APSIPA Special Jury Prize Winner & Dr Niven Huang Discuss Opportunities To Grow The Social Innovation Movement In The Asia Pacific
In this podcast, we speak with the winner of the Special Jury Prize of the Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award (APSIPA), SVHK Capital Limited, and the organiser of APSIPA, also the regional leader, KPMG Sustainability Services and ESG Assets Management Services in Asia Pacific, Dr. Niven Huang.
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 by the judging panel.
In addition to the awards mentioned above, there is one Special Jury Prize selected every year. To minimise the impact of COVID-19 on the global economy, environment and people's livelihoods, “new lifestyle and mindset” should be taken into consideration. The theme of the Special Jury Prize in 2021 APSIPA is “The New Reality”, which honours socially innovative cases exploring ways to sustain in the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraging partnership experiences sharing across the Asia Pacific.
APSIPA SPecial Jury Prize Winner
Dr. Andes Leung is the head of Impact Lifestyle, Social Ventures Hong Kong, and CEO of RunOurCity Foundation. Andes was the head of sales at a listed group in FMCG; he had over 20 years’ experience in advertising, sales, marketing and strategic planning. He is an ultra-marathoner who has completed over 100 marathons including the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc 170 km and 4 Desert Race Series. He published books of “12 marathons in 7 continents” and “12 marathons to happiness”.
Andes leads the Impact Lifestyle division, which includes impact consumption, green living and wellness projects; e.g. WE+ - eCommerce platform for social goods, BottLess - reusable solutions and RunOurCity - running experience. He is devoted in developing WE+ to bridge SMEs with proposition in green, healthy and locally produced. He aims to shape the new normal not only through online, but also escalate impact lifestyle for the society and good of the planet – sustainably.
APSIPA Lead Organiser
Dr. Niven Huang is the Managing Director of KPMG Sustainability Consulting Co., Ltd., the Taiwan Regional Leader of KPMG Sustainability Services in Asia Pacific and Regional Leader, KPMG ESG Asset Management Services in Asia Pacific. Niven is the lead organiser of the 2020 Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award (APSIPA).
Niven has extensive experience in CSR and contributes his expertise across various roles, including:
Member of Advisor Board of NDCI.global
Sitting on the judging panels of several public and private Awards of CSR, Excellence in Environment, and Sustainability in Taiwan and Asia, including the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards since 2015.
A part time Associate Professor of several universities in Taiwan for teaching CSR and corporate sustainability, including the most leading advanced MBA and EMBA at National Cheng Chi University, since 2008.
Consultant of Acer CSR Office
Committee member of CPC CSR Committee.
Among other experience, Niven is a Council member for National Council of Sustainable Development and holds a Ph.D. & M.S. from the Graduate School of Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University.
Highlights from the podcast
(listen to the podcast for full details)
[Tom Allen] - Andes, could you please share a bit about your project, the impact it's creating, how it responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and what led to your passion in social innovation?
[Dr. Andes Leung] - Well to begin with, what we actually saw at the beginning was a gap. The gap, as you mentioned before, is green, healthy and locally produced [goods]. We think that how we can really have a more sustainable way of doing things is to promote three things. For our strategy, we think of how to make these three angles built into the centre of a customer’s daily life. This was the original concept, and then what we think about together with COVID-19 is how to make it applicable to daily life, or as you mentioned, a lifestyle.
Then we thought, “why not group together all these products, merchants or even experiences and then we go through online avenues, e-commerce and promote them to everyone?”
This was especially relevant in that COVID-19 period of time where social distancing was one of the challenges. It was actually the idea that worked, that we grew all these green, healthy and locally produced items or experiences, and then made an e-commerce online shopping experience for the consumer. Then, it's actually not just buying and enjoying the goods, but they can get behind the concept and the reason why they have to purchase that item. Then on top of just a product exchange, we get their awareness integrated into their daily living. This was really the whole concept that we came up with.
Once our impact finally happened after we launched for relatively a short period of time [about half a year ago now], we started thinking that we have got a billion reasons for building this lifestyle, or what call the ‘impact lifestyle’.
Because of the product range, and then that experience, we were also selling online; we could really get positive comments from the consumer. Plus, we really encouraged partnerships, because what we are doing unlike normal e-commerce retail outlets is we call our merchants partners. They're not just a company selling that product, but they are a lot of smaller individuals because they are making green, healthy, local products because they are not only big enterprises. Then we can group together, and they also contribute these green, healthy, and locally produced concepts.
