Fashion endlessly – an MBA view on sustainability in fashion – by Tim Brenninkmeijer, May 21st 2018

“There’s no time to waste.”

A familiar call to arms, and one that became acutely appropriate across the days I spent in Copenhagen at the Youth Fashion Summit and it’s elder relative, the Copenhagen Fashion Summit  (CFS) – “the world’s leading business event on sustainability in fashion”, convening industry leaders, disruptors, change-agents and policy makers around the most pressing issues facing one of the most expansive and complex industries of our world today.

Time, as a resource, is hard to manage. On a daily basis, we are all engaged with tweaking our mental schedules to find more of it. Whether in a moment of reflection hovering over a fresh morning brew, or in the bliss of the late afternoon either with plenty to still tick-off or plenty to reflect on – the ways in which to use time seem both endless and compounded within the day, let alone week. Partaking in a 12-month MBA programme, this sentiment is felt regularly, personally and collectively as a cohort. And it is often shared, shiveringly, by those with whom we describe the variety of subjects and intensity of schedules this quite unique ‘One Planet MBA’ programme offers.

However, arriving at the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology (KEA) a little over a week ago, in what seems to be one of the most blissful and effortlessly sustainable cities in Europe, the sentiment described was due for a true test, as 3 days of brainstorming, debate, scenario-planning and synthesising were due to ensue. Under the flag of the Youth Fashion Summit, in a somewhat gauntlet-style waterfall of workshops, 110+ students from 36 countries, and 64 of the world’s top design and business schools, gathered to kick off a 2-year programme aimed at challenging industry leaders’ engagement with SDGs 3 and 5 at the Copenhagen Fashion Summits of 2018 and 2019, while working in partnership with a leading luxury retailer, PANDORA, on their own sustainability story.
The Youth Fashion Summit (YFS), initiated in 2012, formed as a partnership between a range of organisations looking to take new aim at one of the most polluting industries in the world, if not the second as often reported – fashion. Global Fashion Agenda, at the time known as the Danish Fashion Institute, had already held three of their convening summits focused on the issue of fashion’s impact on the planet and what industry leaders should already be considering with regard to sustainability. With the Sustainable Development Goals under draft, UN Global Compact soon saw the opportunity to begin engaging the next generation of leaders within key sectors. Thus, in partnership with Global Fashion Agenda and Copenhagen School of Design and Technology, Youth Fashion Summit was born as a platform, “for students passionate about a sustainable world with fashion as leverage and gives the opportunity to influence the decisions made today that impact the world of tomorrow – it is the voice of the next generation.”

Coming from the One Planet MBA at the University of Exeter, with its focus on global challenges and the emerging tools and technologies that enable business leaders to make better decisions for the planet and its people, the opportunity to engage directly with an industry platform, let alone a dedicated cohort of professionals, specialists and academics, seemed very appropriate. Especially given the 4 years before joining the MBA I was working within the fashion industry, across startups, non-profits and retail. The luck that it fell during a ‘reading week’ at the MBA just made it all the more palatable! Nothing to do with the Nordic sunshine forecasted either…

Day 1, Sunday – meet and greet, review of pre-assignment and alignment on goals and objectives.

‘Pre-assignment’ – yes. Soon after I was accepted to the programme, after having to write a 500 word application, we were delivered a reading list and a pre-assignment to be completed in solo. This went some way to already dispel any skepticism that this was going to be a ‘youthful’ jaunt in the Nordic sunshine with post-its and mind-maps. Nevertheless, the pre-assignment – with its focus on crystallizing a personal perspective on the implementation, or lack thereof, of the assigned SDG (5 in my case: gender equality, vs 3 for others: health and well-being) and the assigned ‘capital’ (human in my case, out of social, natural and manufacturing for others) within my country of choice (UK) – developed a broad scope of knowledge and perspectives within the groups we were assigned to.

We met and greeted each other on that first day by presenting, via mood-board, how either our national government, industry leaders or societal commentators had or had not yet delivered on the many aspects of gender equality and empowerment. With only a few relating their mood-board presentations to fashion, it was clear the ideas to come through the rest of the week were set to be diverse.

