What does sustainable business mean to small traders and micro-enterprises? More importantly, how can the businesses of B40 group be transformed to another level through sustainable practices? My team has been privileged to have the opportunity to assist in driving towards this socioeconomic enhancement by applying the GPM P5 Standard for Sustainability in Project Management in a sustainability coaching session conducted at Bagan Datuk and Teluk Intan NCER centers in Malaysia.
As part of the ongoing “empowerNCER – Skills & Entrepreneurship” program (NCER – Northern Corridor Economic Region), I was involved in this community upskilling workshop by assisting in the coaching session of 6 micro enterprises: Murukku trader, Plant Nursery operator, Barber, Wedding Event planner, Doughnut seller and Tailor. This program provides participants the knowledge and empowerment needed to either enhance employability or obtain specific skillset crucial in growing and sustaining their business. Participants range from orang asli, women, youths, unemployed graduates and retrenched workers from the B40 community.
Through this one day (out of several visits over a 3-6 month period) sustainability coaching session, I deconstruct the P5 standard and apply the framework to model after each participant’s unique business scenario on the ground, beginning from the chronological perspectives of Product, Process, People, Planet and Prosperity. The various relevant pillars under each of these 5 categories were discussed to ensure the participants could correlate the course materials shared with their real world understanding of their own business operations and handling.
The coaching session started off with a strong foundational grasp of ensuring the robustness of the very components that make their business, a business: the products/services they sell and the processes and/or standard operating procedures they have in place to ensure the delivery of their value proposition. With this out of the way, the coaching session inched towards the importance of building a strong social pillar to support the business ecosystem of staff, community, suppliers and volunteers, before culminating in the crucial need of environmental preservation and the resulting prosperity as the binding glue that keeps everything circulating in a productive and resilient manner.
It wasn’t long before I realized that it truly takes a lot of humility, creativity and courage with a “shake-em-up” mindset to pre-digest what is often – a rather “elitist”, distant, seemingly out-of-reach and worst still; misunderstood matter such as Sustainability – into a concept or form that is understandable and relevant to the participants’ needs.
Carbon credits and sustainable financing mean nothing to them. Neither will carbon tax, emissions, reporting or the flurry of activities surrounding the push for energy transition at the corporate level; not especially when they are struggling to make ends meet. However, it was all about mindset change, the hidden cost of good behavior and outcomes, plugging leakages, developing efficiencies, sales and marketing, pricing strategy, customer engagement and just simply keeping afloat in this challenging economic times. Weaving the sustainability narrative into the dynamics of the above-mentioned interacting components remains a challenging but not impossible task.
Truth be told, being sustainable is a lot of work. But it’s good work. Much needed good work. To the uninitiated, this work is seen as time wastage and therefore, uneconomical. Yes, to a certain extent but only if the full value of a product/service lifecycle is not harnessed. Case in point: waste management. Small businesses should first and foremost be privy to the smart management of waste generated from their business.
Start with recycling and be conscious of using sustainable packaging. The Murukku trader was pleased to know that he could resell his crushed snacks as animal feed, the Plant Nursery operator was open to the idea of using coconut husks as substituted material for polybag and lastly, the Doughnut seller was excited about using biodegradable packaging made from paddy husks.
Once this waste management strategy is implemented, communicate to customers about this value proposition resulting from diversion of “waste valuables” from landfills. Educate and engage them on the importance of leaving a positive impact to the environment. Finally, incorporate this perceived value proposition into their pricing to help defray the cost of good behavior, time and effort. Easier said than done and difficult it seems, but it’s possible.
Therein lies the conundrum. How can the adoption of sustainable business practices be accepted as a “cheaper” solution in the long term for these small businesses? Key point here: in the long term. This question has to be addressed at the community level, as any notable positive outcomes from sustainability have to be driven by a groundswell of enlightenment at the grassroots level (bottom-up) to meet the top-down approach as well. My take is to have constant education, awareness and engagement with the relevant stakeholders, guided by a robust, comprehensive and practical standard such as the P5.
One of the key highlights of this sustainability coaching session is to open up the minds of participants to the distinction between a product manager and a project manager. The former alludes to a very limited and tunnel vision of linear transactional outlook in selling a standardized product/service under predefined boundaries, while the latter caters to demanding and varying requests for customization in meeting diverse application needs and challenges through value-adding. The unique hard and soft skillsets required for a project management mindset – a “green” one that is – is critical to the success of any businesses and organisations, all the more so when it comes to small businesses who are usually sensitive to market forces.
I’m truly happy and excited for these budding entrepreneurs to have the opportunity to be exposed to a practical and empowering tool such as the GPM P5 standard, which is also used by Petronas to safeguard their health and safety measures.
Kudos to the Malaysian government for recognizing the effectiveness of this highly relevant and enabling international sustainability standard and making this accessible to the B40 community.