We work together like a group of partners rather than thinking they are just merchants, and we are just a platform.
I think this is the whole essence of what we are doing, and in short, why I'm passionate about social innovations, is when I was 40, I thought, “well this is about my second life now, why shouldn’t I just give out and let go to then start something new and really impact society?” I think that this is the future, that's why I quit my job and then kicked off my own social enterprise and began working together with Social Ventures Hong Kong. I have no regrets now.
It sounds like you're creating some amazing impact there, so well done. You've spoken about a broad array of products sitting on this e-commerce platform. How might our audience engage with this platform, and what are just a couple of examples of the types of products specifically that they can find on there?
We range from daily life foods and produce like jam, to reusable cups and less packaged goods with paper labelling. That's why recycling our products has become easier. We also have lots of experience [in different areas]. We have a dining in the dark experience, where people can go to a dark room, imagine they are blind and experience how navigating daily life and work. We have all these things that they can experience alongside our green, healthy and locally produced items. This is what we are doing, and it's easy to engage with. The audience can just type in WE+ online, find our e-commerce system and then they can search around or purchase our goods and services. It would be good as we are not only earning money, but it's supporting those local merchants more.
You are about six months in now, and there are always big challenges in launching projects of this size and scale. What have been some of your key learnings from the implementation of this project?
The first difficulty when we started was not having that much experience in e-commerce. Starting from how to get the product online and how to find a platform that can do the transactions, all these details were important.
Then we needed to search for merchants while letting them know we could not initially give them or even us a very high percentage profit due to all these difficulties we faced in the beginning. Actually, the magic came out when we kicked off, and then we suddenly found a really good platform called HOME+, and they were actually willing to let us into their already built platform but open a ‘shop in shop’ concept. That's why we own our domain within their e-commerce platform. Then on our WE+ platform, we grouped those merchants together and they are now selling at a very competitive margin with a low service charge. For us at the same time when we talk to the merchants, we think that these people are always looking for profit maximisation, especially when we do e-commerce which is usually a low margin channel.
However, surprisingly, a lot of our stakeholders, including our merchants, are willing to make sacrifices. Breaking even is always important, but social impact is also important to them.
We do it together, and then I find during the process a lot of merchants are actually willing to sacrifice a little bit of their profit and contribute altogether. This is the key learning for me; when you step up and pay people it's not always for them just business as business as you may imagine. They can be willing to sacrifice for something good.
Thank you very much for sharing that Andes.
Niven, we had a great conversation last year, and we spoke a little bit about your experience more broadly as well as the APSIPA Awards. I'm keen to hear what have been some of your key observations of the growing social innovation movement in the Asia Pacific since we last spoke, and where are there now opportunities in these particularly challenging times?
[Dr. Niven Huang] - Thank you very much. I think regarding this question we have to pay a little bit of attention to what the whole world looks like, as well as the Asia Pacific. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole world including the Asia Pacific were asked the question of why this situation happened. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, quite obviously climate change doesn't stop, so the situation was getting worse and moving forward. The situation is not what we expected, so where are we with the social innovation movement in the Asia Pacific?
I think one of the major reasons it has progressed, is that it's a very critical time for all of us to watch out for the globally pressing risks to our survival, and in the Asia Pacific that is also very serious.
The second reason is because of the world's current status, it's obviously now quite urgent for us to deliver more solutions for working out the social, environmental, and other critical issues and problems. If we just follow the old ways of change, something like giving things or starting up a very simple business model in social enterprise; for a small scale that might work, but for a larger scale we do have a lot of barriers we need to overcome. Currently, if we want to work out serious and pressing social/environmental problems in a critical amount of time, I think technology will be very important.
Then, with a more stakeholder friendly environment through partnership, collaboration and working together, that might become more feasible for scaling up a solution.
For example, back to Dr. Andes case, they're e-commerce, so they have gathered together a lot of social enterprises or entrepreneurs that are innovating, developing or delivering different socially driven products or services. A lot of the general public and consumers are willing to have friendly and ethical consumption behaviours through their daily lives, and they can also contribute to the sustainable development goals in this region. E-Commerce will be a very good platform for engaging the general public to support this movement and innovation. The last point is very important, it's if we can make an ecosystem where people develop the product, goods and services based on being socially and purpose driven. If some people are willing to pay for that, invest and engage in providing technical support, this situation can move forward continuously. The whole ecosystem is very important. The growing social innovation movement also needs to engage policymakers and investors into the ecosystem.
