If you’re familiar with carbon emissions, you may have heard of Scopes 1 and 2.
Scope 1 refers to direct carbon emissions created as a result of an organisation’s activities, such as manufacturing and transportation.
Scope 2 refers to indirect carbon emissions created as a result of the organisation’s energy use, such as from electricity and other sources.
Both scopes 1 and 2 are part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG), which was created by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
But what about Scope 3? Scope 3 refers to indirect carbon emissions outside an organisation’s control but still related to its activities, such as upstream supply chain emissions. This includes contracted suppliers creating products for your organisation.
Why is it important to track Scope 3 emissions?
The importance of data: Data is the first step to accomplishing any goal. Before reducing your carbon emissions, it’s important to know how much they are and where they come from. That way, you won’t be wasting time and money on initiatives that don’t have a big impact.
Scope 3 is more impactful: A company’s total emissions are usually mainly comprised of Scope 3 emissions (80 per cent or more). This fact alone makes accurately measuring Scope 3 emissions essential in an effort to reduce a company’s overall carbon footprint.
Scope 3 is hard to measure: Scope 1 and 2 emissions are easier to track because the company has direct control over the processes that generate them (such as production). On the other hand, Scope 3 emissions stem from external sources like suppliers and customer use of products, which makes them more challenging to measure.
Recent approaches to collecting and tracking data
Most companies are required to disclose certain aspects of their carbon footprint through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Similarly, all publicly traded companies in the US must disclose information regarding their impact on the environment in SEC filings, including statements about climate change risks, in accordance with Regulation S-K Item 101(c)(1) and 101(h).
While most organisations comply with public reporting requirements simply because they’re obligated to do so, there has also been an increasing push for voluntary sustainability reporting. Companies are going above and beyond what law requires to report on how they manage greenhouse gas emissions from their entire value chain, known as Scope 3 emissions.
By doing this and making it part of ongoing business operations, organisations can help build trust with stakeholders who care about sustainability issues such as human rights and corporate social responsibility.
How blockchain can be used to collect and track Scope 3 emissions
Blockchain is a digital ledger that uses cryptography to record transactions in blocks of information. These blocks are linked together in a chain, and each block contains the time-stamped data and a reference to the previous block.
Once a transaction is recorded and added to the blockchain, it cannot be altered retroactively without changing all subsequent blocks, which is virtually impossible. What this means for companies looking to collect emission data from their suppliers is that once data has been committed to the blockchain, it cannot be changed or tampered with by any party except those with permission.
Accurate measurement of Scope 3 emissions to reduce carbon footprint
Scope 3 emissions, or indirect emissions from a company’s value chain, are a critical part of measuring an organisation’s overall impact on the environment. From employee travel to your company’s packaging and supply chain practices, Scope 3 emissions add up quickly and can be difficult to track.
Take the example of a consumer goods company: The packaging it uses for its products is made by another supplier, and then that packaging travels through various distribution centres before it reaches retail stores or your home.
In this case, the consumer goods company has Scope 3 emissions because they didn’t directly source the materials used in their packaging or emit the gases associated with transporting them to their final destination.
However, despite not being directly responsible for these actions, this information can still help them more accurately measure their carbon footprint and make more informed decisions about how to reduce it in the future.
In fact, Scope 3 contributes to more than 80 per cent of many organisations’ total carbon footprints. Tracking as much data as possible on an immutable blockchain ledger will ensure that everyone involved in bringing people goods and services from companies and suppliers all the way down to consumers can be held accountable for reducing their environmental impact efficiently and cost-effectively.
How GreenToken by SAP can help
GreenToken enables you to participate in a private, permissioned blockchain solution for tracking Scope 3 carbon emissions. The network comprises trusted members, suppliers, customers, manufacturers or other partners. This can be used to support the sustainability and carbon footprint accounting and reporting needs of an entire industry, providing better data accuracy as well as reduced costs and time delays in processing.
Why a private network? Blockchain is a shared ledger system with multiple participants across nodes connected by a peer-to-peer network. In some cases, companies may not want to share their data publicly due to security concerns.
In such cases, they need an option where everyone on the network has access, but not everyone can read or write information from it. A private blockchain provides this type of confidentiality and also makes sure that only authorised people are able to join the network with proper permissions.
With this type of architecture in place, enterprise users will have more control over who sees what information while maintaining transparency between all parties involved since they are part of one shared ledger system.
Another benefit of using a private blockchain is the low carbon footprint, which is comparable to conventional databases. This is unlike the large footprint of public blockchains, which make them unfit for the purpose of tracking carbon emissions.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
With blockchain becoming popular globally, DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations) are gaining momentum. According to Investopedia, DAO is an emerging legal structure and used to make decisions in a bottoms-up management approach.
As the concept is still evolving, many are still in the dark and have no idea how it works or what are its uses and benefits in real life.
In this interview, DAO expert Siddharth Krishnan speaks with e27 about the emerging technology, its use cases and benefits.
Below are the edited excerpts:
What is a DAO? How does a DAO work? One needs like-minded people on board for a DAO to work. How can one find and get individuals with a common goal on board?
I would describe a DAO as a tool.
I would touch on certain philosophical aspects of DAO. Let’s look at how coordination has been achieved over the years. We have had massive coordination failures to address critical topics, ranging from climate change to inequality. The reason is that getting people across geographies to coordinate on a goal is very hard.