The moodboards of SDG5: Human Capital; capturing perspectives from California, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, UK, Denmark, NL, Pakistan, Egypt, USA, Italy and Hungary

The overarching goal of the Youth Fashion Summit programme was for the cohort to develop a set of ‘demands’ relating to the implementation of SDGs 3 and 5 by 2030, which would be presented to the industry leaders attending the Copenhagen Fashion Summit the same week. This was achieved, impressively, by employing a rigorous yet well-managed waterfall-type approach of workshops, each with specific objectives, feeding into the overarching goal, along with related outputs such as the keynote speech and graphic poster production (evidence to come below). A ‘future fashion narrative’ was created by each of the 14 groups to support the final outputs, so as to capture the collective and diverse voice of this next generation of industry leaders.

As day 1 came to a buzzing close, I found myself reflecting with excited anticipation – “while the format is familiar, with thanks to the many design-thinking workshops and group projects the One Planet MBA had already offered, the potential of the programme is unprecedented, in terms of network value and capitalisation on ideas and the strategies put forward.”

Alongside the 8 groups of 14 students each – comprised of Bachelors level, to Masters, to industry-veterans returning to take Masters or MBAs – a cohort of about 20 ‘experts’ and ‘facilitators’ fluttered between assigned groups and capitals. This investment in the support as well as execution of the process was most impressive, and went further to dispel any leftover skepticism. Having been through a variety of similar brainstorming type workshops within and extra-curricular to the MBA, I could say I have an experienced mind and hand with the post-it. However, I would just as quickly put both my hands up and say there are times where the process is lost on me, or the group seems to be floundering with details, in which a steadying voice from outside the post-it bubble is more than welcomed. A balance was well struck between the experts and facilitators guiding and probing these newly formed microorganisms of groups, and allowing them to evolve and find their own voice.

Complimented by the rich relationships with partScsner organisations, a highlight of the programme for many cohort members was the negotiation session with ‘stakeholder representatives’. This gave the groups the opportunity to present their vision and demands to members from organisations ranging from highstreet to luxury retailer, NGO, supply chain specialists, UN body and media. Through negotiations, groups were able to refine their vision and demands to both align the language and stretch certain aspects even further, given that the scope of the demands are the SDGs, which are due to be achieved by 2030.

The final output was three-fold, and was presented to the cohort as an evolution to that of previous years’ more singular output, through consultation and feedback with the main Summit’s delegates:

  1. 8 demands and narratives presented on impactfully-designed posters for display during the CFS
  2. A series of ‘hard-talk’ inspired questions to critically investigate the Global Fashion Agenda’s ‘CEO Agenda 2018’, which formed the basis of the Summit’s agenda, 2 of which were delivered in-person by YFS cohort members during the closing panel of the Summit
  3. A 10 minute speech, capturing the essence of the YFS cohort’s demands and vision for a future fashion industry they would be proud to inherit, presented to the Summit delegates as the opening keynote speech on the day 2 of the CFS. I was fortunate enough to be selected as one of 8 speakers, representing each group, to speak on stage on behalf of my fellow cohort members standing 100+ strong behind me.

The privilege to speak on behalf of gallons of sweat, tears and ideas from 100+ passionate change-agents, let alone on a topic so relevant and critically in need of address – gender equality and empowerment – was immense. To do so on stage in an awe-inspiring concert hall, in front of industry leaders and change-agents wrestling with the complexity of their business and its impacts, was something I won’t soon forget.

The theme of this years Copenhagen Fashion Summit was ‘words into action’, given that, at last year’s Summit, a commitment to a circular fashion system was signed by almost 12% of the global industry. Therefore, measuring the commitments’ translations to action will be of primary focus for the CFS team moving forward.

My good fortune to be chosen to speak on behalf of my cohort members

Some key insights from attending the main Copenhagen Fashion Summit, after the thrill of presenting on stage, highlighted the complexity of the challenges the industry is faced with. While it may appear a visually expressive industry with the catwalks and billboards, it also embodies some of the most complex and murky global supply chains. Compounded by an entrenched lack of transparency, a topic of great debate and emphasis during the Summit, this creates an immense challenge for change-agents to grasp elements of the value chain in need of redesign or redistribution.

A particular highlight across panels and presentations were points made about consumption and the relevance of it to a circular industry model; specifically that – as posited by Levi’s VP of Product Innovation – circularity is very hard to get right, but, as it appears the only way this industry is going to survive sustainably, achieving circularity will most likely constrain the size of the industry and its output to an appropriate size, for the planet and its people. A sentiment that resonates with the narratives and demands developed by the YFS cohort, and one we hope to explore further in round 2 of the programme.

