Daniel Lau – Daniel Lau's Blog

November 21, 2017November 21, 2017

Vancouver Foodie || Sing Tao News

Here’s my translated english version of the article on Sing Tao Weekly that came out on November 18, 2017. Enjoy 🙂

The Extraordinary Hong Kong Experience

In addition to tasting exquisite dishes from Hong Kong’s top Michelin-star restaurants, there is also the opportunity to meet with chefs behind the scenes and watch them create every meal from cradle to grave. Emma Choo, also known as Vancouver Foodie on Instagram, got to do just that. Her Instagram account caters to over 37,000 followers in the Vancouver food scene on Instagram. At the beginning of the year, the Chinese Restaurant Awards and Hong Kong Tourism Board partnered up with #TasteHKG to host an online competition between six Canadian social media influencers on Instagram, which concluded with over 2,000 votes for the winner of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Opportunity

Like many young graduates, Emma, who just recently graduated in the summer from the University of British Columbia (UBC) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology with a minor in law and society, looks to the future with a hope for new opportunities and endless possibilities. The #TasteHKG tour was exactly the opportunity and possibility that she was looking for. Her food adventures all began in 2013, initially only recording her favourite food moments through Instagram posts. Over time, she realized that more and more people from both inside and outside of her social circle started to like, comment, and share her food posts on Instagram, which eventually led to a new level of engagement and interaction with her followers. In just four years, Emma found her voice as a social media influencer on Instagram and her unique touch and style on her content, which helped establish Vancouver Foodie as a distinct food experience for the everyday viewer.

It was really a dream come true. During the two-week adventure, Emma visited multiple Hong Kong Michelin Star-rated Chinese and Western restaurants – one of the most memorable experiences being her visit to Chef Lee Man Sing’s restaurant, Mott 32. During her visit, Emma personally interviewed Chef Lee. She watched him cook his famous dish in the kitchen patiently and meticulously and saw that each of the junior cooks had such a deep posture of admiration towards his modest character and personality. A true chef is one that has both a mastery over the art of cooking and a character that is widely respected and admired by the people.

Meeting With Hong Kong Michelin-Star Chefs

“Each of them are top chefs in the food industry, and I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to meet them. In fact, I was really nervous after I became the social media ambassador to Hong Kong. But after all, it was a very rare opportunity and I told myself to live and enjoy each moment fully. I was very excited to meet these Michelin-star chefs and I definitely had a taste of some of the finest Chinese cuisine in Hong Kong. Every chef’s passion and drive for culinary creations went beyond traditional limits and completely surpassed my original understanding of Chinese cuisine.” – Emma

Hong Kong is absolutely rich with Chinese cuisine, innovative chefs, and world-class cooking. The downside of the Hong Kong food scene is that the rent is so high that many restaurants have to downsize, serve smaller portions, and resort to ordering ingredients manufactured in factories rather than making them in-house as per tradition. Otherwise, Hong Kong does not disappoint when it comes to offering the best Chinese comfort food and elevated Chinese cuisine.

The Big Dream

Emma grew up watching Guy Fieri from “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” on the Food Network channel with aspirations to host her own food show one day. With this at the back of her mind and having recently gone on the #TasteHKG tour, she took the initiative to start a YouTube channel as a new way to express her voice and document her food travel adventures in hopes of further exciting peoples’ curiosities of food.

What’s Next?

Emma, who just graduated from UBC’s Sociology program, is looking to pursue her passion for social justice in a non-traditional way as she realized that the 9-to-5 lifestyle was not for her. Taking a break after graduation from university, she decided to devote the rest of this year to working on expanding and taking Vancouver Foodie to the next level. In addition to producing her food travel videos on YouTube, she also hopes to collaborate with more friends and other social media influencers in Vancouver and in other cities to bring newer perspectives to her collection of food adventures.

April 10, 2016

The Future of Impact Investing is About Measuring Impact

Impact investing has been gaining traction as it has evolved over the years with the shift in consumer mindset from the sole purpose of business and investing is to make money to one that also includes solving social and environmental issues. Yes, for-profit investing is both morally legitimate and economically effective in addressing social and environmental challenges but impact investing refers to investments made into entities with the main intention of generating a measurable and beneficial social or environmental impact alongside financial return.