What DAO does is that it introduces a fabric or a layer for these people to engage and work with each other to achieve a common goal. It distributes power and comes up with different ways in which you can govern these decentralised communities.
It is not different from other community-building efforts we are familiar with in Web2. If anything, what a DAO does is that it breaks down certain components, which lie solely on trust.
For example, if you want to pay someone working on building a community, you need to trust him and what he does, and there’s an exchange between the work and funds.
In the case of a DAO, there are many different ways to reward contributions. For example, you can trust the tool to know that if I do some work, I could then ask to be compensated for the work retroactively.
So after I’ve done the work, I could get paid for it. DAO is essentially a trusted proposal system where people can vote to siphon funds from a treasury into a person’s account like in a shared wallet. It’s a shared wallet with permissions.
While onboarding members, the traditional marketing aspects also apply to a DAOs. We are moving towards a more organic approach. The more communities that you (as a DAO creator/member) are plugged into, the more each community you plug into to form your own circle/network within that community.
It’s through true organic means that you will find the most successful DAOs prospering. This is because they’re attracting people who share the same link. After all, being part of a community, you share the same values and likes, and then you find out about things organically.
That is essential to onboard people because it’s not just about having members in your DAO. The core thing is about getting people to contribute. And if you want someone to contribute, one needs to go above and beyond just sitting in your Discord. You need them to write things for you. More than any marketing, organic connections are the best way to grow your DAO.
There are different types of DAOs. What is a developer DAO that you are more familiar with?
A developer DAO is a DAO focused on growing the software developer community for Web3. It means giving developers a place where they can come, learn and build, and have a community to fall back on every time they need help.
Even if they want to progress out the We3 ladder, you have this kind of DAO to do these things.
They run various activities — from hackathons, education material, and partnerships to community guilds. It’s a decentralised community with members from all over the world.
Siddharth Krishnan
Can anyone start a DAO?
Anyone can start a DAO; all you need is a group of people with a shared bank account. You’re going to a restaurant, and splitting the bill is a miniaturised version of a DAO.
So as long as you have a clear mission as to why you’re doing this and what value you’ll bring to your DAO members, it is easy to create a DAO. The tools are available in most ecosystems.
Once the DAO achieves its mission, can it be disbanded?
As we know, a DAO is all about proposals. So if you structure your governance procedure in such a way that you should have in your process, you can have a proposal saying, ‘okay, we have achieved our mission. I am voting to disband the DAO and channel all the funds from the treasury to every member’s wallets’. If the proposal passes, the treasury will be drained, and the DAO will be disbanded.
Are DAOs relevant for Web2 as well?
I wouldn’t view Web2 and Web3 as different things. Web3 is an evolution or sequel of Web2. Often, the sequels tend to be worse. So whatever we’re building here applies to Web2 as well. I almost view Web3 as a state of mind you develop or have while building new software.
It often means you prioritise value creation and ensure that you’re extracting as little as possible because, in Web2, it’s a zero-sum game. When you want to attract customers, you make things valuable and attractive for them, but at some point, you run out of customers to attract.
To continue growing, you must extract from your existing customer base. You then realise that now if you have to extract from your customers, you also need to from your partners and stakeholders.
When you prioritise value creation, you always ensure you extract as little as possible. And that way, you always ensure that the best product wins. So the best software always wins because as long as it’s creating value, it will always grow.
And when it stops creating value, whoever else creates value should win. Because at the end of the day, the best products should have users. So that way, you’re always attracting, and you’re never extracting. It’s the idealistic model.
But I think we strive towards and can somehow come somewhere in the middle. All will be a better version of the internet than we have today.
Do you need to register a DAO? How can one register it as it is a decentralised organisation?
Legal frameworks are still evolving for this. You’ll notice that there are many different structures that people are adopting worldwide; different DAOs are choosing different ways to incorporate them. I wouldn’t say there’s a right way or prescribed way yet. The best is the way that lets you function and operate the quickest, at least right now in a legal manner.
Incorporation is something that is going to be a top priority for a long time, especially given how diverse jurisdictions are. Just the sheer diversity every day, for example, in developer DAO, you have at least one person from almost every continent in the world. And then you have people spread across distributed even within these continents. So it’s a very tricky thing that will take a long time to establish. So yeah, I would say there isn’t a standard now.
What if a few members quit the DAO before achieving the mission? Can the DAO builder onboard new members then?
If a member fails to contribute or decides to quit the DAO, one will transfer the ownership of one’s NFTs to another member. Either you transfer it out of goodwill to someone more deserving, or you could sell your NFTs on Open Sea so that someone else can buy them to gain access. Currently, that’s how it works.
Can a member manipulate the DAO and indulge in scams? How can such events be prevented?
That is how it’s structured and how the governance works. Right now, because there’s so little information outside, we’re seeing a lot more scams because there is a strong need to do your own research on these things. Over time, as with all the other things we’ve seen in crypto, you become more and more informed on the dos and don’ts in setting up these organisations.
Even with NFT projects, you now have certain signs telling you this is good or bad. These signs will get more and more codified and structured. And it will be ingrained in us. There would be the kind of society with self-imposed regulations that we are doing within our society or community ahead of regulation catching up. It is going to take time. It is up to us as a community to educate people around us. Those are the steps to take right now in forming the best practices for how a DAO could look in the future.
