From social innovation to business for good – a global dialogue

We are living in turbulent times. Poverty, inequality, youth unemployment and climate change are among the challenges we are facing. Business for good is becoming the new norm in this new era.

Over 2019/2020, a global consulting team came together to produce a new piece of research: Business for Good: Understanding the Motivations for Business to Create Shared Value. Businesses today have to do more than traditional CSR practices if they want to identify new growth areas, stay competitive, attract customers and talents.

During this dialogue, we will discuss one of the key challenges facing businesses today – how to attract new audiences and continue to be relevant for younger customers with different priorities and values. We’ve invited two inspiring speakers from Asia and Europe, to share how businesses are reinventing themselves to continue to thrive in the fast-changing world.

Date: 25 May, 2021

Time: 17:00-18:00 (HK) / 10:00-11:00 (London)/ 11:00-12noon (Amsterdam)

Contributors

David Yeung, Green Monday, HK

David Yeung is the Founder & CEO of Green Monday Group, a multi-faceted social venture with the mission to take on the world’s most pressing crises of climate change, food insecurity, and public health.

Marcello Palazzi, NOW Partners Co-founder and B Lab Global Ambassador

Marcello is an impact entrepreneur and economist with 35 years global experience focused on Better Economies, Enterprises and Entrepreneurs for public good. He is the Co-founder of NOW Partners and is currently Global Ambassador for the B Corp Movement.

Ada Wong, HK

Ada Wong founded the Make A Difference (MaD) initiative, a platform to nurture the next generation of innovative changemakers in Asia. She is also the Founder of the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture (HKICC) and, most recently, The Good Lab – a social innovation hub and do tank in Hong Kong.

Moderated by Louise Pulford, SIX

About Green Monday

Green Monday’s mission is “making the Chinese diet greener”. David Yeung, its founder, started Green Monday as an advocacy platform (be a vegetarian once a week on Monday!), encouraging “baby step actions” which could be easily followed by anyone. It has since evolved as a company advocating a holistic green lifestyle, with subsidiaries carrying out R&D and production of plant-based meat, distributing its brand of OmniPork to restaurants and fast-food chains (including MacDonald’s in the form of OmniPork burgers and sandwiches), operating the Green Common restaurants and shops with its own products (OmniPork dim sum, rice packs and the like) as well as catering services. The Green Monday movement has been expanded to over 30 countries including Mainland China, Singapore, Thailand, USA and the United Kingdom. Read more about Green Monday here.

About the SIX Global Dialogue Series

SIX Global Dialogue Series aims to expand our worldview by connecting diverse insights and perspectives together. Social innovation practices vary across different places around the world. Political, social and cultural contexts of innovation matter and it is vital we understand them to accelerate learning and exchange across borders and sectors, in order to better prepare for the common societal challenges we face as humanity.

In this conversation, we focus on building Asia’s Social Innovation narrative. Currently, many social innovation practices in Asia largely look to the US, UK and Europe for models. However, due to very different political structures and cultural foundations, the adaptation of social innovation in the region is very different. In these Global Dialogue, we are inviting Asian social innovation practitioners to exchange in conversations with their peers from around the world.