Alex Jensen: It’s Friday, November 26th. Hope you’ve had a great week. I’m Alex Jensen and you’re listening to Koreabizcast with the KBLA. Now how many of the brands we see, use, and even run ourselves every day are truly sustainable. plastic waste, for instance, is a problem in Korea reaching over eight and a half million metric tons last year, and moving in the wrong direction, up nearly 15% from the year before, single use plastics on the only issue not by a long way. So how do we get on the right track? Our guest today on that mission, as this episode is brought to you by the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul, stylish elegance in the very heart of the city.

Alex Jensen: So now we can welcome Lewis Patterson, CEO and Founder of Latitude 45 in New Zealand, and Founder and Director of Latitude Inc in Korea, as well as MinGu Jun Consultant of Latitude 45 and Country Director of SB or Sustainable Brands Korea. Thank you both so much for being with us.

Lewis Patterson: Pleasure, Alex. Thanks for inviting us.

MinGu Jun: Thanks for having me.

Alex Jensen: If we can start with you, Lewis, you’re both in New Zealand right now, just to make that clear. Lewis, Sustainable Brand as a story is fantastic. But then we have this other brand Latitude 45 and Latitude, Inc. Can you give us an overview of how this all seamlessly ties together?

Lewis Patterson: Sure, thanks. So, Latitude 45 was established in New Zealand in 2007. And we focused on representing New Zealand companies that were looking to enter into the Korean market, it was important that we were in Korea to do that work. So ultimately, I established or founded Latitude, Inc. in Korea as a Korean company in 2010. And post that we continue to do our in-market representation of New Zealand brands but evolved into a having a focus on sustainability. And that led us into the conference world back in 2017, or 2016 actually, where we initiated our first conference to raise the awareness of sustainability and to introduce some practical sustainable options for Korean companies. And ultimately, we ended up linking in with SB which is a global platform established out of the US back in 2004, who were looking at doing similar things or who were doing similar things in the sustainability space. And we subsequently picked up the Korea chapter of SB in 2019.

Alex Jensen: The SB story from your side MinGu, if you can also come in on this, can you tell us how you got involved in, how you met Louis?

MinGu Jun: Yeah, I met Lewis in 2017, Latitude Conference on Sustainability & Innovations. And we get to know each other, and I moved into New Zealand and studied Master of Religions to just rescan religions in New Zealand. And after that study, Lewis asked me to join Latitude 45 and take the roar of Country Director. The roar is running in training and running in SB Korea chapter from 2019. So, I took the job and moved on. And by far, that was my job to run the Korea chapter, or SB.

Alex Jensen: Or we can get on to the state of the circular economy and sustainability here in Korea in a moment. But I also wanted to come back to you Lewis, on the whole idea of holding conferences here in Seoul and the kind of connections you can make through that and the value it might offer people in whole range of industries and businesses?

Lewis Patterson: The conferences in the valley they can offer for start here. Initially, we weren’t in the conference game. So, we were all about researching what would make a difference in terms of sustainability, the impacts we were having through our businesses on the environment, and actually trialing practical solutions for the environment such as closed loops, for example, new technologies and new packaging. But what we found was that the Korean companies that were knocking on the door have to get involved or engaged in the solutions ‘didn’t see the value?’ or didn’t have an awareness of the global trends or the impact a business was having on the environment. So, we thought ‘what can we do?’ to really boost awareness, really drive some engagement amongst the Korean companies we were trying to work with in the space. That’s where we started. So, we didn’t have a background in it, and we went cold turkey at this conference gig in 2016. And we focused on packaging at that time and from there, it evolved into a much broader based view on sustainability with a focus on different sectors be that transport or food, and also a more, broader base focus around, you know, where are the global trends heading? And what type of innovation is, is on the doorstep or watch innovation should Korean companies be looking for, and it grew year on year, as we got more companies involved.

Alex Jensen: So, to get those companies involved, it sounds like the conference platform is an excellent way to make connections, would you say that you’ve been able to get the kind of traction that otherwise would not be possible through individual meetings or any other kind of way of networking?