How is DAO relevant to the startup ecosystem?
Every software company starts as a startup, and these startups then grow and scale over time to become big. Over time, people will stop differentiating geography and boundaries, and we will have more and more decentralised communities forming.
After all, an organisation is just a group of people. It means we will see communities form who want to build many things. They want to build products for themselves as well as for other communities. This will be the foundation of the startups of the future.
DAOs, as I said earlier, are tools that enable these communities to function in a more distributed manner. It is only relevant to a startup to become a DAO when they are trying to accomplish something that requires them to be distributed somehow. You must have proposals and run on a blockchain from day one. These things would require some form of transition and should be very objective-driven.
When tools catch up over time, you could have DAOs emerging everywhere and functioning from the first day. The way blockchains work is based on how distributed consensus is achieved. You need to adopt that mindset of power DAO wields, the openness of it, the ability to enter or exit it whenever you want, the ability to have an equal say in decisions, and the ability to democratise certain decision-making processes.
Those concepts are what is relevant to startups today. And if they can leverage the good things and reduce or remove inefficient processes, they will have many benefits.
Can a DAO raise VC funding? Also, is collaboration possible between two DAOs?
Of course, we see that happening regularly. Many models are coming up for this, such as superDAOs and subDAOs. You have DAOs of DAO, and these manage a portfolio of DAOs.
Each DAO is a community doing its own processes and functions. The value of these sub-DAOs is then derived into the Super DAO. All of these community members funnel into this overarching DAO.
There are other concepts as well where you can seek funding. Every DAO will be different from other DAOs; it’s all based on how your governance mechanism is set up. If an investor wants to invest in developer DAO, he/she can do so in multiple ways.
For example, they could start by purchasing an NFT to join the DAO. One way to invest is you buy NFTs and participate in proposals. Another way to contribute is to partner with some of our projects or developers; your contributions in this process could be compensated hypothetically in whatever token the developer comes up with.
So there are multiple ways you can contribute and participate. As I said, managing a decentralised community is just a way. I think the ways of investing and ways of collaborating financially remain the same. It’s just how the structure would be, what the process would look like, and what the legality of that is, and I think, is up for regulation to catch up.
Is there a cap on the number of members participating in a DAO?
For developer DAOs, there is a cap on the initial genesis members. The cap is the total number of NFTs they are listed. I can’t remember the exact number of this, but I think it is 2,000.
For DAOs generally, there are no hard and fast rules on how many people can participate. There are different phases. You don’t want to decentralise too quickly or have too many members because you need structure and processes to manage large decentralised communities.
For that, you need to have active contributors; you need to have a motivation for people; you need that incentive mechanism in place to get people to contribute and things like that.
I’m sure we will start seeing larger and larger DAOs as this concept starts seeing more traction.
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The time is now: robots are no longer just tackled during conversations about the latest sci-fi movies. Instead, they are among us, unlocking opportunities to live life efficiently and focus more of our time on matters that require human aspects.
The same goes for how robots can and have enabled businesses to operate more efficiently and scale at a much faster pace. Automating dull, dirty, dangerous, and dear tasks can free up one’s labour force, enabling human teams to perform higher value-adding cognitive work functions.
Human-machine collaboration is a massive opportunity to unlock greater business productivity and efficiency. With unpredictable conditions in many service-oriented work environments and the risks that accompany them, professional service robots can help ensure continued operation while cutting out vulnerabilities ascribed to human error. This is because service robots can readily step in and provide efficient and automated service without exposing customers to usual errors in human transactions.
This is evidenced by the growth of the robotics sector as technological advancements in AI, sensors, and analytics that enable more autonomy in machine operations are gaining increasing popularity in various service-based industries like restaurants and hospitals. As such, among all forms of innovations in robotics, professional service robots are projected to dominate the sector by 2030. Because of the myriad of automation benefits that are present outside the factory setting such as efficiency, productivity, and accuracy, these professional service robots are in for new market growth opportunities.
Introducing robots outside traditional factory settings
Professional service robots present a new way of robotic automation beyond the factory setting. Professional service robots also tend to exhibit more autonomy through their ability to “learn” and respond to different problems, as well as mobility that allows them to roam around in unstructured environments as opposed to their industrial robot counterparts that are often fixed to the ground.
Used in undertaking commercial tasks, they take various forms, with many applications in industries like healthcare, retail, logistics, and facilities management.
There are various applications of professional service robots: they can be used to assist with concierge tasks or way-guiding, make deliveries of goods, and help in security patrol. Examples of this are retail service robots, front office service robots, and event service robots.
Innovations in accelerating the viability of incorporating robotics technology into business operations are also emerging. Robotics-as-a-Service business models, or RaaS, where robots are leased out instead of sold outright, present a great alternative to businesses that want to optimise their operations through professional service robots but don’t necessarily have the capital to invest in large-scale robotics augmentation. With these product and business model innovations, enabling digital transformation for businesses through professional service robot technology is now more accessible.
As robot deployments become more common, however, users are deploying more than one type of robot, with each type needing its own unique interface to command and control. Through robotmanager, a robot fleet management software, managing different types of robots has never been easier. Streamlining your robotics solutions under one universal software, robotmanager can help businesses optimise their use of service robots.
