Responsible Consumerism and its impact on your brand

Now, first, we have Miss Serena Tan, the founder and managing partner of Brewer Consulting. She has a track record in leading award winning communication programs programs across Asia Pacific and is part of campaign Asia's 40 under 40 list. Hi, Serena. Hi, everyone. All right up. Next is uh Mr Teke Fong, founder of Binomial Consulting. Now with over two decades of experience in strategy and branding. Khong helps businesses to sharpen their

strategic management tools to grow in a sustainable manner. Welcome Kai Fong

them through and we'll try our best to answer. All right now, responsible, responsible consumerism is not a new topic at all. There has been a lot of awareness about being socially responsible, both as an individual and as a brand. But really not many are practicing it now from a brand perspective. What is the role when it comes to responsible consumption? How do we educate and what is the budgetary implications in the long run before we jump right in?

Let's run a poll to get a sense of the rule. All right, you should see a pop up on your screen, right. The question is, does your brand promote responsible consumerism? Now, I want to cover this in terms of marketing, communications. All right, you can either choose. Yes. No, we will be in the next 3 to 6 months or don't know because we really don't know how to go about to do it. Like maybe we'll hang up

for another 10 seconds before we close the poll. Yeah. Ok. We're gonna close the poll right now and let's see the results. Ok. Ok. Wow! Ok. It's interesting, like more than half of you actually. Said that your company do promote responsible consumerism right about now and a good about close to 40% said we don't know how to go about doing it. This is the webinar for you because we will definitely talk about, you know, the insights they advise the strategies that brand can take

on board to promote responsible consumerism. Ok, I will, I'm gonna hand over the space of Serena right now, right? She will deep dive into this topic about what is conscious branding and how can brands unleash the potential of responsible consumerism over to you, Serena? Thank you, Jade. Good morning, everyone. Thanks again for joining us this morning. Um As Jade mentioned, uh my name is Serina. I'm the founder and managing partner of Brewer Consulting.

We're an award winning strategic Communications advisory firm that was set up in 2021. So, uh moving on to the next slide at Brewer, we're all about making a positive impact for our clients and society through the power of strategic communications.

We work very closely with organizations of all sizes. So we've got clients from industry giants like Danon Aqua to innovative startups like Alaa Paynes, both of which I'll be sharing more about later through my work with diverse businesses over the last 20 years, I've actually witnessed the incredible potential for businesses to shape

consumer behavior and vice versa. So today I'm delighted to be here, not just as a communications strategist and expert, but most importantly, as a firm believer in the transformative power of responsible consumerism and the positive impact it will bring. So as you can see from the video, there are dire consequences stemming from the overconsumption of our planet's resources. We are essentially living on borrowed reserves from our future generations.

As consumers, our purchasing choices have the power to influence businesses and drive change. Now, moving on to the next slide, let's take a look at some interesting stats. Did you know that nine out of 10 consumers in apex are willing to pay more for products that have a positive impact. And eight out of 10 consumers actively promote their favorite sustainable products to their family and friends. And of these eight people, five in 10 are super promoters.

So what these numbers show is that there is clearly an immense potential for businesses in this area, but this is not the only reason why your brand should care and moving on to the next slide like it or not. This wave of responsible consumption is here to stay. Consumers are expecting businesses to contribute to a better environment. And when businesses show a genuine commitment to promoting responsible consumer reserve, it does pay off in the sense that building trust

with consumers. And you know what that leads to increased customer loyalty, positive word of mouth referral as you saw earlier and financial returns. So in embracing responsible consumerism is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic business decision by aligning your brand with ethical practices, you can attract and retain environmentally conscious. Consumers, differentiate yourself in the market and contribute to a better

future for all. And now at this point, you might be wondering what role can your brand play in educating consumers to make uh to make educated conscious and responsible choices. So before I go into this, it's important to first understand three key areas, first consider the consumer journey, it's important to understand the different touch points of your consumer journey and see how you can influence your consumers at every part of their journey.

From awareness, consideration, purchase and advocacy, both digitally and physically. So I won't dwell too much into the details as Ka Ka Fong will be speaking more about this in his segment. Second, have a good understanding of what are the most impactful channels to engage your consumer just like our planets resources. We all know that our budgets are limited. So do put your money into the channels that bring you maximum

packed in this case. Um If you are looking at this chart, your brand product elements as well as online and social media because this these are the most common sources that environmentally conscious consumers turn to when looking for information, but adopt an integrated marketing strategy when communicating to your consumers. So what you see here on this slide is the Peso model which represents a paid earned, shared and owned approach, paid media is exactly what it sounds like. You pay

to market your brand and product. Essentially advertising. This, this can come in the form of digital ads, sponsored content, lit jam or pay per click campaigns. Earned media is focused on pr so it can be anything related to media engagement, influencer, partnerships, thought leadership and compared to paid media earned media ranks higher in credibility and trust. And then we move on to shared media, which is social media from tiktok to Facebook, Instagram to reviews and forums, own media.

