From a social entrepreneur to a systems entrepreneur

[Music]

what do these two

things have in common a bunch of

chocolate

a bunch of electronics

not that much in common right

but what if i told you that the supply

chain of chocolate is actually

incredibly similar

to that of the supply chain of something

like the mobile phone that’s sitting in

your pocket

both of these supply chains are rampant

with child slavery and human rights

abuses

but luckily there’s been incredible

people fighting to solve some of these

challenges

most of us now know when we think about

chocolate we’ve probably heard of

fair trade the industry came together to

try to combat this huge

issue and new brands emerged like tony

chocoloni which said that they were

going to be the world’s first

100 slave-free chocolate

and it worked but you know the best part

they did really well their progress

actually improved their business

performance in sustainability

it improved their progress through

business progress and sustainability

went hand in hand for this industry

so why can’t we do it with all of the

others

when you think about your mobile phone

there are incredible

entrepreneurs out there that are finding

solutions

to turn your mobile phone into something

that’s more ethical

and more sustainable they’re going into

the supply chain and they’re finding out

and tracing where everything comes from

so that they can find a solution

companies like fairphone are striving to

be the first zero-waste phone where if

one part of it breaks you can replace it

with something else

so i believe firmly that the solutions

for pretty much

every single social and environmental

problem that exists right now

exists already we already have the

answers

so that’s why i’ve basically been

dedicating my life to try and

find and scale these solutions around

the world

i used my skills as a originally i was a

documentary filmmaker traveling around

the world

and basically became an entrepreneur and

decided to see how i could use

business as a force for good and how can

i find these visionary solutions

and share their story to give them more

visibility

it was pretty easy to be honest to be

able to convince these companies to do

good

because doing good is good for business

if you

aren’t sustainable you risk almost

every angle of your business first of

all your staff are going to quit

when i first did my first tedx talk the

title was

don’t quit your job if you want to

change the world because

you need to stay in these companies to

be able to change them people want to

work for inspiring companies

and of course you’re going to lose your

customers no one wants to buy a mobile

phone if they think that they’re

enslaving an 11 year old child

right now there’s a 16 year old suing

all of the chocolate companies for being

hired when he was 11 and never getting

paid

so customers are not going to want you

anymore well what about your investors

how many news articles have you seen

with investors divesting

not wanting to invest in unsustainable

practices trying to advance their esg

so you’re going to lose your investors

but worst of all

you’re going to have to redesign your

whole p l

because your business model might no

longer be relevant with digital

disruption with covid disruption with

climate change

maybe you actually need to start paying

for water maybe you need to start paying

for waste

so millennials are demanding it they

want purpose-driven jobs

the customers are demanding it the

profit margins are going to be

impacted you’re going to need to change

your entire supply chain and clean out

your supply chain

and last of all you’re not going to be

able to get investors or

on the plus side you’ll be able to

attract incredible investors like

temasek because you’re more sustainable

companies around the world get it

there’s a few multinationals that have

really transformed their business

you know there’s one company this french

organization one planet one health

they really believe that progress comes

through sustainability

and they’ve been on track they’ve given

billions of dollars to climate change

they’ve been able to align themselves

with the sustainable development goals

so you think this was the answer this is

why i became a social entrepreneur to

help companies like this

but then there was a little bit of a

rude awakening

the ceo of dunnon eventually got kicked

out by the shareholders

the system was obviously broken

it was no longer enough to just try and

wave my flag of

hey we just need companies to be

sustainable if we use companies we clean

up their supply chains we can make a

difference

but it still wasn’t enough

it’s still bad for business

so it’s actually shown that these kind

of activist shareholders that were the

ones that were pressuring to remove him

as a ceo

these kinds of shareholders actually

some research has shown they might

increase profit

short term but after about five years

companies actually perform worse so

they’re actually

losing money for shareholders over the

long term

so how do we fix this problem as a

social entrepreneur

you know i used to think that oh i’m

going to use business as a force for

good and

change it but we need to go beyond

social entrepreneurship now

we need system entrepreneurs

to fix this broken system

so what is a system entrepreneur well

first of all what is a system

a system is a complex way of seeing how

companies and

and even ngos environmental

organizations how we’re all kind of

interconnected maybe to non as one

individual company wasn’t strong enough

to be able to leverage their

their vision maybe what they need is to

partner

with other perhaps even competing brands

to work together to find solutions to

push sustainability forward

we need to start acting like an

ecosystem like collaboration together

so system entrepreneurs can see the

patterns and the complex ways in which

we all are interdependent on one another

but we have to be entrepreneurs

we still have to provide value to

shareholders

i firmly believe companies that are

sustainable will create

more value and it’s proven again and

again that sustainable companies can

produce more value

over the long term there’s nothing more

unsustainable than bankruptcy

so we need these system entrepreneurs to

come in

to fix this broken system and so how do

you do it

you need to look at the system of a

company right you make a product let’s

say you make a mobile phone

or let’s say it’s something you’re

making the the tedx stand

sign right look at it holistically first

of all

the raw materials where do the materials

come from

where are they sourced from is it

sustainable

is it organic farming look at really

where it’s coming from

and then once you’ve got the raw

materials and you go to the

manufacturing

then you need to start thinking okay

well how am i going to manufacture it

are there any slaves in the supply chain

do we actually know who the

manufacturers are

can we improve our human rights and once

you’ve cleaned up that part

you need to go to the next part which is

how are you getting your product out

there to your consumers

are you shipping things all over the

world do you need to reassess or do you

need to invest in

more sustainable methods of transport do

you need to move into solar buses to get

your product around

do you need to invest in e-commerce to

save efficiency and costs

and then lastly you could do an entire

presentation

on what’s known as the circular economy

or what happens to your product

after someone’s used it how can you

continue

to create value i believe there’s huge

financial opportunity

in this circular economy or

post-consumer economy

so companies need to completely redesign

their entire organizations

to create value for shareholders

but also to create value for all of the

stakeholders within their system that

they’re working on

so having this realization and being

like okay

i’m no longer i’m not going to be a

social entrepreneur anymore i’ve been

doing that for 10 years

now i’m going to be a systems

entrepreneur

well how am i going to do that where am

i going to do that

where do you think i took this picture

just kidding i did i could never take

photos this beautiful this is

some photographs by a really talented

photographer called nathaniel soon who’s

based here in singapore

and believe it or not these photographs

are taken from here in singapore

singapore has some of the most beautiful

and diverse

biospheres in the world we have half

of the world species of mangroves living

on this island

with china and india so nearby the

entire world’s population

is in this part of the world and

singapore is at the heart of it

there is nowhere in the world better to

be doing

systems entrepreneurship so we need more

systems entrepreneurs to come to this

city

this is a real picture of singapore it’s

in marina one if you haven’t been there

it’s incredible sculpture showing the

natural

plants and biodiversity but within

the city and to me it really

encapsulates this idea of can we capture

progress

in sustainability

so come come to singapore and

become a systems entrepreneur and

together we can fix

the system thank you

[Applause]