The perks of professional service robots
The business case for incorporating professional service robots into business operations is apparent: it optimises operational resources, increases productivity, and reduces costs, enabling better business performance. This has been applied in the transportation industry, through autonomous vehicles for last-mile delivery solutions. A collaboration between Grab and NCS showcases this, where they enabled a food delivery service in Sentosa, Singapore through an autonomous vehicle robot. This initiative helped cultivate a more convenient meal delivery experience for beachgoer customers in the area.
Facility management in the retail and logistics industries has massive optimisation opportunities from this technology too, through next-generation automation and AI solutions. Shopping malls and airports can use professional service robots to bolster security, deliver concierge services, make deliveries, and streamline facility upkeep tasks like cleaning.
Find out how you can get on board
To learn more about professional service robots from experts on ways and means to integrate robotics into your business operations, catch the upcoming NCS webinar Advancing Automation: Practical tips and tricks to integrating robotics into operations on August 24. You may sign up for the webinar here.
The session panel features Wynthia Goh, Senior Partner at NCS; Matthew Festo, General Manager at Open Robotics; Alex Lai, Chairman of ICT Section at IET Hong Kong; and Siew Min Ang, Senior Vice President, Airport Operations Management for Changi Airport Group. The panel will be moderated by Connie Ang, Senior Director for Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, and Centre Director of FutureNow Innovation Centre at Singtel.
The panel session will discuss the following topics:
A deep dive into the robotics ecosystem and the importance of key partnerships for a successful robotics business with robot vendors and robot developers through an open-robotics collaboration approach
How various industries can capitalise and benefit from integrating service robots into their operations, and share trends and case studies of successful applications in different tech and non-tech industries.
The ROI use case of integrating robotics into business operations, assessing whether a business is ready for adopting this technology.
How the Asia Pacific region has enabled best practices across different industries in both tech and non-tech sectors, as well as scale robotics infrastructure to optimise overall business operations.
NCS is a leading technology services firm with a presence in the Asia Pacific and partners with governments and enterprises to advance communities through technology. NCS provides differentiated and end-to-end technology services to clients with its NEXT capabilities in digital, cloud and platforms, as well as core offerings in application, infrastructure, engineering and cybersecurity. To learn more, visit https://www.ncs.co/en-sg/services/intelligent-platforms/mobile-robotic-workforce/
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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by NCS
We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.
The rise of live streaming e-commerce, often referred to as live commerce, is a new and revolutionary marketing channel and platform based on the initial success of TV Shopping.
By borrowing ideas and formats from this traditional method, retailers are able to create live streamed content where the stream host or Key Opinion Leader (KOL) can interact with the audience, showcase the products and answer questions in real-time.
Furthermore, live commerce connects the shopping cart functionality directly with the live stream, allowing users to purchase items without leaving the stream, as well as, taking advantage of any time-limited content or deals which may be available to them during the stream time.
Retailers are exploring this new channel of marketing as a direct-to-consumer alternative to the current methods used. However, most countries in Asia are still relying on large corporates to provide streaming services, with few startups in the space to bridge the gap.
Live commerce appears to be a natural evolution from video-based marketing or video-first commerce. Most brands embraced video-based marketing by starting out on social media platforms such as TikTok or YouTube, utilising influencers in the space with a strong following similar to the company’s target demographic.
Often on-demand videos of short to medium length were used to promote and sell the products. Users could comment, but live interaction was not possible through this format, and shopping cart integration was not possible yet. However, the on-demand nature of these recorded videos did indicate a higher engagement and conversion rate compared to traditional e-commerce solutions.
This led to the development and growth of live commerce, allowing brands and consumers to interact with each other via live streams directly. This led more retailers to embrace the sales model known as direct-to-consumer, as live commerce opens doors for this direct engagement.
Based on the strong results in this space, leading brands, such as L’Oréal and Nike, have announced that they will be focusing on direct-to-consumer solutions, like live commerce, moving forwards, and the expectation is that other brands will soon follow.
How the live streaming e-commerce space is evolving
Live commerce originated in China, and with the popularity of influencers (or KOLs), as well as the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic. China has seen the live stream market grow 57 times between 2017 and 2020 and has not shown signs of slowing down. After gaining rapid traction in China, other countries around the world have slowly started exploring and adopting similar methods to drive online sales.
Asian countries, in particular, have been quick to adopt live commerce solutions, although not at the speed of China, and have found that the solution can improve sale conversion due to the following factors:
Interaction with the influencer or KOL drives the conversion rate up, increasing the sales and followers for a retailer.
Users are able to ask for more details on the product, view it from multiple angles and gain a better understanding of the product compared to just photos and a webpage description. Furthermore, live commerce doesn’t require users to go to a store to check the product in person to help them make the final decision on purchasing. This improves the users’ trust in the product, which leads to a higher purchase rate.
Users are able to get time-limited offers or discounts more often when taking part in a live stream, allowing them to get better deals on the products they are interested in. Around half of the customers that engage with live streams have stated that they are engaging due to the high discount rate available.
These factors are driving retailers of various sizes to explore and experiment with the opportunity of live commerce in various markets and started to evolve how people shop online.
This rise in direct-to-consumer live commerce approaches for retail companies is creating demand for platforms and services related to supporting the businesses behind the live stream. Many retailers face challenges in starting up their own live commerce channel and are seeking third-party suppliers to help bridge the technology and marketing gap generated by a new channel.
