APSIPA Biosphere Sustainability Discuss Their Key Advice To Achieve Biosphere Sustainability

With the gradual increase of global risks, how can we develop innovative practices to ensure a future where sustainability will become mainstream? The Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award is established to explore dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific and to motivate more change-makers to contribute to social innovation, discovering and celebrating social innovation partnerships that connect diverse stakeholders and make significant social impacts. Partnership cases are required to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) as their core value.

The award sets motivating social innovation partnerships as its purpose, integrating 17 SDGs sorted into three categories, Biosphere Sustainability, Inclusive Business and Social Prosperity. Three winners were chosen from each category and there was one Special Jury Prize chosen by the judging panel.

The purpose of the Biosphere Sustainability Award is to encourage cases of social innovation partnerships devoted to environmental protection and sustainability, acknowledging that a favorable natural environment is fundamental to all human activities. The highly related corresponding SDGs are SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG13: Climate Action, SDG14: Life below Water, and SDG15: Life on Land.

APSIPA Biosphere Sustainability Winners

Sam Yoonsuk Lee
InnoCSR

Sam Yoonsuk Lee, Founder and Group CEO of InnoCSR Co., Ltd., has a long and respected history of supporting global sustainability endeavors. InnoCSR’s core strategy (a.k.a. Impact Technology) is to help green technology companies to go to different developing countries and achieving both social and economic goals. InnoCSR currently focuses on Good Bricks System in Nepal, introducing its non-fired brick manufacturing technology, achieving both environmental and economic success.

In his roles prior to InnoCSR, Sam was Client Partner for Trilogy China in the automotive division and Consultant for UNICEF China in Private Sector Fundraising. Sam holds an MBA degree from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and a B.A. from Korea University. Sam is the author of “China MBA (2005)” and the co-author of “Green Leadership in China (Springer, 2014)”.

Allen Ye
PackAge+

Allen is a serial entrepreneur with 3 founding experiences before he founded PackAge+ in 2019. One of his entrepreneurship experiences was operating an online store. Shocked by the pollution behind the e-commerce industry, Allen started to think how can we enjoy the convenient life but also take our environment into account. Then the idea of PackAge+ came out, a eco-friendly circular packaging solution for e-commerce.

Through the circulatory system PackAge+ are building, Allen hopes to create a new interaction between seller, buyer and logistics. Moreover, Allen is dedicated to raising public awareness of responsible and sustainable consuming behavior. PackAge+ aims to give everyone a chance for choosing a greener consuming life and to bring a sustainable future for our next generation.

Kuan Chen
Story Wear

Kuan Chen is the Founder of Story Wear. Story Wear is a zero-waste fashion brand, which produces ready-to-wear product and accessory from recycled denim and fabric. The business is deep root to social enterprise; work closely with women in need and execute firmly in circular economy. Before starting the sustainable fashion business, Kuan finish her master dissertation about sustainable fashion in London. She also has 15 years’ experience in fashion, advertising and trade company. Kuan is not a first-time startup entrepreneur, she started a trading company, import eco-friendly products from Europe to Asia. Then successfully sold the business a years ago. The product still widely sells in China and Taiwan.

Kuan currently lives between Taipei and London. She is part-time lecturer in Ming-Chuan University – International Department for Fashion Innovation major. Story Wear also manages a content platform on Story Wear constantly report sustainable fashion content from both cities. Kuan strongly believes, change consumer behaviour can have a great impact on the fashion industry.

Highlights from the Panel

(listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Let's kick things off by hearing a little bit about your projects, the impact that they're creating and what led to your passion in social innovation. Sam Lee, would you like to kick off please?

[Sam Yoonsuk Lee] - Thank you very much. Our project started from Nepal's problem that it produces over 6 billion fire bricks from their brick kilns, and these are responsible for approximately 30% of their air pollution. Of course, some do well, while some are managed very poorly. We at InnoCSR manufacture and distribute soil stabiliser, and it's a specialty chemical that can bind between soil and cement. With this composition of soil-cement and our soil stabiliser, we move the composition into a brick pressing machine and we can make a non-fired brick. This what we call a 'good bricks' system, which started two and a half years ago in Nepal. Now, we've finished the pilot project and have commercialised since late 2019.

We are expecting to reduce about 3,000-4,000 tons of CO2 per every manufacturing repress machine that our technology adopters adopt. This gives us a statistic that by 2025 we will be eliminating about 1.5 million tons of CO2 each year in Nepal from about 300 to 500 machines that our technology adopters will adopt.

My passion in social innovation started when I started working for UNICEF in China for private sector fundraising. I saw a huge gap between the private sector and public sector, and that led me to think that we have a role to play. I started InnoCSR in 2008 in Shanghai and moved to our current headquarters in Korea in 2014. InnoCSR was first involved in consulting Fortune 500 companies for the first 10 years of its existence on sustainability, which was based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's).

