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校友企业参访回顾 | 践行社会责任,我们一起在路上

日期:2021-04-23 浏览:1587作者:曼彻斯特大学中国中心

在刚刚过去的联合国大会上,很多业内人士都为中国提出的2030年和2060年的气候变化目标而振奋,作为一个对社会和环境都影响巨大的行业,消费品牌的可持续发展也受到来自于行业和公众越来越多的关注。

曼彻斯特大学中国中心于2021年4月8日带领校友走进校友企业古德智造并聆听了来自KAFFTEC咖法关于通过回收和材料工程技术为品牌和企业提供环保解决方案的分享,参访校友们也带来各行各业的经验,分享可持续创业创新项目的成功与失败经验,共议“将可持续作为品牌的发展战略的挑战与机遇”,并从消费者和业界人士角度探讨“中国消费者的可持续态度与认知”和“可持续时尚及消费品的群体特征”。

会上,大家关于“企业利润与社会责任的关系”展开了近30分钟的讨论,收获匪浅。

Discussion on “how to balance and drive profits with CSR”

At the recent U.N. General Assembly, many in the consumer industry were heartened by China's climate change goals for 2030 and 2060 while "green recovery" has become the hottest keyword in many global discussions since the outbreak. On the one hand, as the world sees significant improvements in the way the environment is being protected, Chinese customers are experiencing an organic, inexpensive and quick adaptation into an environmentally friendly market. On the other hand, being in an industry with great social and environmental impact, consumer brands has social responsibility (SR) to realize the sustainable development in all aspects and hence gained more and more attention from the industry and the public.

To build around this subject, an alumni delegation led by University of Manchester China Centre Director Sherry Fu visited alumni company Good Group on 8th April 2021. Reid Lu, GMBA alumnus, student representative of his intake and VP sales at Good Group welcomed everyone for coming and led a tour around the company where exclusive peeks were offered into the collection of creative products made for international brands. Alain Chan, the creative VP elaborated on trends of product and design, new material application under the sustainable principle.

Eagle Wang, the marketing director shared the story of how sustainable brand of KAFFTEC maximizes its expertise in consumer industry to offer affordable solutions to transform the waste into premium & high-performance recycled materials at scale. When the numbers were presented -over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide everyday, creating 22,500 tons of waste from coffee grounds- everyone among the delegation started to wonder not only how many millions in disposal fees coffee waste cost businesses but more importantly how much harms our planet through associated methane emissions are done. As the coffee industry continues to boom, the environmental sustainability of the business has become a rising concern. Alumni engaged in heated discussion on how enterprises with strong social responsibilities could achieve a circular economy through innovations in identifying, recycling and re-imagining materials.

Aileen Wei, GMBA alumnus, co-founder of University of Manchester China Centre alumni marketing club, founder of Zero Waste Beauty and SAFONE emphasized the importance of both education to inspire and the business of holistic management we need for meaningful change. Gillian Sun, BD manager from Impact Hub Shanghai talked about her events on various topics around the Sustainable Development Goals. Karen Jin, a strong advocator for education to carry out the mission to inspire and save the environment shared her personal experience growing up having the habit of sorting trash and how this influenced her consumer behavior and her startup idea.

In the end, Sherry Fu gave an overview of China Centre alumni engagement in SR over the years and encouraged alumni to execute their own charitable initiatives, “Through visits to alumni companies, our alumni engagement in social responsibility is extended to a wider audience where we could connect alumni across industries and share experience and insights when addressing some issues in CSR such as the one question raised during Q & A that inspired a 30-min discussion on how to balance and drive profits with CSR, i.e., how to run a more eco-friendly yet lucrative business” said Fu.