O’Right

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4.3. O’Right

4.3.1. Description of the company and key demographics

Steven Ko launched O’Right in 2002, a Taiwanese company that produces and sells healthy and eco-friendly haircare products. Because of his allergic constitution, Stephen Ko looked for natural ingredients that would improve his daily life as well as the one of many others, while taking care of the planet. The mission statement of the company is “It’s O’right”, with the letter O representing the Earth, and the will to do things that are “all right” for the environment.

The company produces the world’s greenest shampoo and do not resort to animal testing to create new formulas. According to them “a product is truly green only when it respects all kinds of nature”. O’Right sells 90 products across markets such Asia, America, Europe and Oceania (30% of the products are sold abroad), and launched a green hair care e-commerce brand, Shan, that sells 24 natural products (shampoo, conditioner, styling, body wash). The company employs 235 people, has a revenue of $10million USD and enjoys a growth rate of 20% per year.

4.3.2. Green buildings

The company believes in producing eco-friendly products in an eco-friendly environment: it built the first GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified green cosmetics plant in Asia, aiming at “creating a healthy and comfortable environment where humans, architecture and nature can coexist” (CSR Report, 2015). The building is equipped with a solar and wind power generation system that generates clean power for the manufacturing of products; it has a Process

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Cooling Water System that makes the whole manufacturing process more energy-saving, low carbon and hence eco-friendly; and benefits from three water recycling systems that use rainwater, water from pre-production filtration process as well as post-production water for daily water consumption, air-conditioning, irrigation etc… Thanks to these implementations, the building achieves 7 out of 9 major green building indicators set up by the Taiwanese Ministry of Interior. The building is also equipped with eco-friendly installations to encourage green practices, such as a mechanical foot pedal faucets, full-length windows and LED light fixtures. The company won many awards and has been labelled with various certifications, such as the Taiwan EEWH Green Building Gold Certificate, or the ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems.

4.3.3. 7S Model

In this part, I will not mention O’Right’s structure as I was asked by the managers to keep it confidential. O’Right promotes a green lifestyle that intents to create a harmonious relationship among Heaven, the Earth and Humans. The company’s mission is “love and care, now and forever” (according to their website). O’Right positions itself as the world’s greenest shampoo that is “healthy for the human body, healthy for the society and healthy for the environment”

(O’Right website). Through this image, the company strives to create deep and profound values for its products and hence encourage people to adopt a green lifestyle. One of their main invention is the tree in the bottle: it is a bottle made from biodegradable materials such as fruit and vegetable starch that can be naturally degraded when buried in the soil. Taiwanese acacia seeds are placed at the bottom of the bottle (acacia trees species are the most efficient at sequestering and storing carbon from the atmosphere in Taiwan). This constitutes a clear

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competitive advantage for the company that positions itself as the leader in innovation in terms of packaging and product content. The firm has three independent research laboratories: Natural Formula Development Lab, Taiwan Agricultural Product Extraction Lab and Natural Extract Assessment Lab. These research laboratories enable the company to be competitive in terms of innovation and ensure the firm delivers eco-friendly and healthy products to its customers. For their green packaging, the firm follows the 5R’s of O’Right that are the five essential components of their green brand: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Replace, Responsibility This helps them develop recyclable, reusable and biodegradable green packaging materials. Moreover, all the products during the development process undergo 15 tests, such as stability, heat resistance, packaging compatibility etc. Furthermore, semi-finished products must meet the requirements of Cosmetics GMP and undergo six tests, such as physical and chemical analysis, total plate count and pure water quality. The company does not call on animal testing to develop their products. They believe in the respect of all kinds of lives and quote Gandhi on their website:

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. In addition to their green products and green headquarters, O’Right has adopted green logistics: they use a carbon-free centralized delivery system since 2010 and raised the cost of minimum orders to NT$3,970 (US$131) in 2015 (so as to avoid delivery trucks that are not entirely full). They also deal with delivery companies that use hybrid electric delivery trucks equipped with GPS navigation to optimize the route by time or distance, which is energy-saving.

Finally, the firm makes green investments: they have invested NT$140 million (US$4.6 million) in energy-saving facilities, waste treatment facilities, advanced extraction devices etc., since the establishment of their green headquarters. Since 2014, the company spent over NT$30 million (US$1 million) on product research and development, laboratory renovations, environmental activities, environmental maintenance and CSR report verifications. The firm

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believes that even though these are costly, they are “worth every penny”. The staff of O’Right comprises 70% female. The company explains this number by the fact that the hair care products they sell mostly targets a female audience. Moreover, the company saw its number of employees increase tremendously: the 167 employees in 2012 went up to 235 in 2017.