“Positive externalities” can be a better way to see the nature of impact investments. For example, companies such as Tesla and SolarCity were built because building advanced technology infrastructures that harness and utilize renewable energy sources in productive ways provides both positive returns for investors and the environment. These positive externalities need to be displayed in a way that is clear to investors, showing the actual impact that their investments have on social or environmental problems and how the corporations that they are investing in differentiate themselves as impact companies that solve problems that are more important than traditional that solely focus on delivering value and solving problems for their customers.

So, why is the future of impact investing all about measuring impact? In these recent decades, investors have become more clear about what they want from their investment and corporations have become more capable at capturing, analyzing, and presenting data related to their triple-bottom-line results through sustainability-impact reporting. So, who cares about measuring impact? The millennials will play the main role in the future of impact investing as they are the main recipients of the largest wealth transfer in all of history. People in this generation have become more open minded and conscious of sustainability. In order for this generation to be convinced that sustainability is the solution to long-term success of not just companies but also the planet, impact needs to be measured and displayed in a meaningful way that instigates and drives action beyond awareness.

Source: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/new_metrics/mike_hower/chris_hale_future_impact_investing_about_measuring_impact

April 9, 2016

How to Make a Material Impact on Your Company’s Sustainability

Three trends have been on the rise for sustainability: the number of companies in the S&P 500 has increased by almost 40 percent, a majority of CEOs believe that measuring analyzing, and reporting triple bottom line data with corporate sustainability ratings is key to long-term success, and a high majority of sustainable corporations in the Corporate Knights Global 100 list distributed bonuses to executives who achieved sustainability targets. With these in mind, the question now is “what is the first step that new corporations should take in their pursuit to becoming sustainable?” The answer: start by understanding what is material in the business, specifically the core inputs or factors that contribute to the long-term success of the business.

Once these material inputs and factors have been determined, corporations need to set high-impact goals. This requires corporations to not only report their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in their reports, but to also set and report their goals in relation to their KPIs and the ability of the planet to support its activities and operations indefinitely financially, socially, and environmentally. With these sustainability goals put in place, corporations can be more conscious about the business decisions they make and how they execute their activities, which leads to the last step of planning for and executing successful implementation of sustainability initiatives.

There are three key material inputs and factors that will contribute to the long-term success of corporations: people, process, and technology. With regards to people, there needs to be a team fit for driving this sustainability strategy and this will involve employees across the board from operations to management to finance and even to human resources. The key to mobilizing people successfully is to engage employees in the mission to have a mindset of meaningful impact. With regards to process, corporations need to have the right policies in place and accountability and transparency to enforce those policies. Investors and the general public need to be able to see how companies do what they do. Lastly, technology has been one of the biggest drivers of evolution and growth for corporations and continues to be to this day. Corporations can take advantage of this new age by creating new software solutions that are committed to managing and driving sustainability to the forefront. There is huge potential in technology and with the right technology, corporations can inherit and maintain long-term success with their sustainability goals at the core.

Source: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/new_metrics/micah_remley/how_make_material_impact_your_companys_sustainability

April 8, 2016

It’s All Relative – The Fatal Flaw in Corporate Sustainability Ratings

Corporate sustainability ratings are becoming the gold standard that business leaders, investors, and the general public look for whether it is analyzing a company or simply getting a first impression. The main reason why people look to these corporate sustainability ratings is because they desire to distinguish the sustainably invested corporations from those that are not. However, using these corporate sustainability ratings to do so does not, in fact, allow people to truly see that difference.

What do sustainability ratings do? They evaluate companies based on key performance indicators (KPIs) that address different economic, environmental, and social issues. Some examples of these triple-bottom-line characterized KPIs include energy productivity, carbon productivity, water productivity, waste productivity, innovation capacity, percentage tax paid, CEO to average worker pay, pension fund status, safety performance, employee turnover, and leadership diversity. However, all of these sustainability ratings have one flaw and that is not connecting these KPIs to the broader sustainability context in which companies operate. For real value and results to be revealed from measuring corporate sustainability, there needs to be a clear connection between a company’s performance and nature and society’s capacity to indefinitely support its activities and operations.