That has given us a lot of insights, networks and the business know how between different stakeholders, especially in the global context with different local governments, central governments, NGOs, social enterprises, and et cetera. That's what led us to our current position, and we hope that we can make a very good impact in Nepal. We will be distributing this also in Latin America and parts of Africa as well.

There's some huge impact there, Sam. Congratulations on all the hard work, and thanks for sharing a little bit more about your story.

Kuan Chen, let's hear a little bit more about your project and the impact you're creating. What was it that led to your passion in fashion?

[Kuan Chen] - Firstly, thank you Tom for inviting us to the podcast to share our beliefs and what we do to try and achieve some of the SDG's. For my story, I have been in the fashion retail industry for almost 10 years, and I have to say that in the Asian market, not many people understand or notice the damage that the textile and fashion industry has on the environment.

As we know, the textile and fashion industry is the second highest polluter in the world already, and I think that not many people at least in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore understand or notice this problem.

When I was in the fashion retail market for 10 years, I didn't realise anything about how polluted this industry was until I went to the UK to study my masters. I just realised that I should do something about it, since I have the background to use my expertise to solve this problem. That is the reason for my passion, that I want to help the fashion industry.

Wonderful. It certainly is a huge contributor to emissions around the world, so your work is obviously creating some great impact there. Thank you very much for contributing.

Let's hear a little bit from you Allen, if you can please share a bit about PackAge+ and the impact that you're creating, that'd be wonderful.

[Allen Ye] - Thank you for the introduction. Sharing the idea and business model behind the project is always the first question I answer when it comes to an interview or a speech. But today, I want to think of another way to talk about this project. PackAge+, the name of my project and the company I founded can be interpreted simply and aptly.

PackAge+ devotes all of its resources to making changes on packages used in the E-commerce market. We are offering circular package renting services, which are made from recycled plastic bottles. ‘Plus’ means not only an upgrade for packages, but also for the consumers’ future behaviour.

It’s easy to imagine that as the key point which makes our circular packages work, the fact that people need to complete recycling procedures, and consumers need to return the packages after they shop online every time. Obviously, it is not natural and common behaviour, so raising public awareness of responsible and sustainable consumption is significant and urgent, especially in the rapid development of the e-commerce era.

Don’t underestimate the impact of Taiwan and the economic scale of the e-commerce industry, as this small island’s e-commerce sector ranked number seven across the world.

However, there are always two sides of one coin, the impressive data also showed that there were eighty million disposable packages created by the e-commerce market in Taiwan per year, which has caused more than 100,000 tons of carbon emissions and the need for 10,000,000 trees to purify the air. Maybe for some people these numbers are distant, but for me, they are real and changeable, which has led my passion throughout this social-innovation project.

Thank you Allen, there is some great impact there.

Winning the APSIPA Award highlights all of your dedication, hard work and skills to innovate. Let's hear a little bit more about your observations then of this social innovation movement in your respective countries and further afield. Where do you see any key opportunities? Would you like to start Allen?

Social business became a trend in Taiwan in 2007 and has gained lots of support from central and local governments recently. In Taiwan, we have successfully cooperated with the government, other enterprises and social businesses. For example, our Ministry of Economics has set a ‘Buying Power’ award to encourage enterprises to purchase merchandise from social businesses. The Taipei City Government has set up an incubator - Taipei Select to facilitate the cooperation between social business and enterprises.

The key opportunities lie in the circular economy. I have seen more and more social businesses which are solving the problems caused by the linear economy through successfully cooperating with enterprises.

For instance, we have a social business which provides reusable cups for beverage stores to reduce one-time use plastic cups, and they have recently collaborated with Foodpanda in Taiwan. We have another social business named Story Wear, which provides circular solutions for the fashion industry and has collaborated with IKEA in Taiwan. To sum up, the circular economy has become a trend, so enterprises should take into account and think about how to merge this new concept into their business models to ensure a long-term growth in their business.

Thank you very much Allen.

Let's hear a little bit from you Sam Lee, because you're working across a number of different countries, but your brick technology is primarily in Nepal at the moment. Where do you believe this social innovation movement is right now, and where are key opportunities?

I think the social movement that our company concentrates on is definitely on climate change and environmental impact. This issue is global these days, and it's pretty obvious. Every news channel is talking about it, and we've started calling it a climate crisis instead of climate change.

With a lot of countries pledging carbon neutral, and Korea also pledging that they would go net zero by 2050, there's a lot of pressure from different stakeholders of society to reduce, reuse and recycle instead of just doing what they used to do without any thought of the value chains and its impact.

That completely makes sense, and it just shows the importance of the work that you're doing in helping to tackle some of these issues.

Kuan Chen, you're also based in Taiwan and I'm keen to hear about some of your experiences, observations in this field and where you see some key opportunities and next steps [for social entrepreneurs]?

