Participants in the spa industry shoulder great social responsibilities. Sustainable development is an issue that we should always bear in mind.
By Lyn Huang, Founder of BeiYang Import & Export (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
The coronavirus outbreak has not only caused great pain to many families, but also threatened the global environment.
It is reported that used masks are discarded everywhere on the beach of Lamma Island in Hong Kong. At least 70 used masks can be found every 100 meters. It can bring big harm to the environment.
Take surgical masks for example. The main raw materials of the mask is polypropylene non-woven fabric which can take decades to decompose. It means that before they are completely decomposed, they will continue to pollute the soil and surface water and further impact on the plants, animals and human life.
In addition to the pollution caused by masks, pollution can be found everywhere in our lives, such as the environmental pollution caused by plastics, freshwater pollution caused by dyes from textile factories, the huge waste of resources resulting from the bicycle sharing economy, islands filled with marine rubbish, tundra melting due to global warming, and more.
We need to pay urgent attention to environmental pollution. We live in the same planet community and we are so closely connected. It is everyone’s obligation to make a contribution in protecting the environment and leaving our descendants a clean Earth. To solve environmental problems step by step and realize sustainable development calls for the participation of people from all walks of life including the government, scientific research groups, the public and the enterprises.
The government’s role is to make policies and laws to support sustainable development and environmental protection, and to advocate for relevant campaigns. The contribution made by scientific research groups lies in their efforts in working on the theory and techniques for sustainable development, as well as relevant product development. For the public, their obligation is to actively respond to the policies, such as conducting garbage sorting, using recycled products, and reducing the usage of non-renewable materials and products.
Enterprises can do the following to support sustainable development:
- Build, foster and advocate the concept and culture of sustainable development, and carry out relevant strategies for sustainable development.
- Carry out measures for sustainable development within the enterprises including purchasing and using energy-friendly equipment and facilities, as well as renewable materials.
- Purchase environmentally friendly raw materials and do the best to only work with suppliers sharing the same concept.
- Launch sustainable products and services to meet the needs of the customers.
As participants in the health industry, our work is to bring health to more people and help them live better in a good environment. So it is our unshakable duty to drive sustainable development. We should not only follow the trend, but become an advocate and leader in practicing it. With the power of commerce, we want to plant the concept of sustainable development into the hearts of everyone and every detail of their daily life.
Since its foundation, BeiYang has been deeply aware of the significance of sustainable development. So in every sector of the company’s operations, we try our best to practice sustainability. We have launched Planet Care Plan and strictly carried it out in our daily operation. Details of Planet Care Plan are as below:
- Planet Care Working: Low carbon and environmentally friendly practices in the work. For example, we ask staff to work at home during the pandemic; energy conservation measures are taken in the offices; and recycled paper are used to reduce waste.
- Planet Care Sourcing: We established the Planet Care Sourcing plan step by step with our suppliers. We require our suppliers to increase the proportion of products made from renewable materials. We also urge our suppliers to get certain environmental protection certifications such as GRS, GOTS and FSC. We guide the whole supply chain to practice sustainable development.
- Planet Care Product: We have introduced and developed a series of sustainable products including:
- Swimwear brand Loop – made of renewable material REPREVE®
- Washable masks – made of renewable materials PET and nano materials
- Nature’s Design – completely made of non-plastic materials
- Pinks – recycled glass products
- Planet Care Investment: In the investment sector, we check whether the potential investee is practicing sustainable concept and strategies. For instance, we have invested a bag company who mainly manufactures bags with recycled cotton, recycled polyester, organic cotton, recycled zinc alloy and other materials meeting the requirements of sustainable developments such as FSC certified paper and washable brown paper.
In addition, during the pandemic, BeiYang worked together with its holding company Ellisons and became the first in the industry to launch disposable spa consumables made of zein fiber and bamboo fiber, which largely reduce the cross infection risks while strictly conforming to the concept of sustainable development and without influencing guests’ experience.
In the future, the high-end spas in China will increasingly seek cooperation with comprehensive consultant companies who can give them strategy consulting, concept and construction design, and opening and operation supports. Such companies should consciously provide spas with products and services that conform to the standards of sustainable development. We believe that all our peers involved in the high-end spa industry will surely become the active participants and leaders in the sustainability campaign. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We are calling for all friends in the spa industry as well as all walks of life to practice sustainability from very little things in our daily lives.
Lyn Huang
Lyn is a senior spa industry figure. She founded BeiYang Import & Export
(Shanghai) Co., Ltd as U.K. Ellisons’ subsidiary in China, and a Partner of BAILEY CREATIVE consulting company. She once worked for the German maga-zine The Most Wanted GMBH and U.K. Ellisons as brand designer and management director.