How can sustainability ratings me made useful? Right now, many companies are only reporting their KPIs and sustainability ratings through absolute and relative measurements that only give the results of the KPIs themselves and no information on how they relates to whether the specific levels of performance for a given KPI are sustainable or not. What needs to be answered is “does the earth have the ability to support these companies’ levels of performance?” The solution to this is the standardization of KPIs, where standardized targets will be created across the board for all KPIs and bonuses and penalties will be applied to scores that exceed or fail to adhere to the required standard. Each KPI will be given a specific weight and will be amalgamated to form an overall corporate sustainability rating.

Now that there is a clear connection between the corporate sustainability rating and the earth’s ability to support companies’ activities, the questions that now remain are “how do we decide how much weight to put on each KPI? How will we accommodate and standardize new KPIs across the board? How should we penalize companies that do not meet the standard for its corporate sustainability rating? And how will we get more companies to join in this initiative?

Source: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/new_metrics/cory_searcy/its_all_relative_fatal_flaw_corporate_sustainability_ratings

March 2, 2016March 12, 2016

How to Invest in Green Bonds

The time has come where it is not enough anymore for “green projects” to be solely funded by the government, cities, and environmental organizations alone. In order for the global temperature to remain within its two degrees threshold, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimates that more than US$6 trillion worth of investment is needed to fund new low carbon initiatives each year. Furthermore, the U.N.’s Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates an additional US$150 billion per year required by 2025 to propel the climate resilience of existing infrastructure. Richer countries have also vowed to climate finance poorer countries but they still fall well short of their desired targets. If the public sector is not able to cover all the required investment, where exactly will all the additional funding going to come from? Green bonds, with emerging financing models picking up momentum in the private sector are helping to bridge this financial gap. Green bonds are becoming one of the most popular mediums for investors to directly support low carbon and climate change projects, with issuance expected to reach up to US$70 billion this year. According to the UNEP, The World Bank, and the Climate Bonds Initiative, the US$1 trillion mark in green bonds issued that will finance a large portion of the climate finance gap can be achieved by 2020. However, one key problem remains for investors in this nascent market: they are unsure about what they should expect to look for when choosing to invest in green bonds, which poses a few more complications.

So, what is a green bond? It is a climate-themed bond from a government, bank, or institution that is looking to raise money to fund climate-related projects. To address the investor’s problem of where and how their investments will be put to use, there have been many attempts to set standards for ensuring that investments will actually help tackle climate change such as the Climate Bonds Initiative – a certified “green” bond scheme that is designed to simply the process for pension trustees and investors to select investment products more wisely. These “green” bonds guarantee that investments will directly contribute to low carbon infrastructure or climate adaptation projects. However, what is the problem now if these “green” bonds exist and are ready to be invested in? A huge obstacle is that investors are sceptical about huge conglomerates that issue green bonds while contributing to the problem, climate change, itself. Investors still remain clashed on this issue but Manuel Lewin, head of responsible investment at Zurich, says that it is in fact these controversial companies that will help raise awareness in this emerging market. The very fact that not only “green” companies are partaking in this initiative but that traditional organisations such as banks and oil companies are also getting on the bandwagon is what will really make a difference. The question now is, how does the green bonds market welcome the bonds of high carbon companies?

Source: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-invest-green-bonds

March 2, 2016March 12, 2016

The “Awareness” Trap: Why most companies are failing to change Consumer Behavior

The “Awareness” Trap, are we even aware of it? For decades and since the movement towards a “greener” world, sustainability-driven businesses and organizations have been trying to achieve one goal and one goal only: to change consumer behaviour from purchasing and using traditional and conventional goods towards green or greener goods. Sille Krukow, founder of Krukow Behavior Consulting, asked these two questions: Do you want to live a long and healthy life? And do you want to leave behind a better world for your children? Most people would answer yes, but the real question is would they really follow through with what they say they will do? As expected, many people would agree that their behaviour does not always live up to their words. However, this is where company and organization brand plays a role in helping people connect the dots from their words to their actions.

Currently, companies and organizations have been measuring their success of converting people into “green” purchasers through “awareness” as they hope to reach out to consumers and help them to live more sustainable lives that correspond to their ideals. “Awareness” would be measured with questions such as “how many people saw our ‘green’ campaign? “How many hits did we get?” And “how many people liked our message?” At the end of the day, “victory” is only defined to the extent of motivation and imparting knowledge and is not enough to propel the “green” movement. The hidden root of the problem is that brands assume consumers to be “perfect”, and what they mean by that is that consumers will take the knowledge that they have received and act upon it. In reality, they do not follow through because they are distracted with numerous other tasks in life to care about one more thing. With businesses and organizations trying to help consumers switch to more sustainable behaviour purely through raising awareness, the outcome just becomes another form of green washing. But fear not, this is where behavioural economics comes in.