Lewis Patterson: Yes, absolutely. What, you know, Korea has a lot of conferences, so conferences are new. There’s globally link conferences as well. But what we did differently, and why we’ve managed to develop some very strong networks, and a reputation which has led us into the, you know, the Prime Minister’s Office to consult on sustainability has been because we’ve taken a slightly different angle. And we’ve tried to make it real and very globally linked. So, what I mean by making it real is that we’ve tried to introduce into our conferences, the actual solutions, tangible solutions, by getting the companies and speakers engaged, that will have a relevance for the Korean market. Examples of that, for example, might be the Eco Store, for example, which introduces a refill option for products. And that really wasn’t big in Korea. Another example is how we introduced, you know, really leading-edge companies in the alternative eggs space to sell agricultural space. So, we bought and shop meats and Memphis meats. And this is a was a whole new discussion for careers at the time. And from that, we’ve got a lot of respect and a lot of buy in, some of it in retrospect. Because the Korean companies at the time when we introduced them, it was almost too far ahead of the game, you know, that’s not going to happen, Lewis, you know, interesting, cute but is it really going to be reality. In hindsight, some of those companies who have introduced have now been gaining huge investment. Shock leads, for example, who was just a startup when we introduced them, suddenly, they’re raising 30 million and around. And ultimately, we’d like to think we’re part of it, you know, they’ve had investments since from Korean companies, such as Woowahan brothers and CheilJedang. So, yeah, the connections have come because we’ve stepped out of the original conference mold that you’d otherwise seeing Korea.

Alex Jensen: MinGu, what would you say is the status there North Korea right now, in a number of these areas, from plastic waste to other areas of sustainability, the circular economy that I refer to before that we perhaps are hearing a lot about, but not always seeing the tangible progress on the street things? For example, I heard a few years ago that convenience stores were going to start, like making it harder to use plastic bags. But actually, still, many will just give out plastic bags without charging for them still. And there’s a number of other areas where you don’t necessarily see the policies being carried out at street level.

MinGu Jun: Yeah, actually, I think that is true, I think a more like the Korean consumers and incorporate doing these kinds of activities based on the compliance and legal requirement. So, the many of those kinds of plastic, the policy leasing policy is driven by the Minister of Environment, and the government is giving some directions and make things mandatory and those cooperates are meeting those requirements and providing those options to the plastic bags and everything. So, some other companies are doing a little bit bored action. But still, it’s kind of a compliance based. So actually, you can see things are changing based on that the legal requirement is changing. And that is the roomed for the SB Korea and left you introducing the global trends and innovative solutions, how those global cooperates providing the more bold solutions and innovative practical actions to actually make a change on the street level. So, we decided to working with SB where the global community I joined together discussing the most updated state of art technologies and innovations and actual practical solutions to make things happen in industry level. So, we are still working on that. And some of the Korean companies are following the thought leadership and try to implement like Amorepacific quickly catch efficiency and usefulness of early refill stations of Eco Store. So, they represent his work with the Ministry of Environment, and they are now providing the refill stations for through the E-mart. Working with the E-mart. So those kind of things is happening. But still, there’s a lot of works, more work to do.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, I saw one of those refill stations just the other day, actually in an E-mart. And I had to ask what it was, it did feel, to be honest, like this was on the fringes of the shopping experience there, though, rather than being something that was very well advertised, for example, to make every shopper know what’s going on. And Lewis, I mentioned in the introduction, some statistics about recyclability here in Korea, that there’s still a lot of plastic that cannot be recycled. That’s a big problem and that’s just one area of sustainability. What’s your assessment of the status of this country?

Lewis Patterson: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. So that’s quite a granular look at it, then plastics obviously have a really high profile. So, if I put that into context, that’s not the biggest issue, it’s the most obvious one that gets the focus of consumers is like fruit labels. So, you know, the pack that you fruit comes packed in, for example, can get a really high focus, and that has a relatively low impact in terms of the carbon footprint. So, if we look at the status of that level of change required to get us out of this mess, we’re in in terms of the environment, what’s going to be needed is a change in thought. So, changing away from that linear model, instead of tweaking the type of packaging we have, instead of tweaking the existing car, even battery, which is a huge gain, of course, is still not changing the system to not changing how we move from place to place, or how we consume. So that’s still the big gap. And it’s not just Korea that faces this challenge of moving from one mindset to another from the linear economy to a circular one. But it preys probably a little bit further behind the play in that. So just to take you back to the discussion around reuse, that is an example of taking us back ironically because we used to do a lot of reuses to a circular model. And that’s where we’ve got to get back to not just in terms of consumer items but also in transport, and any number of other areas from day-to-day life. So, and that’s what we’ve tried to introduce to the conference and what we proactively invest in through latitude to try and get that shift and thinking to happen. I will say you’re talking about plastics, and there’s a lot of options that are not recyclable. But if you look at the capability that risk within Korea to achieve a closed loop on plastics, it’s very high, you’ve got a lot of chemical companies that have all the smarts and capability to close that loop, there’s just got to be a financial incentive for them to do it, unfortunately. And equally, because of the infrastructure in Korea, you can also see that there’s the potential for Korea to change that system as well and go more circular and change the way we operate.

