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Search It has long been known that in order to create sustainable change in our industry for the better, certain requirements need to be met:
- You need to have visionaries dedicated to the cause, motivated by something more than a simple increase in margin and turnover.
- When it comes to deploying fresh technologies in previously unthought of ways, you must be willing to take risks.
- Additionally, you must provide a quick solution that helps customers, employees, and entrepreneurs alike eliminate or drastically reduce a chore or pain.
- You need to promise to make their seller, buyer, and consumer lives easier, sustainably. And you need to deliver on the promise made.
The founders of both ImpactBuying and PureValue are two examples of many where these requirements are met and thus point us in a direction we wish to evaluate in the lines that follow.
We cite both examples because, not so long ago, not everybody believed in sustainability as a business factor. Sustainability was seen as something dropped onto industry by regulators, causing unnecessary costs. Sustainability was seen as a cost factor.
Then, over time and especially in recent years, it dawned on most of us that sustainability should become ingrained in business to improve life on the planet. Our life. It took companies a while to see that sustainability can be a driver of business success while saving the planet and being a productive asset instead of a cost factor.
Bram van Schijndel Tromp, a Dutch entrepreneur, centred all his start-ups around the idea of making this world a better place and materialised his vision of a better business for a better planet by creating PureValue, a company dedicated to reinventing the ways promotions are run on the shop floor at retail. He wanted to tackle the mountains of cardboard thrown away and wasted each day.
Marjan Smit de Bock dedicated all her companies across the world and her career to making our lives safer, easier, and more efficient. She developed a talent to help and support the weakest people in every supply chain—those at the source. The farmers.
Both companies, ImpactBuying and PureValue, continuously test new technologies to improve their operational efficiency and business models while keeping an eye on their growing and increasing sustainability targets.
- PureValue centres around real-time data capturing, internet of things, and resetting the way businesses do operations to deliver better while becoming more sustainable.
- ImpactBuying introduces blockchain technology and connects it to zero-knowledge-proof solutions to protect data sources and allow secure participation in automated data exchange, allowing for real-time retrieval of answers to questions needed to operate better and satisfy consumer inquiries.
Both people have a story to tell and this is one of these rare moments in time the Consumer Goods Forum is able to get both on stage to tell their story about pre-competitive collaboration and inspire us all on how to sustainably make our industry more sustainable with fresh ideas and personal drive.
Join us in Kyoto, Japan at the CGF’s flagship event Global Summit 2023, on June 7th, and look out for the media coverage.