How BeLive is helping companies evolve into a new market
BeLive, founded in 2014, has been taking live commerce by storm, creating opportunities for retailers of all sizes to leverage live commerce for their own brands and tap into the direct-to-consumer market.
Unlike some of the more extensive services in the space that are currently available, BeLive has focused on identifying and resolving pain points for each retail customer, providing a tailored experience through custom live streaming platforms for the brand, and supporting the development of the stream contents. By providing end-to-end solutions and empowering retailers to leverage video and live streaming through their own platforms, retailers are able to tap into next-generation consumer behaviours.
As retail companies face the upcoming wave of disabling third party cookies in browsers, it becomes more important for first-party data to be able to provide the information needed for retailers to keep identifying their target audience and successfully marketing to them.
Startups such as BeLive can offer these retailers the opportunity to gain end-to-end support for their video-based marketing channels, and bolster their direct-to-consumer channel, meanwhile gathering and reviewing the analytical data through the live streams hosted on a white labelled BeLive platform hosted on the retailers’ own website or app to understand the audience they are engaging deeply.
Beyond just the idea of reaching and understanding their audiences, retailers are also turning to live commerce as a new format for entertainment sales. Real-time engagement with the audience can enable communication and entertaining content based on the products being sold as well as the influencer or KOL featured in the stream.
BeLive taps into their partner network solutions, an offering beyond just the platform, to support retailers in finding the right influencers, graphic designers and production houses to enable a successful live streamed show.
This support proves vital to retailers of all sizes, allowing their solutions to be streamlined into one location rather than a fragmented approach which currently exists within the market.
How BeLive is expanding into new markets
With BeLive being one of the first advocates for live commerce, their vision was to build a platform to connect streamers and their fans. After having their solution white labelled by Rakuten in 2019, they catered to an uptick of brands looking for their own live commerce solutions who were steadily moving away from the offerings on social media.
Kenneth Tan from BeLive said, “I’m pretty happy to say that right now we power 100 million viewers every single month indirectly through our solutions. So that’s a huge influence that we have, and I think this influence comes with a lot of responsibility as well.”
This demand for the live commerce sector has seen an increase in the need for solutions like BeLive’s to connect together three key verticals in the market in order to create the ideal environment for live commerce to flourish.
This includes content creator companies or advertising agencies, e-commerce enablers and systems integrators and finally, cloud infrastructure players. With these key players, BeLive is able to support the end-to-end services of their retail customers.
One area that BeLive has specialised in is building this network across Asia, allowing them to enable cross-border live commerce, connecting retailers to an audience beyond their country borders. Their current focus is to expand this further through their efforts in the Rainmaking Expand: South Korea program, collaborating with players in the key verticals as they explore connecting retailers with the rest of their Asian network.
How startups can support companies to keep up with the latest trends
Even as China makes record e-commerce sales every year through live streaming, there is still a significant gap in specific markets within Asia when it comes to approaching live commerce.
For example, in South Korea, we still see a strong dependence on more prominent players in the space, meaning that retailers have to utilise the tools, platforms and payment systems implemented by these companies, with a lack of deep data on the audiences, or control in the customer flow.
Although there is an increase in digital agencies that are helping retailers bridge the knowledge gap on how to manage live commerce, there is a low number of options available to enable retailers to run their own streams on their own platform or website.
This area within the e-commerce sector shows early signs that it is ripe for disruption by startups. As solutions in all stages of the live commerce funnel become developed by a variety of startups, similar to BeLive, we are expecting a shift and rapid growth within the market over the next few years, enabling the adoption of live commerce to grow.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Niv Della, a Filipino beauty and skincare products company operating under Colourette and Fresh Formula brands, has raised an undisclosed sum in seed capital from Foxmont Capital Partners.
The startup was founded by entrepreneur-turned-content creator Nina Dizon-Cabrera.
The firm utilises social and digital community-powered marketing strategies.
Colourette and Fresh Formula are gaining traction in the fast-growing D2C beauty and skincare category that has seen increased regional and global attention from investors.
Colourette is available on e-commerce platforms, including Shopee and Lazada.
The firm claims it has grown considerably in recent years while expanding its footprint across online and offline channels.
Nina Cabrera said that the confidence in grassroots beauty and cosmetics brands is growing rapidly alongside the rising demand for high-quality yet affordable beauty products.
The Philippines has emerged as the fastest-growing e-commerce industry in the world. The beauty and cosmetics industry’s young and tech-savvy population create a vast opportunity for homegrown beauty brands like Colourette to reach new heights and gain market share.
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The world is waking up to a green revolution. From banning the use of single-use plastics to creating a sustainability awareness in manufacturing and production industries, many initiatives are driving the environmental preservation wave today. The Paris Agreement, especially, requires countries to follow through with their greenhouse gas emission reductions as promised during the summit.
So, how can countries take measures to reduce their carbon footprint? In a continent as large as Asia, a land that is home to about 60 per cent of the world’s population, every step towards pollution reduction counts.
When it comes to controlling greenhouse gas emissions, the most effective way is to make the use of energy more efficient. By reducing the consumption and reliance on traditionally generated energy, Asia would take a big leap towards a cleaner future.
One effective way to manage energy consumption is using modern smart building technology, like automated lighting and intelligently managed HVAC systems. Let’s dig deeper into the various ways building technology can help Asia move towards a greener, healthier future.
