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]