The Youth Fashion Summit’s evolved 2-year programme looks to echo this sentiment and that of the CFS’ theme, by taking the demands developed and working them into a sustainability strategy for the programme’s brand partner, Pandora – a leader within a sector, jewelry, that has yet to deeply engage with sustainability. Therefore, I am thrilled to be returning to Copenhagen next year to complete the process and deliver an actionable strategy to the industry and an emergent sector in the sustainability space.

Ultimately, the programme truly demonstrated what can happen when you bring together curious minds, creative hands, informed ideas and really committed hearts and souls. Furthermore, given the underpinnings of fashion as a creative engine geared towards celebrating diversity through evolving expression and change, it presents itself as an ideal way to address the global challenges we face on a grand, beautiful scale.

With the One Planet MBA, we are trained to ‘think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees’. A mindset and skillset that proved a provoking compliment to the Youth Fashion Summit experience, and thus an experience I would highly recommend to any MBA looking for a challenge and an enlightening investigation into an industry on the cusp of revolution. There is no time to waste, as these words turn into action throughout the course of this next year and beyond.

Speaking about gender justice within the fashion industry, a topic truly close to my heart having worked within the industry and seen evidence of inequality and injustice across every stage of the value chain; from field, to factory, to store, to office and to boardroom

Student Opinions: Will bitcoin regulation undermine its value?

As HSBC completes the world’s first commercially viable trade-finance transaction using blockchain, we ask our students: Is this a huge step towards efficiency and reducing errors in the funding of international trade, or does this undermine cryptocurrency’s value and decentralised character?

Georgie Hazell, MBA Participant 2018: “The clarity offered by regulation would probably increase the perceived legitimacy of virtual currencies. My vote is for regulation [acting like a] speed-bump in the short term, but an incentive in the longer term, boosting value and offering protection for investors. Speculation around regulation will probably cause greater volatility in the bitcoin price than actual implementation. When investors are unsure about the legitimacy of their cryptocurrency and how they are going to be taxed when they sell it, they will probably avoid or at least hold it until clarification is given.

Regulation could come in a number of forms, from reducing anonymity through demanding real names on bitcoin holdings and transactions, to outright bans (as in India). The trends in South Korea, with an initial plunge followed by a levelling out as the effects were clarified, is likely to offer a framework for other regions. The UK could do worse than following Japan’s lead, developing regulations that support the healthy growth of the technology.”

Gana Alampalle, MBA Participant 2018: “Bitcoin’s value lies in being an anonymous, effortless and secure payment system…in theory. This is also true for the numerous ‘alt-coins’ that have cropped up aiming to penetrate the market, each with their own USPs. It’s hard to see what real value that cryptocurrencies would offer if they were to be regulated. Prices would decrease substantially if anonymity were to be taken away. To add to this, hard-line regulations could potentially push cryptocurrencies further underground into the dark web where they would inevitably be traded illegally and continue to promote illicit activities.

What could be key to keeping the value of cryptocurrency is to manage exchanges and initial coin offerings while protecting the security and anonymity of coins by design. Policy makers have historically been good at regulating and appropriating currency innovations that the private sector put out. Effective cryptocurrency regulation however could be a tall order given the amount of international co-operation needed.”

The Exeter MBA’s ‘Leading in the 4th Industrial Revolution’ immerses students in emergent technological innovations. Blockchain applications continue to make headlines as the biggest revolution since the internet, and this month the University welcomed a global leader in research and development of blockchain technologies, nChain Group, to field questions in a discussion panel. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx2Cne2Vw9M

Why an MBA and why now?

By Jenna Hattingh, MBA Class of 2018

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the benefit that this MBA would provide. It began with the module ‘tackling global challenges’ where I was able to spend hours (and hours) researching one of my favourite topics – Climate Change. The amount of knowledge that was gained both during the course and in the research thereafter broadened my perspective and allowed me to develop my understanding on topics that I had previously misunderstood. This trend has continued throughout the course, and I now appreciate how skills can be developed through research, trial and error and even the occasional failure.

The pressure of workload, deadlines, and team dynamics makes you a stronger person. You may need to adjust your expectations and learn about other peoples personalities, and what is required to manage those personalities within the work environment (self-restraint in most cases).  Interpersonal relationships are just as important as quality of work in environments where teamwork is encouraged. These lessons are ones you most certainly cant learn at home. Some people will inspire you… Some will challenge you… And some will become your greatest friends.