For the Asia Pacific, because it consists of the majority of the population of the world, we also play a very vital role in producing the global products to supply the global consumption market.
Right now, with the pressing global risk, the Asia Pacific plays a very important part of the risk. If we can work it out together, then we can help the whole world to survive. We need to dedicate ourselves to not only just make something like stakeholder capitalism carried out in the Asia Pacific. We also need to attract global key stakeholders and impact investors to join the Asia Pacific movement to deliver a much more impactful solution to the whole world.
Right now, we think that in the current COVID-19 pandemic situation, the peak has not even been experienced yet. It's not practical to expect the situation can be worked out in a very short time. We are still suffering through the impact of COVID-19, and it's now about how to leverage the technical solution and work out for example how people can protect themselves to avoid the COVID-19 outbreak in the Asia Pacific. It's about awareness, but it also needs people dedicated to it, to put in more effort no matter if that is from a public or private institution. Awareness for protecting, avoiding and subduing COVID-19 infections will also be a very fundamental need at this moment. But, because of the lockdown and even though people cannot go to work, we still need to eat . We still need to meet our basic needs by consuming products daily.
We also need people to provide protection for all of us, but how do we make this production line, retailer and delivery system much more accessible to everyone in different corners of the Asia Pacific?
We call it something like a new reality, but we will need different kinds of production and alternative delivery systems to feed everyone. Then of course, how to improve the current vaccination situation will be also a very important issue. For all of us in every sector in the COVID-19 pandemic, we do still make our daily life keep moving, but we need to think about other more innovative ways to spark long term change by engaging entrepreneurs through social enterprise and collaborative forces for building up a better, more stakeholder engagement focused platform by leveraging the social innovations that we can work on together, for dealing with different issues related to the sustainable development goals. There's still a long way to go anyway.
You're doing great work in the area, so thanks for those insights Niven.
Andes, you're based in Hong Kong. What are some of your key observations of the social innovation movement in the area that you're operating?
Actually, in the area I'm operating, I see there is a rising concern for the ESG's, I mean those environmental, social and also government issues. Then I think especially when this comes up onto the COVID-19 situation, when you cross over these two things together, there is an urgency as Niven mentioned about the situation.
I have observed this in Hong Kong, the same urgency that's creating the awareness and the willingness of holistic stakeholders.
I think there has been a new wave that has come out when this crisis came, then opportunities together began to occur. I think from my personal experience, when we did a project previously, when we talked to the funder, I wanted to do so online because it can be more efficient and effective to work out issues. This is especially if they didn't want to move around or if they had issues with mobility, so we would plan on doing something online. However, in the old days, the funder may have been skeptical because, "meeting face-to-face would be better." But now I would say when I talked with the same funder, they would do it differently and their response has changed, because they think, "well, why not give it a try?" This is the context of the whole world, or even just in Hong Kong, I think it has changed. Then, as you mentioned, it's a new reality that has pushed people to try. This was already very important from zero to one. If you want to do a small step and try something, then the opportunities that you see can actualise step by step this way. I think there are a lot of opportunities also. If I put it in the context of stakeholders, funders and resources is only one part of that. Then, even though supporters, volunteers, beneficiaries or the consumer had the same mentality in the past, they will now say, "why not give it a try?"
In response, we have to adapt something new and the urgency of environmental, social, and governance all add up together to create this mindset change effect.
That takes lots of types of innovation, and then it's easier to find partnerships because they are willing to get the job. That's why I would say Hong Kong is quite aligned with what Niven just mentioned about the situation across the Asia Pacific.
Absolutely.
Can we please hear a bit from both of you [in response to this], because both of you have broad experience in taking ideas and turning them into reality to create impact. We might start with you Andes before we then head to Niven. What's one piece of advice that you'd be giving to other businesspeople or perhaps aspiring individuals who would like to be using innovation to tackle these deep rooted social, cultural, or environmental issues, perhaps even issues pertaining specifically to COVID-19?
[Dr. Andes Leung] - For me, I think businesspeople are very knowledgeable and strong with data, strategies and analysis. I would say, especially as we were talking about social innovation with some really deep-rooted issues, which usually means that from the surface you see the problem, or the issue is not easy to tackle or you think it is impossible to tackle. I would say my one piece of advice is just try, simply try. What I mean when I say ‘try’ is if you have a big idea and you're determined as a businessman and you think it can be a success, by all means try to do it.