I do think that 2021 is a great opportunity for sustainable fashion to develop and move forward. Since after COVID-19, the fashion industry got hit by the pandemic and the whole industry has actually just been shifting into a sustainable fashion direction. Before the pandemic, everyone was thinking they should do it, but they weren't actually doing it. But after the pandemic, every industry, [whether it’s] a fashion brand or manufacturers producing technology, are moving toward sustainable practices. For us, we are just a little part of the sector in sustainable fashion, so what we do is we want to produce zero waste or waste no textiles, but this is just a small part of it. If people are using raw material, organic cotton more often or treating their labour fairly, these are all parts of the sustainable fashion industry. I think everyone is playing a key part in this movement right now, and I do believe that in Taiwan since we weren't really hit that much by the COVID-19 pandemic, people are not really realising this part of the issue, but still people are starting to develop a culture about ethical fashion. I do believe in the whole Asia market people start thinking about it and then start taking action.

There's so much work to be done, and you've all obviously put a huge amount of work into your initiatives today. I'm keen to hear a little bit more, perhaps you have a really good piece of advice that you'd be giving to other social entrepreneurs or innovators who are really focusing on biosphere sustainability. What would that piece of advice be?

[Kuan Chen] - I think the key thing for all designers and entrepreneurs to remember is to put sustainability into their entire mindset or the original idea.

What I teach to our students as well in school is that if all the designers put sustainability and circular economic thoughts into their original designs, not only the product design changes, but also the business develops. Then, with everything you create, you think about the circularity in the business model, which will make the world a better place.

I think [this is important] when we create something where we already know how we solve the problems. For example, many textile groups when they create fabric know that at the end it will be bio-degradable, and for us, it's more like we create a garment from waste, and then we give the maker really sustainable incomes. Through this, not only the fabric itself or the product itself is zero waste, but also during the process we give to people in need and provide jobs for society. That's very important, for everyone to think about the whole business and develop them in a really sustainable way.

Those are some great insights there, especially when talking about how we tackle those broader social issues as well.

Sam Lee let's hear a little bit about what you've learned. What advice would you give to other social entrepreneurs or innovators?

[Sam Lee] - I have three pieces of advice. One is to start from the problem and focus on the problem. Most of us have found a problem that we'd like to solve, and that's how we link it to the business and create change. I think staying on top of that problem is very important. Number two is to look into stakeholder management. We at InnoCSR are trying to create multiple win scenarios for different stakeholders that are surrounding this brick industry in Nepal, and we seem to be doing pretty well on that.

When somebody or some stakeholder is not happy in the circle, then that's going to impact your business. It's very important to manage all the stakeholders. The last piece of advice for social enterprises and social entrepreneurs is that we're still in the business sector. We're still business as business, so we need to be judged by our business performance. I hope that including me, we can all keep taking that into account and continue on.

That's some great advice Sam. It's obviously very hard to create any impact if we are not economically viable as well.

Allen, what have you learned and what advice would you be giving to other social entrepreneurs or innovators?

[Allen Ye] - As people choose to focus on biosphere issues, they are trying to create a new interaction between humans and the environment through finding a dynamic balance. Please be feasible with your ideas and patient.

Face the biosphere problem, [and remember] it’s very hard for this problem to be summarised as a linear, causal relationship. Furthermore, there are complicated chain reactions that cause accumulative consequences, so you must have a feasible concept to adjust your idea or business model, while making the greatest effort to seize opportunities.

With the right timing and being patient, you can lead change into reality over a potentially longer period of time, which is also important advice to share with social innovators.

To finish off then, what books or resources would all of you recommend to our listeners from 200+ countries across the globe, many of whom are avid readers.

Sam, would you like to kick this off?

The book that I recently enjoyed is definitely a famous one from Bill Gates, called How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. I really enjoyed the book, and it's also contributed a lot in terms of businesspeople trying to read about climate change and the climate disaster crisis. I really recommend everybody in the environmental sector to read that book and get some insights.

Kuan Chen, tell us about a book or resource that you have found really useful.

I've been following Fashion Revolution for a very long time. They publish annual books, so every year they will report the latest crises in the fashion industry that we need to be aware of. Also, I am constantly reading Vogue Business, and it's a very good read. It might not be a book, but they talk about a lot of current sustainable fashion trends. Also, Fast Company Compass is another really good media to look into if people are really into the sustainable fashion industry.

Some good resources there Kuan, thank you very much for sharing those. Allen, what suggestions do you have?

I recommend anyone who is interested in the social business or sustainability trend in Taiwan read the articles from the Social Enterprise Insights or CSR from Commonwealth Magazine. These two online media outlets provide lots of social business and CSR insights, and sometimes they will hold forums to spread the ideas of social business.

Thank you very much to all of you today for some great recommendations and insights. You've been so generous with your time today; I wish you all very well. Congratulations on winning the APSIPA Biosphere Sustainability Award.

This content is sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.