Alex Jensen: And Lewis, you talk about the carbon footprint being relatively low for plastics. One area that I think we all witness around us is air pollution. And there has been a drive back towards fossil fuels during this year’s energy crisis. We’ve already touched on that on this podcast. But at the same time, we hear from the President, and we’ve heard at COP26, all these bold goals for reducing carbon emissions and turning to renewables. I just don’t know whether we’re seeing evidence of it yet. For years we’ve been hearing about it but yet the reliance on renewables is still extremely low here in Korea.

Lewis Patterson: Yes, indeed. Alex, if you’re going to be cynical, you’d ask how to say blah, blah, blah in Korean. We have been hearing it over and over for many years and I’m not seeing here the level of progress it needs to be made. But I tell you what, if we, if we land on COP, briefly, the governments have come up with much stronger targets. So that’s very positive, that’s still behind, we will need to be to reach the magical 1.5 degrees Celsius. But what I see as positive out of COP26, and moreover, just the general noise around that, is the anger from the consumer? And so, we’re seeing it, you know, the protests and COP26. But outside of that, and irrespective of COP26, there’s enough knowledge and concern around kind of the direction we’re headed in, that it will and is having an influence on how brands act. So, you’re getting people that are really angry, that are not buying, avoiding brands that don’t have a clear and genuine purpose. And that will also not buy products and this they can see or understand what the environmental impact that is, be that it’s carbon footprint or be that it’s plastic pollution, they want to understand the smart as well. So, they are very informed about what the implications of certain products are and can be and are calling brands to account. So, COP26 is a good start.

Alex Jensen: Or like, I guess you have to be optimistic to be doing what you guys are doing. Because if you get too downhearted about it, you’re gonna find it difficult to motivate yourself dive in, obviously, there are improvements over time and there is room for hope. MinGu, are there any other areas that you’d like to highlight at this point?

MinGu Jun: Be from the Sustainable Brands point of view. So, this or discussion about circular economy and reducing plastics and everything is part of discussion that is focusing on and operational side impact and product service side impact, but SB is kind of providing more of a holistic view or how brands can be more sustainable. So, like, for example, the SB is providing its corporate members with a tool called Brand Transformation Roadmap. This tool is providing five key characteristics of Sustainable Brands which is purpose and brand influence operation and supply chain, product service and governance. So, in these five areas Sustainable Brands are providing five maturity levels. So that corporate is assessing their different performance and improvement in different areas, and where they are, and they do benchmark with other corporates. So that they can learn from others and collaborate with others and make an improvement in each of their five characteristics. So, it is impressive and like RE100 kinds of renewable energy use is more in an operation and supply chain and product service side. But Sustainable Brands is providing more holistic view with how this corporate should define their purpose and make the journey in the successful in the long term. And how they make the systematic change inference through their brand and analyze and how they define the robust and sound governance. So, these are the more holistic view and not just focusing on the each of the specific sustainability issue area. So that is kind of a key benefit of get involved in the Sustainable Brands activities and take this kind of holistic view of tools and make more holistic improvement in their activities and performances. That’s one thing differentiates SB from other approaches.

Alex Jensen: Well, Lewis, it seems like every brand of a certain size is claiming sustainability. And we do here this regular claim of greenwashing. But if you go through their ESG corporate reports on an annual basis, whatever it happens to be, you know, they provide a lot of reasons for why they’re apparently eco-friendly, why they’re apparently introducing more sustainability into their production and supply chains. How do you assess whether a company’s actually walking the walk?

Lewis Patterson: Yeah, great question, Alex. And there’s no absolute way of doing that. Because some of it is that you may not be in a position of sustainability now, but you’ve set the pathway to get there. And you’re genuine about it, how do you see if people are genuine, they going to have to measure where they are now and measure progress towards the certain goals. The other bit is about you just being transparent and honest. And, you know, that comes from experiencing the brand and from engaging with brands. So, it’s not something you can necessarily see through online reports, they are important, don’t get me wrong at all. But it’s interesting. You picked out a couple of brands, for example, that are walking the talk. Some of them, your Tesla’s a big obvious one, but another one would be Allbirds, for example. So, they’ve built their brand around sustainability to a large extent. And what they’ve managed to do is grow on that. So, it shows us a value in that, but it also shows the benefit of transparency. The ironic thing is that Allbirds have recently, you know, been called out by a consumer in the US for not being as sustainable as they claim. And that’s a real concern because actually, you know, if you didn’t pick Allbirds, as the footwear of choice based on sustainability, you’d be walking around bare feet. And the problem is a lot of brands are too scared to talk about their journey, because of what you’ve just said in terms of greenwashing or if we say that we’re going to get caught out because we’re not doing enough.

Alex Jensen: Yeah, we are at a point now where the conversation has moved on to the extent that consumers may well be choosing brands based on sustainability investors, certainly are taking ESG factors into account. And it’s not impossible to see sanctions being imposed on countries and corporations that don’t play ball in the years to come. Combining all that together, what’s next for you guys?