Behavioural economics deals with how choices are presented to consumers and examines the environments in which decisions are made. In traditional stores and supermarkets, choice architecture usually focuses solely on revenue maximization, ie. Products that bring the greatest profits are those that are in the “hotspots”, where purchases are most likely to occur. With behavioural economics, stores and supermarkets can explore opportunities to change their choice architecture and gear it towards the goals in sustainability, ie. Making it easier for consumers to differentiate and select sustainable options, changing store environment, layout, and design, and incorporating “nudges” such as associated smell, sound, or color. At the end of the day, behavioural consultants and green companies and organizations need to identify consumers’ underlying goals and use techniques such as a cost-benefit analysis to determine which nudges will instigate the greatest change and effect incurring the smallest expense. Only then will there be real change in consumer behaviour towards sustainability.

Source: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/stakeholder_trends_insights/adam_gerschel-clarke/awareness_trap_why_most_companies_ar

February 16, 2016March 12, 2016

Start Now: The Benefits of Annual Impact Reporting from the Beginning

Impact reporting is not just a trend but is also becoming the tool and golden nugget that an increasing number of CEOs, such as those of Timberland, Nike and Lego, are demanding to be incorporated into their companies and investing human capital and resources into making sure that it is executed well. So exactly is impact reporting? IT is a comprehensive all-in-one account for a company’s social impact, environmental and sustainability progress, and financial performance. Thread, with a motto of “responsible fabric from Ground to Good”, has started to produce impact reports in the early stages of its business amongst many other “responsible fabric” companies alike that have developed a completely traceable and transparent supply chain with rich and robust data.

With a plethora of numbers and statistics complemented by appealing graphical figures, it is very easy to dismiss these claims as a marketing gambit or a feel-good factor tool despite them being backed by raw facts and data. However, Thread has been able to overcome this common misconception by making sure that its impact report give insight into the way that it runs its business and measures its success, strongly believing that what they measure is what matters. Impact reporting only becomes stronger and more credible as years and decades pass by because not only will a company be able to scale its operations to become more efficient and sustainable, there will also be historical data that will allow readers of the impact report to discover and recognize its trends and see the bigger picture behind a company’s story.

At the end of the day, impact goals are tied to financial goals, production, and sales targets amongst other components of a company in this chain effect, which ensures what Kelsey Halling, the Impact Director of Thread, calls “buy-in across the entire organization”. The impact report ultimately reflects a triple bottom-line company in the truest sense and has grown into a powerful marketing and sales tool that has appealed to investors and consumers. Impact reporting is power.

Link: http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/startups/kelsey_halling/start_now_benefits_annual_impact_reporting_beginning

February 4, 2016March 12, 2016

Green Is the New Black: Levi’s, Nike Among Marketers Pushing Sustainability – Responding to a Consumer Behaviour shift

According to Natural Marketing Institute’s shades of green, I would most probably fall under the “conventionals” category describing myself as someone who is aware and for the environment but does not always uphold sustainability because of laziness and costs, which play into my lifestyle choices and purchasing power. Personally speaking, with this mentality I am only most likely to purchase sustainable products if the masses start adopting and purchasing these new green products as trendsetters. In parallel but on the supply side of the story, the same chain effect is happening with companies in the consumer goods and services market.

Companies are responding to consumers’ behaviour shift like a trend. Conglomerates like Levi Strauss, Nike and J&J amongst many of the big players out there are adapting to the new market of green products and adopting this new emphasis on green products. Levi’s claims that its jeans are made from just about eight recycled plastic bottles and Nike claims that its knitted sneakers cut manufacturing waste by 88 percent. As evidenced by a survey conducted by brand consultancy BBMG in 2013, “more than a third of global consumers, including 40 percent of millennials, view style, status and environmentalism as intertwined”. To these consumers, sustainability has changed from being “the right thing to do” to being “the cool thing to do”, shifting the emphasis of valuing the need to do it to the want to do it. Based on this new change in perspective, for companies it is really not about offering a niche green product but rather offering a green band through building sustainability into the bloodline of the company in every single process no matter how big or small.