Last but not least is for content that you own. So for example, your website, blogs, podcasts, videos, own media is really powerful because you are in control of the kinds of content you create and how you share it. So by considering the consumer journey, selecting impactful channels and adopting an integrated strategy, your brand can now educate, engage, convince and inspire your consumers to make responsible choices. Here

is just some practical steps your brand can take. So you could look into transparent product labeling. How are you making it helpful and easy for consumers to make purchase decisions in store, be digital or online engaging in educational content? What kind of content are you creating? And what kind of content are you putting out and across? What kind of channels? Third um partnerships and collaborations. So this essentially helps you reach out to a wider pool that's beyond your current

uh target audience. So thinking about how do you partner with communities on the ground think tanks NGO S that reach out to environmentally conscious customers and also think about how you are educating future generations

of consumers. So this could be through partnerships with schools um or even thinking about partnering with different brands, other brands that reach out to a similar group of consumers and that gives you the opportunity to educate them and last but not least customer engagement, what you are doing in store and online. Um ok, so moving on to the next section, uh I'm just going to show you a case study that

checked all these boxes. As I mentioned earlier, Danon Aqua is one of our key clients and I'm sure you heard of this household brand. It is the pioneer of uh leading bottled mineral water in Indonesia. It's got a 50 year history. So every day it serves more than 150 million Indonesians Daily. That's more than half of Indonesia's population. So from day one, Danon Aqua has always been a firm believer in building circularity. It's always been educated uh

committed to education. In 1983 it introduced its first reusable packaging in 1993 the first recyclable collection products. And in 2019, Aqua was the first brand in Indonesia to launch 100% recycled pet bottle. Um So it wouldn't surprise you, you know, uh the stats that you see on this slide that Aqua is the leading waste collector in Indonesia. It collects more than 18,000 tons of plastic a year and it leads watershed preservation in Indonesia.

All because Aqua believes in building a sustainable Indonesia and only when Indonesia is sustainable, then its business is sustainable. All of Aqua's efforts are really about future proofing its business. And I want to show you um this campaign called Beats, which is on the next slide. And uh in Bahasa means wise. And so this campaign is loosely translated into English as b plastic wise. As I mentioned earlier, the plastic circular economy model is one

of the solutions to tackling the plastic waste problem. So a little bit of background about this campaign aqua launched it five years ago to support the Indonesian government's bid in reducing plastic waste and and um the market is not a very mature market. So there is a lot of education required to, to make sure that consumers are doing the right thing and

choosing the right thing. And for this campaign, a forged a number of strategic partnerships with NGO S and startups on the ground to drive innovation and plastic waste collection to educate the public, including school Children and local communities. And um in terms of the success of this campaign, it's reduced plastic waste by 12 tons a year since its rollout in 2019. As you can see from the video, this initiative with the Malu Dong community, it's

a V V W O. It started in 2019. It focuses on the education and collection of plastic waste in the Balinese community. And it's not, not just about educating the Locusts. So going a further step um as you know, Bali is a popular tourist destination. So what Aqua did was that they creatively reached out to the many tourists there as well with a special 600 M L bottle that's only available in Bali. And if you look at the packaging, it's all in English,

it's not in Bahasa. And um and the communications on the packaging was kept bite sized and simple to educate tourists on how their purchases will make a difference to their environment. So uh if you look at the slide, it says this bottle is made from other bottles, work with us for cleaner Indonesia. This bottle is 100% recyclable, plastic and recyclable with a call to action at the end on the far right. Recycle me. So keeping it very

brief and short works. Um And now you just want to wrap up this case study with the next slide. And what Aqua believes in as I mentioned earlier is that every good thing they do will increase the company's growth and maintain the continuity and sustainability of Indonesia. And in the words of its CEO Conny Ang who is a Singaporean and she works in Indonesia as a company that was

established and has thrived in Indonesia. Danon, AUA continues to strive to maintain, striking a balance between business sustainability and nature conservation for a healthier Indonesia. So the end of the aqua case study, so you know that that is really amazing results, right? As you can see now, 18,000 tons of plastic collected a year

being a pioneer in the circular economy. You know, it's it's really nice to see a company selling bottled water, no being mindful to the environment and its impact on the community. Now, having said that is a huge company and some of the brands in the audience are maybe a little bit smaller. So what advice would you give for sme who want to get started? I I believe you have another example to share. That's great, great. Um Great point, Jade. So as you, as I mentioned earlier, we do work with

huge companies. We also work with very innovative startups and that brings me exactly right to the next case study which is a local very creative homegrown startup um called Alora Pains. So a little bit of background about Aura Alora is an eco-friendly online Pain and Pain Supply brand founded just last year and from its inception, um what the Ceo Adrian called whom I believe is on um this webinar today. So from its inception, Adrian has decided that as an environmentally conscious consumer, he

too would adopt environmentally responsible practices. And in Alora. So what Alora does is that it cleverly weaves environmentally responsible practices into every aspect of the company from product design to manufacturing, to packaging. So let me share a few examples. For example, uh it's uh got a 2.5 liters um very special, optimally sized paint cans. It only contains sufficient paint for a feature wall in a H DB. What this means is that there's no, there's no wastage.

And you guys, if you do a home Diy project, you'll realize that every time we paint and we cannot finish using the paint and we don't know what to do with it. And what Alora does is that not only does this packaging minimize wastage it on also saves cost. And at the same time, left, any, any potential leftover paint can be mixed with its paint hardener so that it can be disposed of responsibly in household trash without

polluting the environment. So uh if you look at this slide, even though it is a startup with a limited marketing budget, we talked about resources being finite, right? You can see that aura is cleverly engaging its environmentally conscious consumers through product labeling, engaging in educational content, especially digital and online because it's an e-commerce company. Um So it's adopting a peso approach, the paid earned share and own approach. It's also having NGO partnerships to

educate consumers on the ground. So this has brought very positive business outcomes. Actually, if you move on to the next slide, yeah, you'll see that uh it's got a good return customer rate. It's got uh seen an increase in the total number of orders over the last six months, double digit revenue growth. And because of that AA is already planning for regional expansion and further extension into its products,

right? So, so maybe I'll stop you here, right? And just to answer the question, it came in from the audience. Now someone wrote, how can my business measure and track our impact on the environment and society? I think you allude you alluded to this in your two examples. Maybe you want to expand a little bit more on how businesses can actually use measurement tools to track the impact. Yeah, sure. So, so um so we talk a lot about educating the consumer and we talked about the Peso model.

