Ecocert is a French company, a pioneer and world leader in certification for organic agriculture, textile, forestry, cosmetics and eco-products. It was founded by a group of local farmers and agronomy engineers 32 years ago, and now has 1700 collaborators around the world. I have the pleasure of leading the team and business in the Asia-Pacific region.

As market demand evolves, Ecocert now offers services relating to sustainable and ethical certifications as well (e.g. fair wages, child labour, modern slavery, community impact…). Thanks to its stringent processes and high quality audits, the certifications issued by Ecocert guarantee and highlight the best environmentally friendly and socially conscious practices. With its Training and Consulting branches, Ecocert provides suitable solutions to promote good environmental and societal practices, across all sectors globally, with the main objectives of working towards a more sustainable world.

I consider sustainability a strategic business agenda. Having been in the shoes of a business leader, I fully understand it is hard sometimes to know where to start with such a broad yet critical topic like sustainability. What it is exactly all about, how to drive change with people, where to find the right team to push initiatives, how to get internal stakeholders buy-in, what to focus on, how to find tangible partnerships outside the organization, what are the fast-changing regulations saying, how to use a plan decided at HQs far from the reality of a country/region, how to measure success, and more...

All those questions are currently preventing some organizations and leaders here from moving (faster) on the sustainability tracks. So, based on my experience as a business and team leader and leveraging on my sustainability knowledge, acquired both on the ground and in a classroom, I am extremely proud to be part of the Ecocert leadership team to provide real tangible solutions when it comes to working towards a more sustainable world.

I decided to join Ecocert because their mission, values and goal fully aligned with my purpose at this stage in my career.

The brand Ecocert is also highly respected in the organic world as a pioneer and leader, and with 80,000 customers in their portfolio, this is a great testimony that Ecocert is a good company to work for. They have ambitious objectives in the region, want to drive innovation and explore new markets, which are very exciting challenges for me to work on.

For a few years now, I have been looking for my “Ikigai”, this Japanese concept of finding the balance between what you love (passion), what you are good at (profession), what you can be paid for (vocation) and what the world needs (mission).  With this role at Ecocert, I strongly feel like I have found my Ikigai!

My previous company strongly believed in the power of norms and standards that help achieving a higher degree of quality, safety, and security. We were always ahead in terms of ISO certification, Data Security and Privacy, etc.

On the sustainability front, we were following the GRI standards. However, as you know, they are based on self-declaration. So, it became natural for our senior leadership to have our sustainability policies and practices audited by an international organization leading recognized standards around sustainability. It was important to be measured by experts against best-in-class companies, and useful to identify the areas in which we were strong and those we needed to work harder in. We felt that the timing was right in 2019 to get audited, as our Sustainability Committee was in place for some time and there was increasing pressure from the business and our clients to display strong sustainability commitments.      

Since its founding in 2007, EcoVadis has grown to become the world’s largest and most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, with over 75,000 companies using Ecovadis certification services. Each company is rated on the material issues pertaining to their company's size, location, and industry. Each company is assessed based on evidence and is provided with an easy-to-read scorecard. Scorecards provide guidance on strengths and improvement areas, which companies may use to focus their sustainability efforts and develop corrective action plans to improve their sustainability performance. So, it is an extremely easy-to-use audit system with clear actionable items and it was really the most relevant guide for my previous employer at the beginning of their sustainability journey.

In terms of process and impact, it is crucial to have full support from senior leadership for a company's sustainability agenda. It must come from the top, and the top needs to show that it is a crucial topic for the business and its people. If there is no clear and ongoing commitment from senior leadership, internal buy-ins will take longer to get, changes will be harder to drive, and ultimately people involved will start to lose focus.

So, after our first audit where we did not score as expected, we regrouped with the Sustainability Committee and the Senior Leadership to drive a much stronger internal communication campaign with more visible initiatives, all driven from the top. A special Ecovadis taskforce was created, covering all key functions of the organizations. Time was set aside for the people involved to ensure that there would be no excuse if tasks were not completed on time. All Group Exco members were aware and aligned to extend support. We provided regular updates to the Senior Leadership, and we knew we could get their quick advice when decisions needed to be made.

In less than 6 months, there was tremendous progress made in the overall structure of our Sustainability agenda, policies, processes, communication, across all pillars. The Ecovadis corrective action plan also really helped to focus resources and energy on key areas, to prioritize tasks and to fine tune our strengths.

I am most proud to be the Singapore Ambassador for Ecomatcher, a digital platform helping brands fight climate change with tree planting and forest regeneration. Selling several thousand trees with Ecomatcher has been a very exciting and fulfilling experience. And more forests to come, hopefully.

Ecomatcher sells forest planting to companies, for them to use trees as a gift to employees or customers. It aims to integrate tree planting into any business, and aims for everyone to think of trees as gifts, rewards and loyalty programs, instead of the usual plastic stuff. Ecomatcher partners with foundations and NGOs around the world specializing in tree planting and forestry, working with local communities as well. The Ecomatcher App then allows recipients to see their trees grow via satellite imagery, to see and chat with the farmer in charge of the trees, to see how much CO2 has been captured by the tree so far, and so many other cool features related to the trees, carbon footprints, and sustainability.

Note that Ecomatcher is not an “official” offsetting program (with offset certification, etc…) and does not want to be one, as the end game is elsewhere. Of course, all trees planted by Ecomatcher sequester carbon in large quantities, which is paramount and does not require a certificate, but it also goes way beyond just offsetting. The app fosters an emotional attachment between recipients and their trees, enables interactivity and delivers good fun for the user. Ultimately, with such a great experience involving trees and forests, we really want to change mindsets and have people view trees as a gift for any occasion.