The confluence of security solutions, analytics and utility automation
Energy consumption is the highest during peak times in commercial buildings. Being larger in size, the management of HVAC and lighting becomes a matter of complication. These buildings have spaces that are intended for different purposes, which define how frequently these spaces will be utilised and by how many people.
By integrating your building’s commercial access control system with automated HVAC control and an analytics platform, an efficient way to manage energy consumption can be achieved:
Security cameras would give the data input regarding the frequency, quantity and duration of use of each space of a building by the populace while also keeping your building secure by deterring up to 61 per cent of burglaries.
The analytics engine would then draw up a trends chart that would display the usage patterns of each space, clearly determining the high and low use areas of a commercial building.
The automated/managed HVAC system can then utilise these trend charts to deploy services according to space use.
The commercial access control system sensors, furthermore, can be programmed effectively to communicate one-time use areas to prevent HVAC from deploying resources for such cases. Space utilisation combined with intelligent analytics and HVAC management work to streamline energy consumption based on space occupancy.
Service automation
Automation has always been a driver of efficiency, wherever it is applied. In fact, in a study published by Report Linker, it was found that the market for building automation systems is expected to reach an amount of US$148.6 billion by the end of 2027, rising at a compounded annual growth rate of 11.4 per cent. These figures alone spell out the seriousness of the global building management industry to optimise its energy use through automation and its implements.
To that end, the automation of HVAC management systems can prove to be instrumental in achieving energy consumption efficiencies in managed smart buildings. HVAC would need to be digitised and integrated with access control systems to reduce energy consumption when occupancy is low:
The system control activation mechanism is a great way to adjust a building’s energy use according to occupancy. The system relies on utilising access card data to deduce the occupancy of a space. Integration with HVAC, lighting and other utilities allows the automation engine to switch up or down the energy consumption accordingly
The event management mechanism relies on high-footfall event analysis to adjust energy consumption. For example, if a commercial building hosts conferences, meetings or seminars during a week, the resource planning software can be programmed to receive inputs from digitised building use schedules to plan the deployment of building services intelligently
Internet of Things, or IoT, is a way to intelligently analyse the space use of a building through integrating various access controllers, sensors, and other security devices on a single, communicative platform.
When these devices transfer their data to a building management system, the smart analytics draw up the trends and patterns of space use, allowing the management system full control over service deployment (HVAC, lighting and others).
The best benefit that comes from enabling IoT with smart building management is the access to real-time data that can provide high-quality, actionable insights to plan energy consumption effectively.
Furthermore, by automating the HVAC and lighting of the building, the building management system would practically run itself and learn from the analytics of building use, polishing its resource use more with each run.
Wrapping up
Energy consumption is one of the highest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. In Asia, with a huge portion of the population inhabiting the continent, these emissions are far more prominent; the need to manage energy consumption is far more pressing than in other continents.
The adoption of smart buildings is helping lead the effort to reduce energy consumption, with the smart building market projected to grow by 10.9 per cent from US$72.6 billion in 2021 to US$121.6 billion by 2026. Implementing automation, IoT, and smart analytics with smart building technology in managing energy use is a great start in the revolution for a cleaner future.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Alibaba said to be doubling down on SEA amid tech correction
Several industry sources said to DSA that Alibaba’s investment team has been on a SEA tour in the past 2-4 weeks, zipping across Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore to engage directly with startup founders.
Indonesian logistics firm Paxel secures US$23M funding
Investors are Astra Digital International, Central Capital Ventura, and MDI Ventures; Paxel provides same-day local and intercity deliveries, smart locker service, a local snack platform, bulk delivery offering, and waste treatment solution.
Singapore investment platform Xcelerate scores US$11M funding
Investors are Altair Capital and Exacta Capital; Xcelerate provides software solutions and services catering to the GRC and ESG requirements of corporates operating across geographies.
Crypto exchange Hodlnaut shuts down due to current market conditions
The Singapore-based exchange said the move will allow it to focus on stabilising liquidity and preserving assets while working toward a solution to its current situation; It was exposed to the collapse of the Terra blockchain protocol in May.
Binance, WazirX butt heads amid money laundering probe
Binance is distancing itself from its subsidiary exchange WazirX after the latter’s assets were frozen by Indian authorities last week following a money laundering investigation.
Crypto.com secures Korean operating licenses
The crypto exchange also acquired payment service provider PnLink and virtual asset provider OK-Bit; Crypto.com earlier secured approvals in Singapore and Dubai, and registrations in Italy, Greece, and Cyprus.
NTU, Royal Golden Eagle to launch US$4.3M textile research centre
The centre aims to bolster innovation in textile recycling and apply research outcomes; It will focus on sustainable textile recycling, automated textile waste sorting systems, eco-friendly dye removal, and new textile development.
SG’s consumer goods brand Cloversoft raises 7-figure seed funding
The lead investor is Apricot Capital; Cloversoft manufactures eco-friendly, high-quality household facilities, notably Singapore’s first unbleached bamboo tissue; It has customers across Malaysia, Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Taiwan.
Filipino D2C beauty, skincare brand Colourette closes seed funding
The investor is Foxmont Capital Partners; Colourette has fostered a community mindset by utilising social and digital community-powered marketing strategies, and actively engaging with the Colourette Club in product creation and innovation.