So the important thing is measurement cannot only be tracked through output. And in um my field of public relations, we believe in this framework called the a a measurement framework. And we look at output is not just like what you do, how much money you pay into your ads, how many ads you put out, how many press releases you put out, how many announcements and interviews you do, right? So that's output. After you do the, after you look at the output,

you need to look at the outtakes. What exactly um are consumers doing with your post? Your social media posts? Are they sharing, are they liking, you know, the engagement bit? And that's not it, then you look at the outcomes, you look at the outcomes and you look at business outcomes. So whatever communications and marketing efforts we adopt, we are always linking it back to whatever business outcomes and outcomes do not need to be only linked to dollars and cents.

It can also be about trust and reputation. So if you receive like interest and partnerships, more visits to the website, things like that, it actually all brings back to outcomes. And last, but not least we want to measure impact organizational impact. So there are times when I say, for example, we put out uh a story. We, we, so so I

have experienced a few times in my career. So uh there was once I was working with N US and then we put out a really nice uh article uh also with me and Poly, we put out nice articles about uh the faculty. And what happened next was that they got a like five figure sum donation and, and, and, and uh interest in partnership collaborations. So like um uh private sector, contacting the schools wanting to

do something with the schools. So uh this is not directly linked to responsible consumerism, which is the topic today. But we are talking if we, we are talking about men, we need to look at it from a holistic standpoint, from a broader, broader point of view as well, right? And he has to be continuous, he can't just be at the end of a campaign or end of project, right? And I'm sure and would have a lot of to add to. Yeah. Can any, any inputs or any buys from, from both of you?

Thanks Jade. Let me quickly come in. Uh very good morning everyone and I just wanted to say Serena, thank you. Uh But on measurement, uh on the environment part, we actually participate with the Singapore Environment Council. We did a course with them and they gave us a little very nice two and on which we just answered a variety of questions over a few pages and then we were able to score. So this measurement is actually very good which I will share on the last slide when I when

it's my turn to present. But it is there out there, there are many tools out there. They're also very professionally done, but you don't need as a small sme to jump into all of that, you need to have traction. What you do there are tools out there. Thank you. What do you think?

can share the link as well. Um They've tried to make it easy for people who are just starting out so you can get started there. And then as you get more advanced, start looking into all the G R I T C F D, all the various acronyms and how they look at the measurements.

um we are at the conclusion of my segment. So as you can see from both the Aqua and Allora examples, it's clear that regardless of whether you are an industry giant or a small startup, as long as you set out to do the right thing and are smart in your approach, every effort, big or small counts and will eventually pay off both to your business and the environment. So um just a few key takeaways here by doing your part for the planet.

You are future proofing your business as you would have seen from uh what we have from Dan on and a laura and effective communications and engagement is key to maximizing impact and driving change. So, looking at your consumer journey, deciding on which are the most impactful channels and adopting a Peso model to excite and convince your customers and also inspire them to

take action. And last but not least you can successfully marry environmentally responsible practices with positive brand and financial outcomes. Thank you. Right. Thank you, Serena. That was really, really interesting. Now, if anything just remember Peso model paid earn, right? Uh What's next shared and owned and also the last three key takeaways, right? And uh Serena has

also mentioned about two very, very different case studies. OK, very different examples, different budgets but similar results, higher brand awareness, better customer retention engagement, and most importantly, continued growth in terms of revenue. Now you've seen the why? Let's hear the how, how can you get started in this journey? Right? K from the space is yours

sort out the the excess of ideas. Sometimes if you will figure out priorities and trade-offs, then we help them figure out. So how do you communicate and brand this uh externally obviously, but also internally as well. And recently we started saying, ok, if you've done well for the business, take a step back and see what you can do for the broader environment and community. And so that's very relevant to our topic today in terms of responsible com uh consumerism.

Now, Serena's built the case. You can really as a business tap on the growing segment of responsible consumers. I mean, the stats are looking pretty good, 90% will pay more. Uh uh And I'm not sure if she mentioned this today, but she mentioned yesterday, 50% of uh the those consumers will become super promoters and they constantly become your champions and push your business forward. So that's real reasons to, to get into this space and look at how it can benefit your business um

before all this money. Of course, it's the right thing to do. So I think she Serena has established that I won't go into that too much, but it's the right thing to do. I want to talk about the how because it will also help you grow the business beyond growing, beyond tapping on this growing segment of responsible consumers. You can also look at your own existing customers and use what you do um in the A S G and in responsible consumerism to drive loyalty and retention among them,

we see that trend coming. If you really want to keep your customers, you have to answer some difficult questions they have about how are you helping make sure that I am a responsible consumer. I need your help because I'm buying from you. So help me out there. So that's the important bit for, for me in terms of the how the three key things uh that we want to look at. The first thing is to start with the right mindset.

