With so much going on in the realm of sustainability, leadership, and innovation, and only a limited amount of bandwidth for professionals in this space, we have created this weekly post to highlight articles that we feel are (1) important, (2) relevant, and (3) interesting in the areas of business sustainability. If you have an article that you feel needs to be mentioned, please do so in t…
On Monday, we addressed the rise of China’s consumer waste industry. One stream outlined was packaging, an area of waste that is facing challenges along its supply chain. Here we delve deeper into the topic outlining the challenges and opportunities. Synonymous with consumer goods, packaging represents a particular waste stream that, given greater affluence and purchasing power, will grow. Pack…
In the 20 years since the "spear in the chest" moment that catalyzed Ray Anderson to move Interface from a company that complies to one that contributes, Interface has become known for their progress in moving their business from "take-make waste" to "zero footprint". It was a process that required vision, but more importantly it required Ray Anderson to engage others on that vision. In our int…
High material use and consumption is synonymous with the development of an economy, particularly an evolving one such as China, which over the last 20 years has focused heavily on the primary and secondary industries to drive growth. However, China’s economy is now changing from one of heavy industry to one that is looking to meet the wants of its ever-increasing domestic consumers. But what ha…
SwitchMed is a current UNEP & UNIDO initiative that supports and connects stakeholders to scale up eco and social innovations in the Mediterranean (Southern Europe, Middle East, and N.Africa). As part of this initiative, SwitchMed Connect 2015 was the first annual gathering of these stakeholders, including leading start-ups and entrepreneurs, industry agents, policy and financial institutions,…
This Wednesday, Richard Brubaker, Founder of Collective Responsibility, was invited to give a presentation to students at Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC), where he addressed the importance of sustainability, leadership, and innovation Kicking off his presentation with an explanation of how he understands sustainability, and why sustainability is never really about “saving the polar bears”, he spen…
For the last few years, as awareness around sustainability has grown in China, an opportunity to build a successful green brand has developed. To understand more about the challenges of building a green brand, and the opportunities to engage consumers, we spoke with Jeni Saeyang about her work at Eco & More's to build a green product, engage consumers, and the challenges she has faced along…
This Monday, we continued our Sustainability Speech Series by hosting an event on the topic of “Developing Cities with Low Footprints” at East China Normal University. To help students to gain a better understanding about the topic, we invited Fabien Pfaender，Associate Professor at Université de Technologie de Compiègne; Tom Ford, Practice Area Leader, Planning & Urban Design at Genlser, to…
This Thursday, we continued our Sustainability Speech Series by hosting a talk on the topic of “Foreign enterprises: Building Sustainability Strategies in China” at Shanghai University. To help students gain a better understanding about the topic, we invited Charis Yang，General Manager of Vendor Compliance & Sustainability at Li & Fung; Super Wang, Supply Chain Sustainability Manager fo…
This Wednesday, we kicked off our Sustainability Speech Series by hosting a talk on ‘Understanding the business case for personal and professional ethics’ at Xi’an JiaoTong Liverpool University in Suzhou. To help students gain an insider perspective on the topic, we invited Mr. Drew Meyer, Associate Director of Control Risks and former FBI officer, to speak about his experience in risk manageme…
Joined by 90 MBA students from Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of Northern Carolina who came to Shanghai this September for their summer immersion program, Richard Brubaker, Managing Director of Collective Responsibility and Visiting Professor of Sustainability, from the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), was invited to speak on sustainability in China and share his 15 y…
Held on September 10th, 2015, Bayer and a group of industry leaders brought their expertise to discuss current and future healthcare challenges that patients face in China and explored ways forward. During a series of interactive workshops, participants worked together to understand the issues from a patient’s perspective, and discussed how they can turn them into opportunities that can drive b…
This Tuesday, we kicked off our Beyond Business as Usual September series by hosting a breakfast discussion focusing on the challenges that companies face after they have developed the vision, created the strategy and now need to develop support from within the business to carry out the mission. To help participants gain an insider perspective on the topic, we invited Mr. Roy Zhang, the Directo…
Sustainability in China has been a topic of many conversations for years now. It is a story that has been about smoggy skies and polluted skies, and as the challenges have grown, calls for a different model suitable to trends of urbanization have grown louder. It is a story that has gained more steam over the last several years as urban residents have become more numerous, grown wealthy, and a…
This week, we kicked off the Beyond Business as Usual luncheon series of the year by hosting a discussion focused on resources, and the need for firms to look across their industry's value chain, align it to the China context, and create sustainable mindsets for how they will plan for, and use, resources as they deliver their products and services going forward. To help bring tangibility t…