SG social networking firm NextBlock raises US$362K pre-seed
Investors are Plug and Play APAC, Farquhar Venture Capital and Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan; NextBlock aims for its platform to improve neighbour-to-neighbour communications by acting as a hub for users in a neighbourhood to come together.
BS Capital acquires Premier Taxis to boost vehicle leasing business
In addition to strengthening BIS Motoring, the group will also take over Premier Taxis’ street-hail service operator license and Class 2 ride-hail service operator license – both issued by Singapore’s Land Transport Authority.
In 1944, the Bretton Woods Agreement, an American-led system designed to govern monetary relations between participatory states, established the principles for international financial relations and provided the basis of the modern global banking system.
Because of its Western-centric origins, the orthodox financial system operates using the concepts of low-risk vs high-risk territories, pre-supposing that emerging markets carry an inherently higher risk than more economically developed countries. This infrastructure is effectively neocolonialist in its certainty that Western ideals and practices are intrinsically superior and should be exported and enforced onto other peoples and systems.
Southeast Asia (SEA) has recently witnessed game-changing growth and innovation in banking services. With the World Bank estimating that emerging markets will account for 63 per cent of global trade flows by 2035, this should be an era of unfettered and rapid growth for SEA economies.
However, legacy banking protocols stymy the potential of the markets, rejecting individuals and organisations based purely on geographical and geosocial preconceptions. While 99 per cent of payments within and between parties in US, EU, and UK countries are processed in under two hours, payments into and out of emerging markets are vastly more complex, despite US$6.4 trillion moving annually from these markets.
This Anglocentric financial orthodoxy remains, voluntarily or otherwise, blind to how to measure and adequately identify risk in non-Western markets and defaults to forcing a suboptimal legacy model. Alternatively, it ignores emerging markets entirely, claiming they are ‘too risky’.
Whilst Fintech generally creates fluency and ease of use for Western market users, the fact that such businesses lack custody services of their own means that making a transfer or opening an account is slick for a Western party. Still, the fundamental drawbacks of the system remain when interfacing outside Western markets where the Fintech banking partners are not quite as comfortable.
Adapting to the decentralised nature of Web3
However, the truly global and decentralised nature of Web3 allows for the opportunity of a borderless, unbiased system that will go a long way to abolishing these issues, meaning that risk factors are analysed through raw decentralised data alone, as opposed to within the sphere of existing, institutional presuppositions.
Currently, financial institutions have in many ways to ‘trust’ a potential client’s representations when they are onboarding, e.g. asking for identity or corporate formation documents and statements of banking history.
In a Web3 environment, there is an environment of permissionless data, which importantly takes trust out of the equation, or at the very least, minimises it. So in a compliance sense, data from third parties about a potential customer takes out the first-person bias and, in many ways, can be treated as a superior data set.
Moving into this way of thinking and operating Web3 technologies can allow Southeast Asian countries to be viewed through a clearer lens by developed market banks on a level playing field by raising the quality of the KYC/AML provided.
True fiscal inclusion means ridding the infrastructure of geographical, cultural, and racial bias, which we at Tintra are heavily invested in providing. Our unique solution is to build a scalable banking infrastructure with patented machine learning and artificial technology on a full Web3-enabled platform.
Because people’s values, behaviours, and even thought processes are often radically different from one culture to the next, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for understanding each region. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ are subjective constructs, and with the rise of Web3, these gaps and, conversely, nuances will diverge to make a more level playing field. Well, at least that is the potential.
The evolution of Web3 marks the beginning of a financial revolution across Southeast Asia, and its potential is boundless. My hope is that it heralds an era of unprecedented growth in fiscal inclusion across the region so that Singapore does not stand alone as the sole global banking destination in the region but acts as the driving force for regional revolution in banking.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Cars are often synonymous with mobility, social status, and most importantly, freedom. As a result, owning a car is both an aspiration and an expectation for many people. But that is often easier said than done, especially in Singapore.
High excise duties and Certificate of Entitlement (CoE) prices regularly see Singapore’s top global rankings for the highest car ownership costs. That is even before considering all the ancillaries of owning a car, such as insurance, tax, maintenance and more.
Ride and car-sharing services have emerged as popular alternatives to traditional car ownership, but the sheer mobility of having a personal vehicle remains unrivalled and highly coveted. In fact, last year, car ownership rose by four per cent even as people were driving less due to circuit breaker restrictions. To cater for this demand, it is important for stakeholders in the automotive ecosystem to work together and help drivers overcome the hurdles to car ownership.
Addressing the barriers to entry
Cost is the primary barrier to car ownership in Singapore. According to the Land Transport Authority, this year’s first round of CoE bidding saw prices rise as high as US$99,999. That is just for the right to own a car for 10 years.
Then there is the Additional Registration Fee, excise duty, GST and the price of the actual vehicle itself, not to mention fees for petrol, insurance, road taxes, maintenance and more. This often results in a staggering final bill.
The second hurdle is complexity. Aside from choosing the car model, a significant amount of paperwork must be completed for CoE bidding, loan and insurance applications, tax filings and so on. Second-hand car buyers also must do their research and inspections to avoid being saddled with a lemon.
The final step is usually the time-consuming ‘shopping around’ for the best prices on essential car services such as servicing and maintenance.