Startup Weekend Exeter 2017

The weekend of November 17 – 19 saw the University of Exeter Business School transformed into an incubation space for Exeter’s brightest minds and entrepreneurial spirits. Now in its fourth year, Techstar’s Startup Weekend Exeter is a 54-hour startup sprint designed to guide entrepreneurs in shaping their innovative ideas into business realities over the course of just three days. The weekend captures the essence of the entrepreneurial journey; full of energy, hard work, camaraderie, and hours of high-intensity fun as teams compete to determine who wins 1st overall, people’s choice, or best purpose driven idea.

Sponsored by the University of Exeter Business School and SetSquared, many postgraduate students from the 2018 Exeter MBA cohort were in attendance, alongside a healthy mix of undergraduate students and members of the Exeter community. The weekend kicked off Friday evening, with a rousing welcome party hosted by TechStar facilitator David Andersen, followed by inspirational speeches from local social entrepreneur Kalkidan Lagasse and executive coach Ian Hale.

This year’s event centred around business with a purpose, and both Hale and Lagasse represented the power of purpose-led business by recounting their inspirational success stories. Lagasse began her retail business, Sancho’s Dress, as a way to bolster the income of her Aunt, a talented seamstress struggling to make ends meet in Lagasse’s home country of Ethiopia. Lagasse began her business as a student at the University of Exeter, selling her Aunt’s homemade scarves at a booth in the forum. She then engaged with the ThinkTryDo! Student Startup programme, and soon grew her business into a successful brick and mortar shop on Fore Street. Recently, Lagasse has expanded her business to fill a second retail space. She sells organic, cruelty-free clothing, jewellery and accessories.

Now it was time for Friday’s main event: the pitches! Participants were asked to come prepared with a business concept, and had only 60 seconds to present their idea to the Startup Weekend Exeter delegation. In all over 30 pitches showcased an incredible array of creative, innovative and inspiring ideas – from making a wood pulp substitute out of sugar cane, to creating building materials out of used plastic bottles, to stilettos capable of converting into flats by detaching the heels! Once all the pitches were heard, participants cast their votes for the top ideas.  In the end, a total of eight teams were formed, and it was the teams with representation of a variety of demographics and an expansive array of skills, that were most successful.

Once assembled, teams quickly got to work brainstorming on how to bring their ideas to life, and created their agendas for the weekend. The task: ideate, validate, create, and actuate! Typically, ideation begins with an expansive view, then focuses in on a realistic attainment, the creation of a prototype, or minimum viable product (MVP).

On Saturday, teams were expected to validate their ideas in the marketplace. This involved taking to the streets of Exeter, and discovering whether or not consumers would actually be interested in their business. Saturday also featured think tank sessions with an impressive array of mentors from all across the tech and entrepreneurial communities. Mentors conducted individual sessions with each team, offering tech support, logistics advisement, business development expertise, and much more.

Startup Weekend Exeter is a hectic, busy, and exciting time. Teams often find it hard to break away from the work to eat and relax. Thankfully, the amazing organising team had refreshments and relaxation covered with comfy couches, table tennis, and delicious free food all weekend long! Participants enjoyed the delights of Spanish paella, Mexican tacos, and authentic Sri Lankan cuisine, alongside sandwiches from Pret-a-Manger, snacks, and sweets to keep their energy levels up and brains firing on all cylinders.

On Sunday, teams continued their frenetic pace, turning their ideas into action. They finalised their MVPs, put the final touches on their presentations, and squeezed in a few more sessions with the mentors. By late afternoon, the judges arrived and it was time to compete!

 

Judges for Startup Weekend included:

Antonia Power, General Counsel for Blur Group

Richard Eckley, Senior Investment Analyst for Crowdcube

Christine Allison, Director of Roborough House Associates

Stuart Robinson, Director of the Exeter MBA

Ideas were assessed according to their validity in the market, strength of their business model, and execution and design. The judges then chose the team that had presented the most convincing business and awarded the prize for best purpose driven idea and also handed out the award for the People’s Choice.

