Jeremy Hobbins: Li & Fung comprises of four listed subsidiaries. Our largest and best-known company is Li & Fung Trading and the purpose of that company is to source products for many of the world’s well-known consumer companies.

 

Our concern is with the supply chain and my role is at the holding company level called Li & Fung 1937 and it is the controlling shareholder of its subsidiary operations. I report to the chairman of the group and in that capacity I guide, direct and influence the operations of those subsidiaries plus some other private companies that are not listed that we have. 

 

Yes. Each subsidiary is independently listed, they have their own board of directors, they have their own management teams and they report ultimately to their shareholders. And consequently they have to be responsible for their own actions. The role that I undertake is one more of guiding, directing and making sure that the standards are appropriate and as we want across all of our companies. 

 

Yes, there is myself and two people who help me. However, in the group, we have in Li & Fung Trading, we have 144 people dedicated to ensuring what we are undertaking there is sustainable in its nature and then we have a variety of people operating in their own subsidiaries. A lot of these people have other jobs but a big part of what they do is sustainability.

 

It is absolutely critical for us. Sustainability has become a driving force increasingly now in our business in the last, let’s say, five years and the momentum has increased and continues to escalate until this very moment. In the last couple of years, it’s become a predominant requirement and this is driven by I think by two fundamental factors. 

 

One is the demand from our customers. Customer demand is obviously critical, it’s what drives our business and their customers, in their case the consumers who drive this, be it customers of WalMart, B&Q, Marks & Spencer, Abercrombie and Fitch, Toys-R-Us, all of their customers are increasingly demanding that the products they are buying are sustainable. So that’s a key factor for us. 

 

I think number two is the fact that there’s quite an awareness internally, our own employees and our other stakeholders are quite demanding in terms of the activities they are undertaking, they feel conscionable as well. So that’s certainly been the driving force for our business. Whenever we discuss this subject we have a great deal of support for it and this is not something we’ve had to overcome resistance. 

 

The third thing that comes to mind is the impact of technology. It’s had an impact because it means that we can undertake our activity more effectively. Now whether that’s LED lighting versus fluorescent lighting versus normal light bulbs, whether that’s conferences, video conferencing versus traveling on planes, whether it’s in the form of less paper, in the form of LC and payment documentation.