Um And it's really seeing what responsible consumerism should be, then take a step back and look at your business from a value chain approach. There was an earlier question in the Q and A about how do I promote responsible consumerism uh across all aspects of my brand, this talks about that. And then number three, Serena mentioned it earlier. She talked about how you can use this in your marketing communication to really help drive your customers to become responsible consumers.

So let's go into each of them very quickly. Uh Tom Fishman comic here, depending on which shade of green and green consumers are part of responsible consumers, not all of it, they are also, you know, ethical consumers and all that, but depending on which shade of green you want, that's OK. As long as you don't green wash and I I know this term has been brought up. So often that people, businesses like yourself must have heard it or could be

familiar with it. For us, the right mindset is just finding that balance, what you want to do on one end is to get started, do something. Um And you want to be authentic and honest about it. And if you say, oh, I don't really don't take the opportunity to learn partner with others. They are nonprofits can mention S E C Singapore Environment Council. There are other uh organizations that you can partner with and

work with to help you get started as well. So on one end, you just want to get started and get going. Uh Well, 56 of you are a percent of you are already looking at it. So I assume you're already on that journey. On the other end, what you want to avoid is obviously green washing. So this isn't a time to fake it till you make it or to sort of to, to boost it up

in this space. Consumers are hyper sensitive. So say what you do do what you say, don't add in any flavoring and, and sauce for this part of the business. This isn't some sort of a financial forecast and, and it's time to be bullish. Uh No. So for this space, responsible consumerism when you're promoting it, just say what you do do what you say. The other thing to avoid also is because of all they say, well, I'm not going to get started. It's

just too difficult. I there's so many metrics I could, could look at, I don't know, just get going. It, it's ok as long as you're authentic about the fact that you're starting on this journey or you're early in the journey perfectly fine. And the last thing I think Serena's established this as well. It is all our problems from individuals, as leaders as businesses. We can all make a difference. Um I volunteer at the Jane Goodall Institute and she always

likes to say everyone makes a difference. You just have to decide what difference you want to make. Um So businesses can really move the needle,

So there is that disconnect there, I mean, what is your view on this? Should they just get started regardless or you know, they they adopt a wait and see approach.

excessive consumerism. So there is the whole ethical, are we doing the right thing as business owners and leaders? So we got to check that box and then there's the judiciary duties. So are we growing our business doing right by our shareholders and stakeholders to check that box as well? It connects with all the numbers. We've seen consumers already indicate that if done, right? I would love to buy from you and I don't pay, I don't mind paying a bit extra.

The whole problem is a lot of companies start to green wash and say, oh yeah, yeah, we, we, we saved the planet, the moon and the sun as well. Um So that's a huge pushback but don't let that stop us. I think on this slide, that's what we're trying to say with the right mindset. It's ok. It's ok to take baby steps. People will still reward you for it in a while. I'll talk about the value chain and we could see what are some baby steps. We can take.

Essentially, it basically takes a linear approach from raw material to product and sales and it loops it back to say, how can we ensure the the purple arrow here on the left, the waist uh remains as little as possible. How do we push things back? So the raw material stream becomes smaller every single step here is an opportunity for you to make a difference in your business and to communicate that difference to drive responsible consumerism.

And that's the third thing consumers today, particularly younger consumers are very happy to hear about your story. It used to be that people didn't want to know what you did in the backroom like, hey, you just make the thing, I'll just enjoy it, right? So whether it's a product or service, I don't even know how you've done it. But if you look at what's going on in social media and all that these days, everyone is sharing behind the scenes, open the pop the hood. Let's see what's underneath.

So every step of the way in your circular economy is an opportunity to share your journey and tell the story. This can be in terms of whether you've chosen to

use raw material and products. Um whether you've designed for product life extension, you've sourced ethically in terms of manufacturing and packaging, whether you reduce the amount of carbon footprint, your pro uh production plants use, whether you give fair wages to people in logistics, partnering with the carbon neutral transportation partners optimizing your supply chain. And then obviously in sales and marketing, visual merchandizing, install operations,

whether you can cut down carbon footprint. Again, this part, I'll talk a bit uh in the next slide of storytelling across all possible touch points and through partners like influencers and this last bit on after sales uh is slightly new for a lot of brands and businesses which is end of life. Typically, we rely on government to come in and regulate this. But increasingly more companies are looking

at this more seriously. And if you think about a lot of new companies, startup companies, they start talking about end of life a lot more. Uh in Singapore. Uh recently e waste has been regulated in terms of end of life, uh produces responsibility, uh plastic packaging will come soon as well. Traditionally, things like tires have always been regulated. Um So you want to look into that as Well, now as you look across, I spent a bit of time on this slide because

this is where you get to answer that question. Look at it across all aspects of your brand, simply to look at it from raw material all the way to end of life. Now I'll come back to this slide later on to talk about the, the quick winds or the low hanging fruits. But if you look across this, every single sort of diamond shape step in the process is an opportunity for you to tell the story. People want to know and you should tell it across different touch points, social media and website.