O’Right’s employees have diverse skills: as the company sells products, employees are required to have skills in marketing, design, finance, accounting… However, what makes O’Right so successful are the laboratory technologists who develop the products and their packaging.

Research and Development is also a tremendous advantage for the firm that uses cutting-edge technology. The company enjoys a democratic leadership style. All the employees work in the same open space. Only the top management benefits from cubicles, that are also inside the open area. The management aims at bringing the employees together, and provide free local fruits and vegetables for lunch that employees prepare alternatively. Employees hence gather and share the same meal which contributes to the enrichment of the company’s culture.

4.3.4. Social contribution

O’Right engages in three main activities in terms of social contribution: first of all, they contribute to the awareness of people about the environmental protection: for 5 years, the firm has co-organized the Earth Hour event in Taiwan with the Society of Wilderness (SOW). About 4,000 hair salons and 10,000 hairstylists took part in the event, which saved 300,000 kW/h, meaning a reduction of 184,000 kg of carbon emissions, from 2011 to 2014. Secondly, the company supports associations for the forest conservation and reforestation: since 2011, O’Right takes part in the 20-year Forestation Project with National Taiwan University Experimental Forest. In 2015, the company helped reduce 12,760kg of carbon emissions by

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planting trees. Finally, the International Coastal Cleanup in which O’Right (staff and families) participates is the world’s largest volunteer effort for the ocean. According to the Society of Wilderness, in 2015, 10,000 volunteers participated in the project and 36,000kg of trash was picked up from the beach, which helped reduce 74,160kg of carbon emissions. The O’Right team, consisting of 150 people, collected 355 kg of trash which helped reduce 731kg of carbon emissions and plant 66 trees for the Earth.

4.3.5. Economic benefits of being green and social

O’Right greatly benefits from its greenness. Indeed, it provides the firm with an appealing brand image but more than that, it enables them to make significant economic savings. As an example, let’s take the annual electric power consumption per ping in kWh for instance. In 2011, when the firm was in the old headquarters the amount was 332.4 kWh, whereas in 2015 in the green headquarters, the company used 260.6 kWh while simultaneously increasing its number of employees by one third. Also, when asked whether having a green brand constitutes a competitive advantage over their competitors, O’Right answered: “Definitely. We are very confident in our business and with the fact that we are green: we won many awards that guarantee it”.

4.3.6. Other integrated initiatives

O’Right engages in many other initiatives next to its business. First, they release green publications called “It’s O’Right Quaterly”. They feature green stories, both in English and Chinese, covering themes such as traveling, fashion, agriculture, food and beverages, home,

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lifestyle, education etc. Already 10,000 copies have been distributed to 7,000 hair salons in Taiwan. O’Right estimates its reader base to be around 3.5 million (based on an average of 500 customers per salon, per month). Before 2012, the company was mainly contributing socially through donations and sponsorships. Indeed, in 2007, O’Right donated TWD13 million (US$430,000) worth of products and TWD170,000 (US$5,600) in cash to help economically disadvantaged children to the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families. In 2008, they donated TWD18 million (US$600,000) worth of products and TWD178,000 (US$5,800) of cash to Orbis International, to help 200 children regain their sights and start a new life. The company also sponsored the premiere, the book and the DVD of the environmental documentary HOME (by Yann Arthus-Bertrand) in 2009, as well as the publication of Taiwan’s first environmental documentary +/- 2°C, which was distributed to 7,000 hair salons in Taiwan. In 2012, they donated to the Tao Foundation to help for the rehabilitation of the typhoon stricken area in Orchid Island in Taiwan, and supported the Project Lanyu. O’Right also hold 10 “Sees the Green Salons” eco seminars, that promoted carbon reduction in hair salons, and shared environmental information with an audience of more than 1,700 people.

4.3.7. Strategy for the future

The company strives to increase their international sales. The firm thought about opening warehouses abroad to stock their products but they did not do it. Indeed, they want to keep their image of selling products made in Taiwan.

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4.3.8. B Corporation

O’Right knows about the B Corporation label and filled in the questionnaire in 2015 to become certified. However, despite the fact that they had a lot of points in the environmental section, they did not have enough in the social category so they did not obtain the label. O’Right’s management was disappointed as they expected their social and environmental efforts to be rewarded by the label. However, the company claims that the evaluation is not flexible (a company gets some additional points if they use an ecological paint but as O’Right does not use paint, they did not get the points even though it is more ecological not to have paint at all).

Nevertheless, the company decided to give up on the label and not try to get it by developing their social part. They want to keep their identity and strive to be better at what they do.

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