Dare to Dream Big - The Sustainable Road for Enterprises

        On Christmas Eve 54 years ago, Apollo 8 carried out the first human mission to circumnavigate the Orbit of the Moon. It inadvertently took the first picture of "the earth slowly rising from the lunar horizon" in history. Looking at the vast dark and silent space, a blue gem was full of vitality, bringing the view that we should look at the earth from the universe and reflect on the relationship between things and ourselves: this is the planet on which we live, and the interior of the earth is an interconnected ecosystem, Any change will have an impact on the entire planet.

        After Apollo landed on the moon, it inspired people to reflect

                In 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon, inspiring human reflection on ecology. If we compare the Earth to a spacecraft, where resources cannot be obtained from external sources and must be self-sufficient through internal resource cycles, including energy, oxygen, water, nutrition, excretion/waste, etc., then everyone is an employee of the spacecraft and has an obligation to save limited resources and maintain the public environment on board; This is also the conceptual foundation of the later 'recycled economy'.

        The "Earth Spaceship" is an ideal and Universal value statement, but since the industrial revolution in 1850, the temperature of the earth has been rising, and the global average temperature in 2020 has risen 1.2 ° C higher than that before industrialization. The frequent occurrence and impact of climate disasters caused by global warming have set new records, gradually making the Earth unsuitable for human habitation.

        At the same time, human economic activities have also brought impacts to society. According to the World Development Report of the World Bank in 2003, out of 5.98 billion people worldwide in 1999, nearly 1.2 billion people (20%) lived in extreme poverty with a daily income of less than USD 1, with two-thirds of them located in Asia.

        Due to the awareness of the impact of human development on society and the environment, the earliest ESG concept emerged in the WHO CARES WINS report released by the United Nations in 2004, believing that enterprises should attach importance to Sustainability Development and reflect corporate value at three levels, including Environmental, Social, and Governance.

        Frequent food safety issues drive SOGO to promote sustainability

        The organizational sustainability of FE SOGO Department stores originated from a series of Black Heart Food Safety incidents in Taiwan in 2014, with the Black Heart Oil incident being the most widely involved and affecting consumers.

        Given the great unrest and a series of struggles caused by food safety issues in society, we have stepped forward and demanded that supermarkets not only remove cooking oil, but also all the products of the group. This move made FE SOGO Department stores the first department store in Taiwan to eliminate the "top", firing the first shot at the group's delisting of catering and retail channels.

        This event marks the beginning of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) for FE SOGO Department stores. In 2015, we launched the first year of SOGO CSR. With the experience of responding to the food safety incident mentioned above, I am able to understand the importance of CSR internally and aspire to be the first in the industry. In that year, we realized that without sustainability, a company had no future. Therefore, although it was not a listed company, it still independently published the "Enterprise Sustainability Report". As of now, it has been independently issued for 9 consecutive years and verified by a third party.

        In 2015, the FE SOGO Department stores established the "Corporate Social Responsibility Committee", with me serving as the Section Chief, two Presidents serving as the Deputy Section Chief, and the Administrative Vice President as the Executive Director. The organization includes the Operations Department (Sales and Promotion), the Finance Department, the Accounting Department, and the Administrative Department, which is a platform for cross departmental execution and communication. In response to the concept and trend changes of ESG sustainability, it was renamed as the "Enterprise Sustainability Committee" (referred to as the ESG Committee) in 2020. In 2023, the first "Sustainability Development Office" of a department store will be established, directly under my jurisdiction. Through dedicated units, I will follow up on cross departmental communication, implement sustainability strategies and projects, and accelerate the promotion of enterprise sustainability.

        Four Tips for Sustainable Model Students in Department Stores: No Privacy

        I am often invited to give speeches in the industry and academia to share experiences in promoting sustainability in FE SOGO Department stores.

        Sustainable Tip 1: unleashing the creativity and flexibility of retailers

        Since 2018, the FE SOGO Department stores in Taipei have been collaborating with social innovation companies every year to promote local, seasonal, and low-carbon diets. They use cultural and creative concepts to market small-scale agricultural products, successfully earning the title of "Taiwan's largest small-scale agricultural exhibition", cultivating gourmets, seasoned eaters, and a thriving and sustainable consumer base year by year. The unit price of small farmers' exhibitions in 2022 increased by 21% compared to 2021.

        Endurance Tip 2: Be Brave to Walk Ahead of Regulations and Lead the Industry

        Before FE SOGO Department stores, department stores didn't know how to calculate the Carbon footprint. We spent a lot of time communicating with Environmental Protection Administration and also negotiating with peers. In 2015, Tianmu Store obtained Taiwan's first "Department Store Retail Service Carbon Label", making it the first department store in the Asia Pacific to establish the "Department Store Retail Carbon Footprint Product Category Rules".

        In 2018, FE SOGO Department stores won the first carbon reduction label in Taiwan's retail industry, becoming the first department store to be declared as a "service carbon label included in green procurement" by Environmental Protection Administration. In the past, the content of green procurement was mostly electrical appliances, energy-saving products, etc., with limited projects. However, if you purchase from the FE SOGO Department stores in Tianmu store, whether it is the reward products given to employees in the three festivals, the tail tooth spring wine lottery gifts given to employees by the Vocational Welfare Association, or the gift certificates, electronic gift certificates for festivals, or even gatherings, you can declare green procurement with 30% of the total purchase amount.

        Sustainable Tip 3. Combining Stakeholders to Build Sustainable Operations

        On Earth Day on April 22 this year, FE SOGO Department stores launched the initiative of "Sustaining the Earth and Turning off the Lights for an Hour", shutting down all external wall light sources from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., giving full play to channel influence, inviting counters and suppliers to join in, obtaining more than 600 brand responses, and jointly urging the public to pay attention to climate change issues.

        Sustainable Tip 4: Leveraging the influence of pathways to create a sustainable ecosystem

        Taking our "SO GOOD Good Children and Young Role Models" activity, which has been building a public welfare ecosystem for ten years, as an example, if we compare Good Will to living water, "Upstream" is our channel brand, working together with customers, the public, and counter manufacturers to bring a source of living water; Mid stream "is a long-term public welfare partner that injects more resources through social welfare institutions, government agencies, and media coverage; The "downstream" resources irrigate children in special circumstances, while allowing the efforts of teachers and social workers to be seen, advocating for respect for life differences, eliminating discrimination, and exploring the value of disadvantaged children.

        This public welfare project has won the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards - Public Welfare Promotion Award, which is known as the "Sustainable Nobel Prize". This year, it has also won the "Taiwan's Most Difficult ESG Award" - the Foresight ESG Award and the Model Award of the Public Welfare Promotion Group.

        In May of this year, I shared with a group of second-generation female successors in the WOB Women's Directors Association's Women's Directors College, "Dare to Dream Big! Dare to be the No.1! We don't know what will happen tomorrow, but keep doing the right things and tomorrow will become better!

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