Whether if you've got a store of your retail BBC company, put it in your store, visual merchandizing. If you sell products, there are opportunities to put it in your products as well. Um There is especially with the older companies a sense that yeah, let me not talk about all these things because people want to know what benefits my product have. I think the case here is one of the benefits that needs to be clearly communicated

is what you're doing for responsible consumerism. The case is there that people care about it and the opportunities for you to communicate it. Yeah, I'll show you a case example, not a client of mine, I wish but show you a case example of one of the best practices. Um So this uh this case um is one of the best practices when it comes to helping consumers be responsible and then promoting responsible consumerism. They started all the way from the founding of the company,

they baked it into their values. So internally, the first group, they, they sort of promoted responsible consumerism is uh to the staff. So they want to make sure people who join the company Patagonia, the they are aligned with these set of values in case you're not familiar with the brand. Let me just go back one slide. They do outdoor wear. So the guys, everything on him could be Patagonia. Yeah. So they encourage

uh uh outdoor weather. It's hiking, trekking, climbing, snowboarding, skiing, all that sort of stuff, surfing as well. Um So they're known for that. I'll show you a short video that, that communicates how they promote responsible consumerism. No longer. Can we assume the earth's resources are limitless? We wrote this in our first catalog in 1972. Nearly 50 years later, it's only gotten worse today. The clothing industry contributes up to 10% of the pollution driving the climate crisis.

For as long as we've been in business, we've seen quality as an environmental issue. That's why we build clothes to endure. So you don't need to buy new as often we make gear with recycled materials, we grow food and fiber, the way nature intended, we promote safe and fair labor conditions for workers. There are some things you can do too when you want something new. Ask yourself, do I really need it?

Look for one product you can use in multiple ways, repair what you wear out and pass things down demand, recycled demand, fair trade demand, organic, buy less demand more. So you can see with Patagonia, they are not about pushing their products first and you can see this on their website as well. If you type in Patagonia dot com, you probably see something like this. If you think about the first block of what a consumer would see on their website, it talks about their values and beliefs rather

than their products, which is the next in line. You need to scroll down and there are links leading the the consumer away to other things. So this really sort of puts in practice their beliefs. So the website is part of it, the marketing campaign, this is an award winning ad. They did don't buy this jacket. They talk about repairing so they directly go against the green and say, yeah,

please don't buy more from us. Our stuff are expensive but you can wear it for a long time and then they start saying, ok, well, the products part of it, let's also think about people and from their staff to the community, they start engaging uh like-minded individuals. Now, obviously, this has a knock on effect on their products as well on the sales as well because a community of champions and ambassadors will start buying your products and start introducing it to others.

And finally, a couple of months ago in September 2022 the founder Yvon Shana, he donated the company uh to collective which is a charity, a not for profit that focuses on climate change uh and saving the, the environment. So this is the ultimate right, the of, of how, how far it goes is essentially converting a for profit to a, a not not for profit in a way. Now, this is a great example and I encourage you to

look at Patagonia a bit more in depth. Uh They've got sustainability reports, they talk about how they measure and track in a very rigorous manner to ensure that uh responsibility and ensure that authenticity. Um What I want to say to you here is we don't have to be Patagonia to get started. You could be selling products, B to C B to B services. They are in a high effort, high impact sort of space. So they invest a lot in and they get a lot out of it. Uh We can start small, it's

perfectly to start with smaller things. So here this space is really to avoid analysis, paralysis, just get started and authentically start engaging your consumer. What you want to avoid is just to make sure you don't get into the, you put in a lot. But for vanity metrics or just for low impact stuff, and if you can find a low effort, high impact space. Well,

that's the, that's the holy grail. But I guess what I'm really saying is it's ok to start small and just keep building up words, there are companies we can look up to and reference in terms of how good good can be. So I'm showing you this slide again just with quick wins because I, I want to connect back to my last slide and say so what are easy things you can get started in each of the areas. You could, you don't have to figure everything out yourself.

You could partner with suppliers. Sometimes these suppliers are themselves promoting by uh uh their uh sustainable practices and responsible practices. So you can already read it off their website. You can get that information from them, you can choose them, right? Uh In terms of the manufacturing, water waste energy, those are easy things to get going, packaging, plastic packaging, particularly single use ones. Uh big topic there. Uh a lot of insights that you can get also in terms of

how we can reduce it. And I know is gonna talk, give you an actual example of his company shortly. Um in terms of inventory and logistics partner with the right people, they a lot of logistics partners talk about their carbon footprint. Now have a look, choose the right one in terms of your own sales and marketing, huge opportunity to educate consumers. I mean that video from Patagonia and all the other stuff they do on their products in

their stores, they publish books. Uh Those are all different opportunities you can tap on. Serena talked about Peso and how you the old part of it, your own uh channels are very powerful. Take advantage of all of that showcase your products and highlight attributes on your products.

Those are all opportunities uh for quick wins. And finally, if you're not doing this offer, help with repair, find ways to help your customers recycle, resell their secondhand stuff and dispose of the the stuff when it has to be disposed responsibly. So this one slide for me is quick wins to get started. If you check some of these bullet points or boxes, great. If you haven't finished off the rest and then get

going in depth into each of these diamonds. Yeah, my last slide um beyond all this, you know, I've done the quick. What else can you do? Um I think there's the short term things we can do the quick wins. You can start thinking in terms of midterm and long term as well. Start doing some planning in terms of where can my business grow? If I start putting on a lens of promoting responsible consumerism,

then you want to. Obviously, I showed this in my second slide after you've done the work, a good brand reflects a good business. So you can talk about branding, you want to engage your people that's your, your staff, your uh customers and even the broader community. So they become your advocates, look a bit more at product innovation, continue building the community. So you can see you can do more and more and more. But I wanted to start with quick wins, you can get going and then

a sense of what else you can do after that. Yeah. So that's all from me in terms of the, how you can promote responsible consumerism.

the results of that just switch in mindset. So looking at the questions, there are questions about, you know, government subsidies, government uh partnerships, car. Can we ensure that our vendors and uh partners are uh prioritizing responsible consumerism? Um There is a, a question on um price competitive, competitiveness as well. So I think Canon will actually answer all the questions in his contact. So I'm gonna hand that over to can over to you.

