Green Style is one of the social enterprise organizations that aims to change behavior to be environmentally friendly and promote the reduction of greenhouse gases.
Green Style Co., Ltd. is an organization that provides consulting services for certification of Carbon Footprint Organization (CFO), Carbon Footprint Product (CFP), Carbon Footprint Event (Carbon Neutral Event), Greenhouse Gas Reduction Project Consultant and distributor of environmentally friendly products.
In this episode, we will get to know Green Style Company Limited with the story of reducing greenhouse gases, reducing global warming and climate change, leading to economic, social and environmental sustainability from an interview with Ms. Mam Charanporn Lertsahakul, Managing Director and Co-Founder of the Company.
The beginning of Green Style
Ms. Maem said that before becoming Green Style Co., Ltd., it was not easy. The origin is that before this, all the team members used to work in NGOs or environmental foundations in Thailand. Ms. Maem herself graduated in management, but because she was interested in the environment, she went to study environmental studies directly. After graduating, she worked for a foundation. However, it turned out that the nature of the work was not sustainable because she had to constantly find projects to raise donations so that the foundation could continue to exist. And it’s not just Ms. Maem’s foundation, because most foundations in Thailand survive by raising donations almost everywhere. Therefore, if environmental work is to be truly successful and sustainable, you can’t just wait for donations.
The beginning of a social enterprise
At that time, the trend of social enterprise was just starting out. Maem saw that being a social enterprise would be the answer. She still chose to work on the environment, could earn money, and could also solve environmental problems according to her goals. When the last project of the foundation ended, Maem chose to change her path to do social enterprise business. All the team members who used to work for the foundation came together to do social enterprise.
“We want to see this kind of environment stay with us for a long time, stay with our children and grandchildren forever.”
When choosing to do business in the environmental field, many people will ask why we have to solve environmental problems? Why not help people or society directly? Khun Maem said that her current work started from her personal interests. Khun Maem herself likes the environment, likes the color green, likes trees because when looking at them, they give her a refreshing feeling. When she tried working in the environmental and youth sectors, such as training or knowledge sharing, she found that she was even more passionate about this field, so she chose to continue working in the environmental sector.
“Working in the environment is not easy.”
Working on the environment, the most difficult thing to answer other people’s questions is what will happen? Will the problem be solved? Will the environment improve after attending the training? Fortunately, in this era, scientists have started to be interested in researching and disseminating information to spread knowledge and what humans can do to preserve the world. Scientific data shows that we can use the amount of greenhouse gases reduced as an indicator to evaluate tangible success.
“We aim to find ways to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible.”
Many organizations are starting to pay more attention to greenhouse gases. Therefore, there is a push from the government and private sectors. There are laws, regulations and company policies. For example, every company listed on the Thai stock exchange must undergo a greenhouse gas assessment. This is an operational direction that is in line with Green Style’s work as a consultant on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, assessing greenhouse gases and the Carbon Footprint of various organizations.
“For people to change their behavior, they must first have knowledge and understanding of what needs to be changed.”
With the goal of Green Style itself, it is to change people’s behavior to be friendly to the environment. But for people to change their behavior, they must have knowledge and understanding, whether it is through providing knowledge through various media or training. Because when they have true knowledge and understanding, they will begin to realize the problem, which will affect their thoughts and attitudes in the future, how should they participate? In which direction should they improve or change themselves?
Environmentally friendly products
The company collects and distributes environmentally friendly products, including Green Product, Eco Product, and Green Living Product. Environmentally friendly community products are used to help promote sales, both certified and uncertified. Because certification also costs money, Green Style uses these products to promote sales so they can sell. When they sell, they can raise their standards to receive certification and improve the quality of their products in various forms.
“Using environmentally friendly products is like paying for the future. We pay a little more, but our environment improves, our quality of life improves.”
Everyone thinks that eco-friendly products are more expensive than regular disposable products. But in fact, the higher value is because the purchase volume is low. When there are fewer buyers, the price is high. Another reason for the high price is that the manufacturer has already paid for the care of the environment. Eco-friendly products are made from materials that are easy to decompose and will not pollute in the future. If more people help buy them, the price will be cheaper.
Adapting to the COVID-19 situation
Ms. Maem said that the company itself has also changed its business model due to the COVID-19 situation. Selling products had to be suspended because ordering products to stock up was expensive. And the impact of COVID-19 itself made it impossible to sell these products as much as it should have. Currently, the company focuses on services, consulting, and providing knowledge and training on the environment, greenhouse gases, waste management, etc. Currently, the company offers consulting services. In the future, the company aims to upgrade itself to become a greenhouse gas and carbon footprint auditor in order to be more stable and sustainable.
“Before we evaluate others, we evaluate ourselves first.”
Ms. Maem explained the company’s goal that setting a goal to reduce greenhouse gases should not start with customers, but should start with ourselves first. In working here, the company has a goal to reduce greenhouse gases and its own Carbon Footprint first, measure and evaluate ourselves to see how much results we have achieved because we have to learn and do it before we can give knowledge to others and help advise others.
“Greenhouse gases and carbon footprints are easy to do, assess, know, and verify.”
The company does not set a target for customers to reduce by how much? But will give advice to customers instead. Currently, there is a project with the Stock Exchange of Thailand to calculate initially that if we reduce paper by this much, how much greenhouse gas will be reduced? For example, the company’s real goal is to let everyone know that reducing greenhouse gases and carbon footprints is easy. Seeing the numbers of how much change we have created? These things will be like encouragement to help create tangible changes.
Conclusion
Khun Maem left a message that in order for a social enterprise business to operate long-term and steadily, we must be able to answer whether we can truly solve the problem or not. Sometimes we may not need to interview anyone to measure our success, but receiving various forms of certification can also be an indicator of our success. For example, Green Style has received certification from the Greenhouse Gas Management Organization. Customers can find our information from there.
If a social enterprise wants to measure its success, it can try to find ways for its products or services to be certified or standardized in their field. This will create more credibility and will make the business even better. There are also wider channels, which will help the business do well.
When it comes to the environment, some people may think it is a distant matter. But the environment is something that surrounds us all, sometimes it is so close that we can even touch it. And this world that we live in is not too far away for you to help preserve. Our behavior can only be changed when we gain knowledge and understanding about it, turning it into awareness. Then we will know the next step, how we should act.
“If we help reduce greenhouse gases, it means we help cool the world, help reduce global warming.”
Green with Style | The Practical Sustainability “Friend” Enterprise Society
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Contact channels
: Tel: 089-515-0247
E-mail: greenstyle.se@gmail.com
Website: http://greenstylethailand.com/
Fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/GreenstyleSE
Supported by the Office of Social Enterprise Promotion (OSEP)