Lewis Patterson: So yeah, another good question, Alex. We are going to continue what we’re doing to the extent that we’re going to keep investing in very targeted solutions ourselves where we know there’s a real need, and they will be based on closed loop solutions. We want to keep the platform alive and help other brands get there and MG mentioned, MinGu mentioned the tools that SB offers to help brands along that path. We’ve used the mouth off, so we will continue to offer that platform to support brands as well. And we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. You asked before about, you know, is it hard to get up in the morning. When things look like such doom and gloom and, you know, it is, it’s really hard sometimes it can be really depression, depressing, but you do get up and there is that hope and you see good brands, good people doing the right things and focus on supporting those brands, taking those brands further.

Alex Jensen: And for you, MinGu?

MinGu Jun: Yeah, so, I think this ESG discussion in Korea is more focusing on the governance and how they establish a top management level of decision making in terms of sustainability. So, they are displacing ESG committee in the director of board level, and they are making the global system for the reporting and data gathering. And they are doing some initiatives like reducing plastics on different stations on a circular economy and they do some of those improvements in their use of renewable energies. So, those kinds of thing is will be kept going on. But we are going to be adding more kind of board actions to that which is integrating ESG will be their brand and marketing. So, as we is providing the tools like a brand transformation roadmap so that corporate understand where they are, what is the point of improvement in different characteristics of a sustainable journey. So, the Korean cooperates is really good at establishing the robust governance and doing some improvement in progress services and operations supply chain. But in addition to that the Sustainable Brands that are providing the initiative called the ‘Brand for Good’ and in that initiative, Sustainable Brands are providing the tools and guides to so that the corporates are genuine about their purpose and linking their ESG port and performances and with the brand and marketing initiative. So, Korea is more like a green hushing rather than greenwashing. So even though they are doing a lot of things and then making a significant or meaningful improvement in what they’re doing. But it’s sometimes it’s really small scale because they are really cautious about telling the stories because they can be thought about as a greenwashing like paper, the bottles issues around Amorepacific, even though there is really great approach but sometimes it can be regarded as a greenwashing. So, they tend to just keep calm and green hushing thing. So, now, what we are providing with a Brand for Good and this kind of ESG and brand marketing linking initiative is that they find a really sweet spot, what consumer wants and what corporate and brand can provide with either equity, and in creating us meaningful change, collaborating and empowering the stakeholders and consumers and also their competitors, the making real change. So that is kind of our step four from now on. So, we are doing some kind of research called Socio-Cultural Trend tracker which is being done in US market, but we are doing it in Korea and other three countries of Asia-Pacific is also doing it. So, it will come out early next year. So, we got to understand what is actual the genuine consumers need to be more living more sustainable life so that we can make those research input into this kind of discussion, how corporate can integrate these kind of needs and aspirations of consumers into their marketing brand, marketing strategy, and making meaningful change with innovative campaigns and marketing initiative. That’s the way the journey forward to us.

Alex Jensen: Well, and both of you are based in New Zealand right now. But we’re hoping to see you in Korea in the not-too-distant future. What’s the plan for the next conference here?

Lewis Patterson: Yeah, likewise, Alex, I expect to see you in Korea soon. The borders are opening up. So, from my perspective and I certainly think MG as well, we will be up and Korea in the near future early next year, most likely. We have caught the SB Asia Conference in February this year. So that’s a focus, particularly for MG currently to get that run, run well. And then we will be looking at you know, what is the environment look like for an in person and again a really exciting engaging conference that we can again, showcase some of the real cool stuff, that innovative stuff that’s coming down the path for sustainable solutions. So, nothing locked in yet, Alex, but we will definitely be seeing you at some stage during next year. Hopefully sooner than later.

Alex Jensen: Well, Lewis Patterson, CEO and Founder of Latitude 45 in New Zealand, and founder and director of Latitude, Inc. in Korea, as well as MinGu Jun, Consultant of Latitude 45, and Country Director of SB Korea. Thank you both so much for giving us a very realistic but I think also a hopeful view of this entire area of sustainability as it relates to companies ESG, we’ve covered actually such a broad range. It’s been fantastic to connect with both of you.

Lewis Patterson: Thanks, Alex. I’ve been a pleasure.

MinGu Jun: Thank you. It’s pleasure.

Alex Jensen: And look forward to hopefully seeing you both in Seoul or in Korea generally in the not-too-distant future. So that wraps up our conversation on a subject that no doubt we will be revisiting again in the fairly near future and hopefully, that’ll be a sign of progress. And if you want to have your say on that or any other topic, find us through LinkedIn search, KBLA or email info@kbla.net, I want to say thanks again to our sponsor for today’s episode the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul. We’ll be back Monday. Hope you get to be with us again then.