle instead of using a separate plastic piece can also save resources and cut costs by half; and using recycled dark bottle-caps instead of white or clear ones – which are difficult to make using recycled plastic – can save 20 per cent of a bottle’s manufacturing cost.

Despite the variety of solutions available “companies alone do not have the means to move towards more sustainable products”, noted Stampe.

Investors should use the information in the WWF report to ask companies in their portfolios about their efforts to manage environmental risks, and for new investments, use their economic clout to fund more sustainable practices.

“Support from financiers through active investor engagement and due diligence by lenders is essential,” said Stampe.

We all know that finding truly great marketing talent is hard. While many might say it is ultimately about cultivating and investing in the employees you already have, the job-hopping itch many Millennials feel doesn’t make it any easier on management.

But Corine Ooi, group general manager of global maternal – paediatrics, for Fonterra Brands, thinks otherwise. Rather than throw up your hands in despair, she says companies and managers need to start finding a way to sell employees a vision.

She adds that marketers need to take the time to find someone who lives and breathes the brand. This is essential in keeping them in the company for the long haul. But to do so, a vision needs to be sold. Marketers, she explains, are often great at crafting a narrative and selling a vision to their consumers, but they still haven’t mastered the art of doing so for their employees.

“If an employee is able to genuinely live and breathe the brand and believe in the company’s or the brand’s vision, not only will he or she internalise brand values, he or she will stay because of passion,” she says.

Proudly donning lilac – the signature colour for one of Fonterra’s leading brands Anmum, she says what is harder than finding good talent is retaining it. Ooi, who has been with Fonterra for more than nine years, is very much aware of the increasing job-hopping trend present in the mind of younger marketers, who often leave after a two to three-year stint.

Before her stint at Fonterra, she worked with Johnson & Johnson for more than four years. She has also spent years building her career with the likes of Beiersdorf, Abbott and Mead Johnson Nutrition. All in all, she has about 28 years in sales and marketing experience.

As such, she believes an individual needs to be at the one company for at least five years to see the fruits of their labour.

“If you have passion for the brand and the business then why would you want to leave? And that too so quickly,” she said. This is where good training comes in. She urges that company heads move away from standard run-of-the-mill training to something that is innovative and cannot be found elsewhere.

Take measures to imbue a sense of ownership of the brand and the business. At the end of the day, it is about selling the vision.

When asked about what skills would make a good marketer, she says a strong background in sales is necessary. This will enable marketers to familiarise themselves with the customer journey and essentially know the nooks and crannies of the purchase process.

In a sales role, an individual gets first-hand experience on the challenges and drawbacks of marketing plans and this enables them to later have a clearer implementation plan. Their marketing theories will be more practice-driven rather than constructed based on theory.

The new age consumer

With the marketing industry seeing a colossal shift of power being in the hands of consumers, targeting mothers has also evolved for the brand. In the past, Ooi says, convincing mothers about products was far less daunting a task than it is today. Parents in the past were more trusting, and as such, grabbing their share of wallets was also easier.

Modern mothers are very much research-oriented and better informed because of the proliferation of content sites online. As such, brands have to work that much harder to gain their trust. Millennial mums, she explains, weigh all the different outcomes and possibilities before making purchasing decisions. They are also more likely to engage in a discourse before their purchase.

“Due to the proliferation of the media, especially digital platforms, mothers today have the option of not listening to the company, but instead to other mothers,” she says. As such, the brand needs to find a way to weave itself into being part of the conversation. She adds that how Anmum is adapting to this new breed of mothers is by trying to provide a platform for conversations to happen across the region. On top of executing tactical ad activations, the brand also has a forum where mothers can communicate.

It is really about the way you speak and your tone. Don’t push your brand messaging. Instead allow for Millennial mothers to talk to their peers and express their views. Be the conduit for conversations.

She adds that Southeast Asia being a diverse region has mothers from all walks of life. Hence, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to communicating with them. For example, she finds that consumers in Malaysia and Indonesia tend not to be as vocal as their counterparts in China.

“SEA mothers are more likely to sit back and watch the action unfold. You don’t have consumers making a stand against topical causes especially in the paediatric products segment.”

But, ultimately, to navigate the fragmented media landscape today, you need to put trust in your agency partners. She says leveraging on agency relationships is crucial in creating successful brand campaigns with consistent messaging.

“Be open and receptive to what the agency has to offer and their ideas and proposals. Don’t be myopic,” she says. Much like her advice to Millennials job-hopping, she also advises against agency hopping. Especially if consistency is something a brand values in its campaign executions.

“There is nothing worse than having multiple agencies involved that are mismatched in the level of understanding of the brand and industry,” she says. Hence, for long-term campaigns, it is advisable to stick to a single creative agency which understands the brand to ensure sustainability, she explains.

Otherwise, you will be doing a lot of work as a marketer trying to explain, guide and hold their hands through understanding the brand and the industry. I don’t think anyone has the time to do that.