Thank you, Jade. Firstly, very quickly, I think Serena, your model and Peso is very, very well. It, we uh we have paid a, we do a lot of that stuff and so is we're gonna talk about that in our brand and then uh very nicely, you, we did the road map that some of this, we have already do some accidentally. So as a small sme this is uh our lives. Ok. We over farm and uh we are in the healthy lifestyle space. If you can just go to the next slide. Thank you.

Yes. In a healthy lifestyle space, we've been around for 20 years. The company was founded by Vigen Gun, a very adventurous person. But more importantly for our point here, uh environmental friendly person, he really concerned about the environment and people. That's how this business was started. And that's why we, our main goal is to offer healthier choices for people to have products that can make them live healthier.

So in the 20 years, we have been able to sell 3.2 million products and we have made 600,000 deliveries as Serena's uh earlier presentation would have said to you, 70% of greenhouse gasses is produced by businesses. So we actually contribute to that. So we feel somewhat responsible to try to help this situation changed. So we, we have taken this responsibility from the onset. So we have 50 other staff here, but I'll very quickly tell you about this part of the social impact of our staff.

More than 60 more than 80% of female, more than 50% are in their seniors age. We have got 46% of them who have been with us for more than 10 years. This is the state state of our stuff that keeps us going. So we are doing something right that when people want to stay with us, we have got 50,000 loyal customers, 35,000 of them regularly buy from us. 15,000 of them are buying every now and then and usually uh by the next year continuously and this is how this happened. But very quickly, I'll tell

you about 60 year productive. We can go to the next slide. This is a lifestyle diseases. So we, we are responsible in that way that we don't keep selling what other people sell. We do have our vitamins and all. But we focus on lifestyle diseases like diabetes, your because of eye abuse, your eye health, 70% of our revenue is from sales of nutraceuticals. The rest comes from healthier choice, fast moving consumer goods. If we can move to the next slide. Thank you.

All right. So what are we here for? Why? Why are we invited to speak about responsible consumerism? Because we are a company that has put purpose before profits, right? We are healthier choices in the Singaporean sustainable lifestyle space is uh known people know us for that and we just want to make the world a better place. You might think it's lofty, but it's inspired by something if we can move to the next page.

OK. We are inspired by Ray Anderson, right? He's a known in the corporate sustainability industry and he said about purpose. If you are just going to make profits, you see something is wrong with this picture. We cannot exist just to make profits. We must exist for a higher good. And then uh a literate from um the father of Japanese literature. Mr Sauro said individually, we are one drop together. We are an ocean. So with the right mindset, the object is we can find ways

to make the world a better place. That's our inspiration. We have been like this from the onset. All right. So now we come to this little thing about responsible consumerism. So where we are in with regards to this same thing we procure, we have vendor management. Let's quickly talk about this vendor management question earlier that was asked. So what we have done is we have tightened up in the last 5 to 6 years. Our vendor registration, we make sure our vendors are qualified. We ask them

sustainable questions. Where do you source from all this? So it's just not about price anymore. It's about what they do and how they procure. So it's like some of our products that we buy from America. It comes with the GMP stamp. So you won't find vendors with all these green labels and all that. They may have the green label GMP stamp. They may also have the green labeling but GMP stamp,

the GMP itself, which is a good manufacturing practices. So they have got sustainable requirements for you to get that stamp. So if you have that stamp, you probably are already sustainable. So we try to do our best. All our products have the GMP stamp and we also check on freight. How far are you, what are the impact on moving this stuff to us and stuff like this? But sometimes these things have to be done. This is a pain that we have to take,

but we get responsible throughout the rest of our lives. Ok. So packaging wise, ok, we, we started packaging. We are small company and even though we are environmentally friendly, we had to shrink wrap and all we have removed all of this. Now we have changed better and we have come now with operations as well. So our coo Luge Shiva Prakash. So she was and she's an operation guru if you like. So I asked her to help us digitize the business, she digitized this.

So this changed our way. We work paper trail. We save 1.1 ton of paper by digitizing our offices. We have two premises. Now we can operate in with a touch of a button before we had to deliver stuff and all that very archaic. But that's the, the beauty of digitization. So, before I go further, we have plans to do a refilling station. All right, we sell the oldest soap in the world. It's called the A soap 800 years old.

It comes in bath form. We have tried to influence the market and we have, we sell it well, it's, it's, it's true. We sell it about 100 200 pieces a day. But the usage is still very commonly shower gel. So we got the manufacturer to exclusively make for us shower gel in this a form, right? Very, very difficult, very different. So we're gonna do a refilling station in our new showroom. We are revamping it. It's gonna happen in the coming months.

These are all helps to become responsible. So we partner with people who know how to do this, right? We partner with zero waste S G, we partner with the W W F, we partner with anyone else who wants to help. For example, the Sing Post initiative asked us to do this bag thing, right? So they package our bag, they give it to the customer, the customer returns the package. So we don't have to keep

manufacturing packaging bags. However, we still have to have a little slip where the customer has to see the order and the rider who delivers this at to see because we are trying to solve that. We are working with a polytechnic to try to come out with a solution for a re highly non plastic solution for this. Our recycling efforts are very legendary. I will show you little pictures later, but 270,000 cans we sell uh a year and 68,000 of them are recycled. That's about 25%. Yeah.

