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CEO Sustainability Series | Cyrille Littler, CEO, Eastwise

As part of the Sustainable Business initiative, the French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore presents a leadership interview series where we invite CEOs and key executives to discuss crucial management qualities that drive successful sustainable transformation

 

Question1. What has your company’s sustainability journey been like so far?

Eastwise is a procurement company offering a wide range of services from sourcing, contract management, production management, product development, factory and social audit to quality control on-site.

Established in 2005 in Hong Kong, with an office in Shenzhen, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh and Tunis as well as team on the ground in Malaysia, Taiwan and India, we are working for customers who are looking for a full-scope agency to support them in their purchase outside their national market. As part of the construction of our CSR approach, we have started a new project that focus on a Social Assessment tool as well as our own CSR strategy definition and implementation.

 

Q2. As a sourcing office mainly based in Asia, what does a CSR approach consist of?

We act on 2 topics:

1. Our own CSR ambition

Eastwise has decided to act on its own CSR strategy – How can we advise customer and supplier on this topics without looking at ourselves first?
We are implementing a materiality analysis that helps us to tailor-made a strategy and a road-map. Supported by a specialist, Marjorie Hobin, CEO of Mind-Up, we are looking at all aspects of our activities to review and structure an action plan to act on it. Within 12 months, we shall be able to deliver a roadmap with targets that can be measurable.

2. We help the customer and supplier to develop a sustainable supply chain

We have developed a social assessment tool to help the supplier to measure their level of compliance with the social standard. We are using a transparent and collaborative approach that can be adapted to the customer priorities. Therefore the supplier understands what is expected from the customer, where he should focus is priority and how to do it to reach the level expected.

However the supplier shall also engaged into the improvement of his supplier through a collaborative approach. We help both parties to improve the resilience and performance of the supply chain in a sustainable way, through partnership and shared value creation.

 

Q3. How does this new CSR strategy fit with Eastwise's values and purpose?

At Eastwise, our purpose is to provide innovative sourcing and procurement services through trusted global partnerships. We believe that our position in-between customer and supplier is giving us the opportunity to act on building true partnership between our customer and supplier.

The development of people and partners is core to Eastwise and by developing our CSR ambition, through a Social assessment tool for example or raising the awareness our people, is contributing to it. We are bold, adaptable and always learning.

Our ambition is to support a factory to improve themselves and challenging the customers about the implication of their own CSR strategy towards the development of their suppliers instead of encouraging a switch of supplier that is short-term, not sustainable approach.

The ultimate goal is to satisfy and retain our customers! 

 

 

 

This interview was conducted with Cyrille Littler, CEO, Eastwise

December 2022 | French Chamber of Commerce in Singapore

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