DirectGreen Underway, Sustainable Brands Light Up, Dubai has a Week of it

The value and importance of sustainability for businesses are no longer disputed, and leaders from across all industries have realised the necessity to update and upgrade themselves on issues pertaining to it. In Singapore the innovative move by DirectGreen to “Make Shopping Green” has started.The upcoming Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week will be the largest gathering on sustainability in the Middle East, bringing together leaders and experts to discuss and address the sustainability challenges of the future. The recent Sustainable Brands Conference also addressed the themes of unified vision, collaboration and simplicity, and their roles in creating a better world. Read more

Announcement from Ken Hickson/SASA:

SASA is pleased to be associated with the launch of DirectGreen, an innovative approach to “Make Shopping Green”. We mentioned this was coming up in our book “Race for Sustainability”. Serve Sondeijker has worked hard over the last couple of years to make this a reality.

Direct Green Capital Pte Ltd will be announcing this week the official launch of DirectGreen, a sustainability program that helps both shoppers and sellers work together to green purchases and make an impact. Sellers pledge to invest a portion of their sales towards sustainable actions, either as a sustainable investment in their own business or a contribution to a Directgreen Foundation project.

Serve says the programme allows retailers to start a small investment and make their business sustainable step by step. Shoppers are rewarded for shopping sustainably with loyalty points. So not only do their purchases go towards a sustainable action, they get to support Directgreen Foundation projects with their loyalty points.

With both sustainable business investments and Directgreen Foundation projects, each dollar a shopper spends with a DirectGreen seller makes double the impact.

Serve says: “These days, more and more consumers are concerned about the sustainability impact of their purchases. The DirectGreen programme allows retailers to take small steps towards sustainability, at their own pace, while assuring customers of their sustainability credentials, giving them a competitive edge.”

Obviously, sustainability is good for business because it reduces many operational costs, gives business a competitive advantage and increases profits in the long run. But, as Serve says,  it can be hard for businesses to become sustainable overnight.

 “With DirectGreen, even the smallest retailer can start to benefit straightaway with only a small investment.”

Serve also believes that with DirectGreen,  shoppers and sellers can work together to make a green impact – with a little help.

“That’s why we work with local businesses and communities to provide a sustainability framework for companies so their customers know that their purchases are making a genuine difference,” says Serve, who already has a number of busineses on board.

Source: www.directgreen.net

Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2014

Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) is the largest gathering on sustainability in the Middle East, and a significant platform for international dialogue and cooperation.

In 2013, ADSW welcomed over 30,000 participants from 150 countries, in an effort to:

• Tackle the world’s pressing issues in energy, water and environment
• Accelerate the global adoption of renewable energy and sustainable development
• Address water challenges in arid regions
• Elevate the water-energy nexus topics on the global agenda
• Encourage the dialogue between broad industry stakeholders to strengthen strategic partnerships
• Stimulate investment in water, energy and environment projects
• Empower the young generations and entrepreneurs

This year, between 18th and 24th January 2014, ADSW will, once again, bring world leaders, policy makers, thought leaders, decision makers, experts, scientists, business leaders and academics together to discuss, debate, and ultimately address the energy and sustainability challenges of the future.

Anchored by the World Future Energy Summit (WFES), the 2014 programme will feature a series of complementary events, conferences and exhibitions, including: The International Water Summit; The Abu Dhabi Renewable Energy Conference; The Zayed Future Energy Prize Award Ceremony; The International Renewable Energy Agency meeting; and Ecowaste.

Source: www.abudhabisustainabilityweek.com

Sustainable Brands 2013: Imagining—And Creating—a Better World

By Paula Oliveira on Brand Channel (29 November 2013):

One year ago, speakers at the Sustainable Brands Conference in London focused on three key themes: unified vision, collaboration and simplicity. In 2013, many speakers addressed the same themes once more. Does that mean nothing has changed? Or have we lost our imagination?

In fact, things have changed. Fewer business professionals question nowadays if sustainability (or triple bottom line, social responsibility, corporate citizenship, or whatever you want to call it) is good for business, and it is now more intrinsically linked to business strategy. More sustainability advocates are capable of proving with strong business cases that the investment pays off.

For instance, UK retailer Marks & Spencer says in its annual report that the net benefit generated by Plan A (M&S’s commitment to sustainable business) was £135 million, an increase of 29 percent over the previous year, and during the conference, Adam Elman, M&S Global Head of Delivery, said Plan A has delivered 193 percent return on investment. Not bad, is it? Another example is Kering (formerly PPR, owner of brands such as Gucci and Puma), which pioneered a methodology to value the ‘ecosystem services’ it uses to produce Puma’s sports shoes and clothes. But it’s not all about costs: “At Kering, sustainability is seen as an opportunity. Sustainability creates value and stimulates innovation,” said Marie-Claire Daveu, the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer, who joined the business due to its CEO’s strong commitment to sustainability. “Leadership commitment is everything in this area.”

Sustainable innovation was also high on the agenda and there were some inspiring stories such as one from Fairphone, which has sold all 25,000 of its smartphones that have been produced so far by making production more transparent and ethical. While the number is miniscule in comparison to the whole of the smartphone market, their aim is to “redefine the economy one step at a time.”

Ecover, the “powerful cleaning and washing products without the chemical nasties,” is piloting a project in Mallorca, Spain, to make cleaning products based on local waste—a project that could revolutionize the local ecosystem. This is in line with the circular economy concept that has been making its rounds or a few years now. Ellen MacArthur Foundation CEO Jamie Butterworth spoke about partners such as Philips, which is building and internal center of excellence on circular economy, and B&Q, which is committed to produce more energy than they use and to create 1,000 products based on circular economy principles.

So why are we still debating the same issues around collaboration and simplicity? As highlighted by Jo Confino, editorial director of The Guardian’s Sustainable Business, there are many great initiatives all over the world, but they are not properly connected and therefore not enough to change the world at the pace we need. Mondelēz International’s ‘coffee made happy’ program, for example, committed to invest a minimum of $200 million to empower one million coffee-farming entrepreneurs by 2020, providing skills and access to resources they need.

This is a beautiful and inspiring example, but according to Geraldine O’ Grady, Global Platform Manager at Mondelēz International, there are 25 million smallholders producing 80 percent of the world’s coffee, and many of them are giving up their land to seek better ways of living. Considering that coffee consumption is growing while coffee production is declining, there is a lot to be done to support the other 24 million small farmers (and guarantee we’ll be sipping espressos in the future). Indeed, collaboration among coffee businesses is paramount to guarantee their existence.

As for simplicity, we need to cut the jargon and stop praising ourselves for doing what we should have always been doing: looking after our people and our planet while creating profit for our shareholders. As brand professionals, we have known for a long time that if we want to engage our customers, we need a relevant and differentiating business and brand proposition, based on an internal truth and delivered consistently across the customer journey. We need to be responsive and present where our customers want and need us to be. And we need imagination to be good story-doers and good storytellers, so we can create business that can change the world for the best and share our knowledge with the next generations.

Paul Oliveira is Director, Valuation and Analytics, at Interbrand London.

Source: www.brandchannel.com/