So that's about 25%. Right. I mean, I just did a quick math. I mean, there's still a big gap even though the numbers are great in as a great start. What do you think companies can do actually to bridge the gap between knowledge and putting it into practice? Firstly, I think you must accept that some of these are because of logistics reasons why they cannot. But you can notice uh it is inspiring people to recycle.

You continue to educate them. If the con if the brand continues to show commitment to this, people will change. If you look at the commitment the government has done with the neighborhoods, you look at how much of recycling opportunities they are. The blue color bins, neighborhoods, private public, everywhere you see this is commitment. So you keep seeing, you will eventually change. So if you don't, all the numbers are poor, you stop, I think then we are in trouble. You have to

believe in something. We all can see the traction is there. If you continue, it will be fine. I think people will change and we are delighted with this. It's still big numbers and it's two ton, actually two tons of cancers a year. All right, if you can go to the next slide, I will share a little bit more about this. So this is our cans. If you look, it's I going to tell you on the left you'll see. Diamond is uh we sell 60,000 bottles a year. It's a

plastic bottle. It's transformed from the middle one is from Chile. The last one is from our later supply in Asia. So we actually shaved off vast shipping roots as well. So we uh we do think about these things. It's not just about price. The other one I wanted to show you is the aesthetic finish from the plastic to that aluminum. Look at that pan on the right. Sorry if I say so myself, I think

it's lovely. There's so many colors and it's aesthetically beautiful and I think the sales hike in sales for that product could be because it would look beautiful. But of course, the product inside that is also good. Huh? So let's go to the next one, please. And then, you know, just now you say uh that's, that's a phrase that you say it's not just about cost, right? That there is some questions that talk about the balancing going green with the rising

cost of materials. I'm sure aluminum costs a lot more than plastic. So how, how does Herbal Farm actually balance that bottom line, you know, strike a fine balance between that. OK? Like I told you, right? Uh As our founder said to us, this is what he wants and this is what our business wants. This is why I joined the, the company and why we want to do this is because if we are going to tell, we have to be responsible, we have to be sustainable. This is good.

We cannot just sell out plastic bottles. It's so in your face wrong. And that's a solution. If there was no solution, we have to accept it, there are solutions. So we went for this solution. It cost us more. I will show you a financial impact at the end. It definitely cost us more every time you want to go do good. It is always harder, it's always harder. But that's when it comes. If you want to do good really or you just want to do good to make money.

If you want to do good to make money, something is wrong, right? So we want to do good really? We believe right? Very well. Yeah, sorry, sorry. So it's very well said, right? So being responsible and being honest in terms of your marketing communications, it it starts internally, it starts, you know, right within ourselves, right? So um it is a prerequisite to being uh to showing how consumers can be responsible towards the end. So continue kind of

OK, sorry. This one I think uh Serena has touched in a little bit but uh fog beautifully. I cannot do any better. But this is our journey. We had to do a feasibility study with the limited resources. We had a few people, our founder myself, a few other people. We had to do a feasibility study. We have current inventory plastic. We have to finish those. How fast

can we sell? Do we sell it cheaper? So we, we did uh some marketing and we said, ok, we brought in, we brought in four tons of aluminum cans because the minimum order was tough. So these were some challenges. We had to do the feasibility study. We had to find the right procured uh customer. We found them in Chile, but they had high in my M O Q. We had to do redesigning. They only allowed six colors on our can. We had 30 different different products to design and then

the reception. This is why it is all worth it. Customers loved it. Sales increased by 13% a year on year since 2019. When we launched the aluminum cans every year, we have grown our business by at least 13%. It is tapering after it went really higher during the COVID period, but it's tapering but it's still decent, right? So responsibility wise, I think we have to be the change driver. We will live up to our ideals, leading more responsible consumers who can

then embrace responsible consumerism. If we ourselves don't practice responsible consumerism. How do we ask the cons consumers, the customers who buy and sustain us to do the same? I think it's a bit offside. I mean, that's why we are very rigorous with the way we do things. If we can go to the next slide, I can show you a little bit more on some of the challenges. I've already spoken about this but I want to talk about this. Uh some of this

that we have to talk mostly internal. I think I've already covered it but the customer education, but in order to put the customer education in perspective, do they care how to make them care? So let's look at some stats arena. I borrow your uh can you go back please? Yeah, this week, eight out of 10 customers in Asia Pacific want to buy from responsible banks. 25% of customers uh Jade, you already mentioned that I think the gap is a lot of them may be recycling themselves.

We throw in a kicker. If you bring back some stuff, I give you $5 off and stuff like that. But ultimately, people want to recycle. 5% of customers participated are reusable bags. Ok? You might think that's a lot. Very little. That is still 2000 people. This is still something we have done for the earth. 80% of our customers that visited our showrooms brought their own bags. They participated in, bring your own bag. I think that's again,

very good numbers. These are, we're talking about few everyday 2030 people coming to our stores. They are practicing this if you can go to the next slide. Now, these are some of our campaigns we use reuse to reduce, we embraced all four of these reuse, reduce refuse and recycle. Then we have the bags below in the middle. You'll see in our showroom, this is a recycled container, acrylic. We had no choice again. Like I said, when there's no choice, we have to use these materials. It's filled

with our recycled cans. This is cleared daily and we fill it up every day with the customers coming and putting it in on our right. We have a statement here. We do care. We, we tell our customers properly in every channel that we can every time that we can, we tell them this. We do not hope that to heart, sell to them. We hope to tell them this is us. We are responsible. If you are responsible. If you like this brand, please sell, we speak more and we sell more to the heart. Ok.