Companies are slowly but gradually shifting their segmentation, targeting and positioning from offering products that fall under the “feel-good factor/transient” quadrant that encompasses altruism and an external locus of control to the “value parity/green differentiation” quadrant that encompasses economic motives and an internal locus of control. Offering green products to the market is not enough to gain a competitive edge over competitors anymore, the new era of consumer preferences are now demanding companies as a whole to become green and this in fact is the new way to gain a competitive edge over competitors.

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/green-new-black-levi-s-nike-among-marketers-pushing-sustainability-153318

January 21, 2016March 12, 2016

The Problem with Sustainability Marketing: What’s in it for me?

Have you ever wondered why selling sustainability is still so hard? You have seen the news, you have read the reports and you have probably experienced this firsthand when you go into a supermarket and stumble across social and environmental credentials as you scavenge for the foods that you want to purchase. It is an all too familiar scene and people have obviously long known that sustainability is the way to go if future generations are to even have a chance at survival. But the real question is, even with consumers that actually care about sustainability, why has not substantial action taken place all this time? Yes, the world has been promoting initiatives and yes, there has been a multitude of people who have been convicted to act on these initiatives. But how do we convince the rest of the world, specifically those falling under the “confused” and “conflicted” shades of green to care about and act on sustainability?

According to a study conducted by National Geographic, the number of global consumers who have expressed a deep concern for the environment amount to approximately 61%, though actual sustainable purchasing behaviour has been decreasing. This explains the so-called “value-action” gap between what consumers report in surveys and what they actually do. Think about some of your sustainable purchases or any sustainable products that you might have stumbled across, what do the labels or captions say on the product? More likely than not they probably prompt you to take action through perhaps persuasion, pressure or guilt-trips, all for the greater purpose of sustainability. Stop for a second and think, how does that make you feel? After seeing this type of sustainable product, you probably have another reason not to make this sustainable purchase on top of a premium price. You are probably wondering, would I really buy a sustainable product if this were how it is marketed to me? All in all, there is actually nothing wrong with the values that these sustainable products uphold but rather it is the value that these sustainable products offer.

Up to now, sustainable products have only been offering to consumers what these products can do for the world but not what these products do for them. As consumers typically look for three attributes when making a purchase, functional benefits, emotional benefits and social benefits, it is important for companies to keep in mind that they cannot shy away from what the consumer cares about. The question that needs to be posed apart from “what can this product do for the world?” is “what can this product do for the consumer?” At the end of the day companies need to remember that marketing sustainable products needs to be a two-pronged approach, one that involves not just corporate social responsibility (CSR) but also creating shared value (CSV).

Would this encourage or change your purchasing behaviour towards sustainable products?

Article Link:
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/behavioural-insights/2015/mar/09/problem-sustainability-marketing-not-enough-me

November 14, 2012November 14, 2012

Skype Or Windows Live Messenger?

After reading Long Wei Lau’s blog about “Skype or Windows Live Messenger?” I began to look back and think about what made me switch from the once popular Windows Live Messenger to the new trendy Skype. To be honest, I do not remember why I made the switch from Windows to Skype. Long Wei says that Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 because Skype showed signs of increasing growth and future potential to gain a larger market share, which it is currently fulfilling forecasts. Could this have affected my decision to switch?

I think the reason why I switched from Windows to Skype was purely because my friends started using Skype. But what makes Skype better than Windows Live Messenger? The main point of parity is the ability to communicate conveniently, through instant messaging, voice calling, and video calling. However, the main point of difference between the two is Skype’s ability to facilitate voice calls and video calls to phones, mainly to smart phones, which most people now possess. Looking back at why I made the switch from Windows to Skype, my decision to switch to Skype was mostly unconscious and uninformed. I don’t regret it at all though. Skype makes it very convenient for me to socialize with friends and work on team projects, especially with those who live far away. Somehow, the market had an indirect influence on me to switch to Skype. When I launch my Windows Live Messenger, I have a natural instinct that tells me that I would rather use Skype. But after all, what is the underlying effect that made me and all of my friends switch to Skype?

Blog Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/longwei93/