If it's very good, then congratulations, you're starting off big and successful! But if not, and you're hesitating to start an enterprise, but you think that impact cannot wait for all considerations to be made, then make a small step on a small scale and try it.
Then the magic will come, even though you don't initially have that very strong operation, obstacles related to funding or consumer behaviours caused by the issue exist and can give you a taste of the situation. Then, if you try your small step and nothing moves or changes, you do not currently have a social innovation. I'm a runner, and I always say that the way to do an ultra-marathon is to just put on your running shoes and then you can do it!
Great advice there, and that mentality of building, measuring and learning through a constant iterative cycle is just so important. Thank you for sharing that.
Niven, what about yourself? What's one piece of advice that you'd give?
[Dr. Niven Huang] - I'd like to think back to the previous question just to give perspective, because right now it is a very critical time for change, with an urgent need for a solution to work out the big and scary social and environmental problems [that exist]. I strongly suggest that now is the time for mainstream business to get involved, to deliver big scale solutions to work out the pressing challenges to our survival. My first suggestion is we need to make a plan that ensures the social purpose or impacts can be well positioned and delivered by the big companies. That is a very important step in delivering their technology, products or services, whether there is any possibility for them to close the gap. In the past, they didn't focus on the social and environmental issues by delivering their core product, but now those purposes should be integrated into their mainstream business models, products and services supplied.
My second suggestion is they need to be open-minded for shaping effective models for multi-stakeholder collaboration. If they just keep sticking with their original economy and business, it's not possible for them to close the gap.
Businesspeople should therefore highly welcome multi-stakeholder partnerships.
The third suggestion I have when enterprises are delivering a new motto, product and solution, they need to consider what will be the best metrics for measuring their impact and response to their social and environmental purpose. That is very important for them, to track whether their performance can meet their original expectation. The last point they also need to think about is whether the metric, performance standard and social purpose can be met. Also, it should be considered whether it is much more feasible to scale up the systems model and deliver a wider and bigger impact that can engage or support more key stakeholders. They want their support to be really enhanced so the momentum to work out the social and environmental problems increase. Those are my suggestions.
Wonderful. Thank you very much for sharing those, our audience will be able to jump into this article and delve further into this.
To finish off, I would love to hear some recommendations for particular books, resources or other things that you'd recommend to our listeners to help them on their journey. Niven, you might like to start please.
[Dr. Niven Huang] - For the APSIPA Award, we do have a lot of quite diverse partners who have joined the platform to support these awards. I strongly suggest that the audience refer to some of our partner’s websites, and these publications discuss thought leadership, and their reports are available for you as references. The first partner organisation for this award is the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, and AVPN is based in Singapore. The second one is The Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (RAISE). The third one is a global social economy forum, GSEF, which is based in Korea. Number four is the DPS Foundation based in Singapore. Number five is the Bandung Creative City Forum. Number six is the Hong Kong General Centre of Social Enterprises. Number seven is B-Current Impact Investment. Number eight is Change Fusion, and the last one is the American Institute in Taiwan, AIT.
These nine-partner organisations support this award quite a lot and facilitate information about this award being circulated in the Asia Pacific.
I highly recommend you get access to these nine partner organisation's websites, and a lot of their available information can be for your reference.
Thank you very much Niven.
Finally, Andes, what books or resources would you recommend?
In terms of resources, as this is a global channel, each member of the audience can in their circle and throughout their connections group together with a few people and start to discuss [social change]. If you are a business, or even if you are a part of the government or different sectors, try to build a circle to start with, that is my recommendation.
Then for resources, they should not only be gotten from others, but also you yourself should contribute with peers so people then want to contribute to you. I think these interactions actually act as resources already.
To add on, I would visit what Niven has suggested, those nine channels [listed at the bottom of this article]. One more I will add is the Social Ventures Hong Kong website. We actually are not specifically one or two businesses; we are looking to be a bridge for social innovators and all sorts of entrepreneurs and social issues. That's why we come across differently to people, as we have successes, failures and experiences we can share.
We actually intersect with different social issues, sectors and methodologies, that's why I think ourselves are one of the resources that you can look into. If you're interested, you can pop into our website and then we can communicate with each other and see whether we can exchange value. We're not experts in everything, but we try to grow connections and group together, so that exchange is valuable. To join the social innovation process, I think these are the resources you should look into.
Thanks very much to both of you for sharing your really generous insights and time today.
Congratulations again Andes on winning the APSIPA Special Jury Prize, and also thank you Niven for organising the APSIPA Awards and allowing us to explore these dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific.
This content is sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.
