O’right, a well known “green” shampoo brand, received an “Green Innovation Award” from E&Y Enterprise Awards in 2015. The founder of O’right, Steven Ko, was invited to the “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum” to give a speech. “I have been involved in ‘making shampoo’ for the past twenty years so today I am going to talk based on this topic and share with you the process of our business transition.”

“Remember Your Social Responsibility to the Country”

“In 2006, I realized that to emphasize the value of our brand, we have to make a ‘green revolution’ to make O’right a real green brand company. Our goal is to handle from the raw materials to wastes – this is the core value of sustainable development.” The motive of starting a business comes from the words from his father. “Don’t forget your social responsibility to the society, and your country”

Steven chose to start with business related to the environment friendly area. Not only his parents’ diseases, but also current facts, including global warming and environmental changing, are affected by the contaminated environment. Every one more or less recognized this phenomenon, but was uncertain whether it would have anything related to them. “That is why I want to be the one to start changing the environment.”

Raw Materials, Packaging and Constructions Are All Relevant to the Green Revolution

“At first, ‘Continuous Green Innovation’ was the core value of our business, and I set four goals to achieve our purpose: Green Product, Green Service, ecological benefits and social benefits. After studying MBA, I started to know the importance of CSR and social responsibility. I am glad that our business core value is in a right direction,” Ger said.

O’right’s Green Revolution can be divided by five steps – Raw materials, Packaging, Energy, Factory Construction and Supply Chain.

Raw Material: We Care What Not Shown to the Public

“The organic material will be certified or given a mark as a qualified shampoo, which is a good thing, can encourage the public to pay more attention to the environment. However, organic materials only account for 10% in the product, and we are more care about the 90% that was not shown to the public,” Ger said.

Therefore, O’right insists on “8 Nos” on adding harmful ingredients, including environmental hormones, Parabens, Formaldehyde, colorant, Plasticizer, sulfate surfactants, Cocamide DEA and ethylene oxide. “O’right is the first company that meets the standard and we hope that we can motivate the whole industry to make the same revolution,” Steven said.

Packaging: One Bottle Grows Three Trees

To achieve the vision of “Comprehensive Green”, Steven emphasized the importance of environment-friendly packaging. The product packaging often has substantial negative impact to the environment. Therefore, after research and the improvement on the product, O’right’s product packaging not only become registered trademark, but also received many awards due to its design and environmentally-friendly purpose.

“Tree in the Bottle” is one of shampoo packages in O’right, which was the winner of the Red Dot Design Award in 2014 and iF Design Award in 2014. “The bottle is made of starch extraction from wastes of vegetables and fruits, which can be recycled and broken down within one year. Besides, the seed was planted in the bottle, and can grow three trees to balance the contamination of carbon dioxide.

Another package, “Flowers Box”, is made of paper material from forest and soy ink printing. A “hand-made seed paper” was also planted in the bottle, and consumer can plant the flower by planting directly into soil. “We also use the used coffee grounds as material. Since the oil of coffee beans are useful and safe, we extracted from the used coffee grounds and also made the bottle by those grounds.” Ger was proud of their design, which also received many design award in the United States and Germany.

Construction: We have 200 Employees and 600 Frogs

“To decrease the contamination made from manufacturing, we built Green factories and Green Buildings. We especially worked hard on energy management. The electric power of the whole factories is generated by wind and solar energy. We use LED illumination, and designed to prevent the waste of any energy.” Steven said.

In addition, “water” is one of the characteristics in the construction. “We set up a bicycle-water-supply system, which not only recycles the rain, but also let employee get involved in our core value. We have ecological ponds in our company, 200 employees, and 600 frogs in our company.”

O’right also focuses on social networking. “Earth hour”, an event held by O’right, was to remind the public of the awareness of the environment. “We spent our effort and money on the product, emphasizing the core value of business. One day, our effort will be shown to the society.”

In order to respond O’right’s value, some salons adjust its design and distribution to achieve a better environment. Moreover, many celebrities are willing to promote the brand for free after learning the story of O’right.

“We will continue making changes, to make a better environment to our society and our country. I think having a great enterprise is much more important than having a huge enterprise.”

“To make a good shampoo product, we need to figure out what satisfies customers needs. Have we considered what rivers’ expect on those products?”

中文版連結

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