Last but certainly not least is flexibility. The astronomical fees associated with CoE bidding alone tend to mean that successful bidders are effectively ‘locked in’ to a car for at least 10 years. However, a driver might start a family or emigrate for work at that time, and their car needs may change.
After the CoE expires, car owners then face the dilemma of either renewing the CoE and paying higher road taxes or applying for a brand new one, both costly but necessary options.
Connection through collaboration
Much of what makes car ownership so onerous is the fragmented state of the automotive industry. Customers spend a lot of time and effort comparing prices and service packages. If players in the automotive ecosystem can collaborate to provide a more streamlined experience, this would greatly improve accessibility for drivers and boost the overall industry.
Car subscription is one example of a unified and connected automotive ecosystem. A typical car subscription package wraps the A-Z of car ownership up in a neat all-in-one package. Users sign up on a digital platform in minutes and get everything included for the duration they want with a single fixed monthly fee, car, insurance, maintenance and more. This also ensures dealers have a continuous stock rotation, while workshops and insurance providers have a steady stream of customers.
This solution also streamlines and simplifies the ownership process. Drivers no longer have to negotiate individually with different companies and navigate a maze of regulations that differ according to the various related industries. They have an easy benchmark to compare value between providers, which was more challenging in a fragmented landscape.
A connected ecosystem can have a positive impact on cost due to economies of scale. Partners in a car subscription package, for example, often gain access to a wider customer pool due to cross-promotion and greater audience reach. They can thus offer attractive deals such as brand-new cars, enhanced service offerings and full insurance coverage at more affordable prices, allowing drivers to tailor their car ownership to their changing needs, tastes and budget.
Drivers also become more receptive to new automotive technologies because of the reduced upfront investment and commitment required in such ecosystems. Using the car subscription example, platforms can offer electric or autonomous vehicles for customers to try out affordably and flexibly. Based on the customer feedback collected, ecosystem players could then create more advanced and efficient products and services.
Integrated for the future
Ultimately, car ownership is about access to mobility. However, the very concept of mobility is constantly evolving, especially as we step into a technologically-driven world, so the ecosystem must evolve alongside it to keep pace.
Meeting the driver’s needs must be at the forefront of the industry’s goal to achieve sustainability, which can only be holistically achieved through collaboration between all industry stakeholders.
The time is ripe for all players in the automotive sector to join forces in creating an integrated and seamlessly connected automotive ecosystem designed to serve drivers better. Our pursuit of a more mobile future depends on it.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
In the world of social media, wasting money, time, and resources is both easy and incredibly commonplace. When sites like Facebook have almost three billion users, and others like YouTube and TikTok aren’t far behind, regardless of the mistakes, it’s an essential industry to reach.
Revolutionising the way people interact
There are several key ways that social media has revolutionised the way people interact. News is now updated moment to moment and is always available, contact is possible anywhere, and with anyone, information is available for all topics and endless, and groups built on common grounds and interests are easier to find than ever.
This means that from region to region, country to country, group to group, social media has found a way to influence everyone. This puts a lot of power in each individual’s hands. Corporations spend infinite amounts of money increasing their audience and promoting their products through influencers.
A strong social media following will build loyalty and create a lot of buying power. On Facebook, only 4.2 per cent of those who view a post will engage with it in any way. Also, only 11 per cent of posts will even be spread to non-followers. These are numbers consistent with social media platforms at large.
Numbers like these make it hard for those with smaller audiences to make much of their platform. This is why growing one’s base and creating loyalty is far more important than attempts at blowing up in one post or trying to make quick money early. Promoted posts are how one makes money in large part, but too many too early will destroy audience trust.
Finding your audience
Keeping this all in mind, it’s essential to understand how to do this. For the process of finding your audience, there are several phases of interaction. The first phase is where one can work to set the groundwork. This phase has three significant aspects of the environment, foundation and sensitivities.
The environment is figuring out what’s going on in the market. Once one knows their content and if it’s entertaining, educational, or fulfilling any other market, they can work to fit that market better. The next step is building a foundation, collecting data, using a wide scope of content, and honing in on what works. This is where a lot of the hard physical work will take place.
Finally, as a part of the first phase, one must have sensitivities. An awareness of the needs and emotions of their audience will help to produce better content. If the demographic is seen to be primarily male or female, young or old, that changes what content will be received best. One can also work to change the audience if need be by being sensitive to that audience.
The next phase is characterised by tone and timing. This is where one has to go beyond looking at demographics and understand the attitude given by the content and how it comes across. This is the tone. Timing understands when one uses the basics of phase one to have more control and understanding of the timing of their content and audience reaction.
Finally, the last phase can be summed up with emotions. This is not the emotions of the audience, as that is covered primarily in phases one and two, but instead the emotions of the content creator. Learning to keep a calm and level head is an essential step in building a good audience.
This means no impulsive reactions to the audience and their potential criticisms or compliments. Instead, one should work to take in the audience responses and use the more common comments as a basis for micro improvements. At the end of the day, comments are not consistent, but the data is.
It’s through the use of these few phases that someone can start to garner a solid and, importantly, reliable audience. Anyone can get lucky with a big hit and have a good idea, but it’s the measured and tactical approach to creating content that will lead to real success.
This is a plan for success that is universal, applying to content from all countries and areas. And while there are other little tips that can help, things like using less formal language, not relying on clickbait, not overdoing paid posts, etc. These aren’t what separates the successful creator from the unsuccessful.
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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
