James Ng｜Enviroment, Society, Corporate Governance and Philanthropy
Date：2021-09-27
Source: China-Europe-America Wechat Official Account
(Click to Watch Video)
Greater China VP Sustainability & GM Social Business, Danone, James Ng's Speech
Hi, I'm James. I'm the head of Sustainability and Social Business of Danone in China. Danone brand celebrated its 100-year Anniversary in 2019. To me, one of the reasons for the success of Danone is its strong missions of business success and social progress. "One Planet. One Health" is our company's vision, where we believe people's health is interconnected with the health of the planet. So, we have developed our 2030 long-term goals based on the SDGs of the United Nations to deliver our goals and to achieve our visions.
In this context, we have developed a framework of three models. The first one is business models for companies to focus on profitable growth, and also companies encouraged to be certified as B Corp as soon as possible. We have set up the target to have 100% of the businesses to be certified as B Corp before 2025. Today, more than 40% of our businesses worldwide have been certified as B Corp. In China, we have achieved similar progress. We also hope to achieve 100% certifications before 2025.
The second framework is the brand model, where our manifesto brands will continue to impact people's health locally and to protect the resources of the planet.
The third model, which we call "trust model", where we believe social inclusions and environmental protections, these are very complex and large matters. We need to empower all our 100,000 employees worldwide to work together to support these efforts, as well as to collaborate with our business partners, the NGOs, the experts, the universities, the associations, the chambers of commerce, the governments, etc., to make it happen.
For the environmental part, we focus on four areas. The first one is climate change, where we are committed, the Group is committed, to being carbon-neutral globally by 2050. Today, some of our brands already achieved that milestone, for instance, Evian Mineral Water. The brand has achieved carbon-neutral certifications last year. In some of our plants, for instance, our infant formula plants in Wexford, Ireland achieved carbon-neutral, certified as a carbon-neutral plant.
In China, we have been putting a lot of efforts on this. For instance, we have been tracking carbon footprint over the last 13 years. So, this was some of the foundations that we have laid. We hope to achieve the first Mizone plant to be carbon-neutral next year.
The second one is the regenerative agriculture, where we work with partners, and also to support farmers to achieve sustainable agriculture practices.
The third one is water stewardship, where water source protections, reductions of water consumption, for instance, these are very important efforts for our water businesses.
The fourth one is circular economy, especially for water businesses. The packaging where we use are recycled, the recyclable materials or compostable materials, where globally we have achieved more than 80% of this, and for Mizone products in China, is 100%, either made of recyclable materials or recycled by design. Danone has entered China since 1987. Today, China is our second largest market.
Similar to business success, social progress and sustainability are our key efforts here. It's very important to us. So, we have set up a social business called NutriGo together with Professor Yunus and also the government, to help improve the health of kids of the middle- and low-income area over the last 9 years.
Similar to our efforts in carbon footprint tracking, we have been putting a lot of efforts into social and environmental area, where we think it is important for us to support the government efforts and visions of Beautiful China and Healthy China. Thank you very much.
