Navigating Eco-Credentials and the Greenwashing Complex: Operational vs Superficial Decisions

Stuart is Associate Director North Asia at IBIS Consulting working extensively in the sustainability sector for 17 years in Asia and Europe. His background is in the resource efficiency sector and, since 2013, he has worked in the sustainable finance space, helping clients to understand environmental and social risks associated with investments.

My Sustainability Goals for 2022:

Hong Kong to bounce back from the pandemic with one eye on sustainability; finding a more sustainable approach to business, not just a return to business as usual.

Setch Chang leads the commercial development for Morningstar Sustainalytics in Greater China and Korea, working closely with banks and corporates to understand their sustainability ambitions and provide counsel on integrating ESG and sustainable finance into their businesses. Previously, Setch worked in Institutional Capital Advisory, Nomura Asset Management, and HSBC.

My Sustainability Goals for 2022:

Raising awareness of sustainability among business owners.

Serial social entrepreneur & trends forecaster Sonalie Figueiras is the founder & editor-in-chief of Green Queen, an award-winning impact media platform advocating for social & environmental change through inspiring & empowering original content and one of the world’s leading outlets for alternative protein news. She is also the founder & CEO of Ekowarehouse, the global sourcing platform for certified organic products and the co-founder & CEO of SourceGreenPackaging.com, the world’s first global marketplace for sustainable packaging with a mission to fight single-use plastic waste.

With over a decade of experience in publishing, digital marketing, organic trade, sustainability, alternative proteins and green packaging, she is an eco wellness industry veteran with a keen eye for market trends and a sought-after international speaker and moderator, sharing her expertise on stages across Asia and beyond, including Harvard Business School and two times at TEDx. Further, Sonalie is a global advisor at Social Ventures Hong Kong, an Impact Purpose Organisation committed to re-imagining Hong Kong as a purpose-driven city, an advisor at The Remedy Project, which revolutionises access to justice for migrant workers globally, a cause close to her heart, and she is an avid home cook and published cookbook author.

My Sustainability Goals for 2022:

Grow Green Queen Media, Grow SourceGreenpackaging.com.

Coral balances her time between her clients in the private sector and the students of HKUST’s Business School, where she serves as a Marketing Professor, teaching Marketing and its role in the planet and in the society, Brand Activism and Strategy.

Born in Barcelona and raised in Switzerland, the USA and Catalonia, Coral has lived and worked in four continents and across diverse industries, including FMCG, Personal Care, Fashion, Pharma, and Hospitality, for over 22 years.

My Sustainability Goals for 2022:

Sustainable consumption and production considers the entire life cycle of economic activities, from the extraction of resources, processing these resources into materials and products, the use of these products, and finally their disposal as wastes or emissions.

By doing so, Sustainable consumption and production helps to identify and develop solutions for improving natural resource use that achieve multiple sustainability objectives simultaneously or “win-win” gains that occur when economic, social and environmental aspects are jointly addressed.

Based on a systems approach Sustainable consumption and production manages burden shift and delivers an overall net benefit on sustainability. It also helps to link activities across time and scale to provide a long-term perspective on their impacts.

Vivien Teu is a partner and head of Asset Management & ESG at Dentons Hong Kong. With more than 20 years’ extensive corporate and commercial experience advising financial institutions and financial services sectors, including numerous strategic joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions, Vivien has acted for some of the largest global and regional financial institutions and asset managers on legal and regulatory matters for cross-border financial markets access, investments and platform building, as well as extensive experience advising investors and other market participants. Vivien is market-leading in having developed a unique focus in her practice on corporate and regulatory issues around environmental, social and governance (ESG), sustainable finance, responsible investment, impact investing and social finance. Vivien is a key member of the Dentons Global ESG Steering Committee as the co-lead for Sustainable Finance. In this role, Vivien is active galvanising and working alongside colleagues with multi-regional and multi-sectoral knowledge and expertise within Dentons, in advising financial institutions as well as corporate clients on legal, regulatory and compliance matters over a range of ESG issues and in meeting challenges and opportunities in the transition to a low-carbon economy across key sectors and regions.

My Sustainability Goals for 2022:

On the foundation of Hong Kong’s netzero commitment, to see more businesses across sectors taking account of environment impact of their operations, products, services and supply chain, and embracing transition pathways on the green and sustainable finance infrastructure Hong Kong has established.