If we can go to the last few slides. Now, this is the financial impact jade. I would I promise to touch on you. We brought four tons of aluminum can. We had to find storage for this outside. We pay for this and we have to start moving our products, the plastic because we are eager now, right? We are eager wanna sell the aluminum. So we get discounts on our plastic bottles and we moved it out 2019. It came all the way from South America. We started

to sell, they said 30,000 per brand per product. It is hard. But we did all of that. But you can see 2020 when we reordered from them, the price dropped, we were paying double what we paid for plastic and don't forget the quantity we had to pay much more. But we invested in this 2020. The price dropped to plastic bottle levels. But unfortunately, I had to drop the vendor. We moved to a vendor closer in Asia. We now pay slightly lesser. We get better quality and quicker and the M O Q s are less.

So we manage this better. I'm hoping it continues to be more because it sells more. But that is not what it is and we managed to do it in two sizes. We had to do it in three sizes now in two sizes, but this is where it comes to play, right? What it's all about if you are a brand is about making profits. We are not Saints guys. We are here to make money, right? But it is not the first thing on our list. The first thing on our list to make people live healthier, make the world a better place,

then comes profits. We are talking about 15% of our operating cost was saved 15%. This tend to profits for us. We shared it with the people. We have a very high social and sustainability angle as well. We do a lot of charity and stuff like that. OK? We can go into the last slide, OK. This is where it comes about the sustainability report, the measurement that we did, you can see our score. We have a good, I actually I thought 85.2 was going to be excellent, but it's ok. I cannot win everything,

but that's the scoring, right? They won 90. So we still can aspire. So in terms of cost versus competitiveness, the question I must answer very quickly. If you invest in this, I'm not saying everyone has a nice happy ending here. However, if you are sincere and if you make the right choices, you cannot just say, oh sustainable, I will do everything. I think that's silly. It's not prudent. You have to be prudent. You need to know what you

can change, how you can change, sourcing. You have to have deep, deep research avenues, you have to consult people of the network and then you make decisions. And I think you can see this is a validation of our efforts. This is by the way, yeah, it's only two months ago, we did this, by the way, we attended a sustainability course, right? And now the other one on government grants, I must tell you, that government doesn't give you grants to do

this sometimes. Uh I think for electric vehicles, there's some grant when you buy it. But for companies they have what is called a career conversion program. They have other schemes like that. I attended a sustainability course, me and our Coo Lucas attended and we both had heavily subsidized fees for that course,

it was an eye opening cost. The fact that I'm here, I think is because of that cost and there you go, you see, the government gives us this kind of opportunities, opportunities to defray the cost of you learning and therefore understanding better. So you don't make wrong decisions when you're trying to be responsible. But that is something that I must say nobody is out there to give you something to do and do good. Right. Exactly. I think it's not Singaporean if you like what I mean?

So the other one about why you must be sustainable. I think the answers have already been there and you can see brands like a, we are so far from that brand, but still the intentions are the same. They want to make the world a better place. And so if you have a better world, you have better health, you have a better you, which is uh what Hubble farm stands for, I think. Thank you so much for giving me this chance to inspire you. Thank you. That, that is um that is really amazing.

Results and the process um Herber Farm went through. Now we are actually overrunning on time, but I want to quickly wrap up. Now. There's a, there's a couple of questions, right? That I want to also highlight there's one question about how can brands communicate about its effort in an authentic way to avoid being hard selling or self promoting, which I E green washing. Uh Remember the three words during K speech control, the narrative, right?

So you need to control the nar narrative throughout the value chain as well to make sure that you're being honest, right? You're being responsible in terms of your marketing communication. Don't talk about things that it's yet to come or don't do what things that you are not even sure that you are going to do, right? Be sure in what you want to achieve. Be sure

in what you want to communicate to the audience. Um There is a question about consumers being price sensitive and how can we actually balance that when we want to go greener? Because of course, um you know, in Kan's case, aluminum costs more than plastic. So how can we manage that? Maybe just a quick wrap up from each of um you, Serena K followed by just as a wrap up for the entire session? Yeah, so I'm happy to go first. So thank you

everyone um for being so sticky with us today. And uh it's been a pleasure and I learned a lot even from, and um, I guess from the consumer education perspective, I've seen a few questions about um, the cost involved because we are running a business at the end of the day. Right. So, really start off with quick wins, starting from your own assets. So thinking about, you know, if you look back at the Peso model, look at your own channels, what can you control? And if you look at the four key

things, right? Um It's really um you don't need to spend a lot of money. If you look at product labeling, you just need to communicate clearly. If you are looking at engaging content, you are looking at content for your website. For example, if you are looking at partnerships, you know, if you go into clever partnerships and collaborations, um you will be able to reach out to a wider audience and then install an online customer engagement.

So, so we are not asking you um you know, to spend a ton of money, but uh it's always important to go for the quick wins, go for the low hanging fruit and um measure measure along the way, do not only measure at the end of campaign measure and refine along the way um test, test out some of your uh creative ideas and see if it works. And then after that, uh elevate what you're

is not going to change for the better immediately. It's been damaged for a while. So these efforts we take is a step by step. So, but even one small step in the right direction is going to lead us, excuse my language, but to the promised land. Uh Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Uh It has been a very fruitful discussion and we are just going to end the webinar right now. Thank you for your time and I hope to see you at our next webinar. Thank you so much.