In closing the event, TechStars facilitator David Andersen said:

“Startup Weekend Exeter was a really special experience. I think there were some great teams, with great energy and great ideas. Participants here were really open-minded and keen to do new things. Basically, everything we could throw at them, they took on with a positive mindset. It really says a lot about the community here in Exeter, and I would love to see that spread after the weekend. That’s what the Startup Weekend is all about: inspiring the participants to go out and change the world.”

Special thanks to the University of Exeter Business School, the ThinkTryDo Student Startups team, Bunzl catering, Pret-a-Manger, and all of our wonderful mentors, judges, and participants.

Written by Jessica Ilyas

The sweet spot: Why spaceships can help us design for a circular economy

According to Dana Meadows (1992), to reach systems change, the most important element is to have the power to transcend paradigms.

This is hard to do with anyone, let alone MBA students.

This week, Adam Lusby, adjunct lecturer at the Exeter MBA and Delfina Zagarzazú, 2016 Alumni, piloted a 2 day workshop coined Generation Space, where 43 students worked on the mission:

“Scope and define the internal characteristics of a spaceship that can evolve to host 1000 people for 1000 years for generational interstellar space travel”                

By setting the context in a galaxy, students were allowed to enter a new paradigm without considering it, allowing re-design  to happen at many different levels of a system including food, water, manufacturing and health to meet the needs of life in space.

Using Design Thinking to guide the process, the exploratory phase of  it allowed students to push the boundaries of creativity whilst in ideation staying aware of the need to build a circular economy strategy for the underlying importance of closed loop design to keep resources in use through the voyage.

What is your strategy to ensure the continuous uptime performance of all your resources? In other words, how do you propose to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value during the voyage?

Further inspiration for circular design was enabled by Chris Grantham and Arianne Orillac who lead Circular Economy at IDEO in London who guided the spaceships to consider reiteration of product design onboard using circular economy strategy cards.

After prototypes and definition of spaceship purpose, teams were judged by an all women panel to put their circular innovations forward.

  • Hege Saebjornsen, Country Sustainability Manager, IKEA UK & IE
  • Lynn Maxwell, Sustainability Developer, IKEA UK & IE
  • Emilie Sandberg, Creative Leader, IKEA UK & IE
  • Arianne Orillac, Circular Business Designer, IDEO London

This project is part of the Corporate Challenge 2018 in collaboration with IKEA and IDEO.

Blog written by Delfina Zagarzazu

Global Challenges and the MBA

It’s great to see our new cohort of MBA students starting to get involved with the 2017 programme.  We started formal learning last week with a module in which we discussed global challenges: economics and inequality, social change, technology and climate.  Four expert guest speakers joined us to bring their perspective on each of these.  The speakers came from Oxfam, IBM the UK Met Office as well as our own academic team.

We’re a truly global group this year; people from 21 countries have come to Exeter to join the full time MBA.  This diversity brought a lot to our classroom debate; maybe too much, as most of the guest sessions ran over time with participants from different parts of the world contributing their perspectives.  It all came together on the last afternoon when each study group presented their views on the challenges.

I think this kind of debate is important at the start of an MBA where many of the participants want to build their ability to make positive change in the world.  Being clear on the challenges we face and hearing others’ perspective on these helps us understand and shape our own opportunities and the skills we look to gain from the MBA to pursue these.

Written By Stuart Robinson

MBA Students Step Back in Time: A retreat to St. Michael’s Mount – By: Delfina Zagarzazu

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Picture Credits: Chayaporn Kongcharoenkitkul

Conscious of time with deadlines fast approaching in the next few days, we departed Exeter at 7AM to spend a day away from the books. Away from Devon, we  stepped into Cornwall – a first for many international students who had yet to explore all of the Southwest treasures!

The day was co-designed by Hugh St. Aubyn and myself to allow the 30 person cohort a creative and inspiring visit to balance off the business theory from class. We placed colourful and inviting signs to find the emerging leader within each of us.

Don’t ask what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people that have come alive

– Howard Thurman, Great Civil Rights Leader

The day promised to be filled with friends, nature, personal reflections and a beautiful historic castle to carry our minds away into imaginary stories and tales that made us step back in time – couldn’t have asked for more on a cold February morning halfway through Term 2 of our MBA.

The magic about St. Michael’s Mount is that you can only access it during low tide, something very rare in the 21st century of drones, planes and automobiles. The patience and timing for our visit set the pace for the day, as we removed our MBA ‘speedometers’ and tried to slow down to the pace of the tide to connect with the magic of the island and the castle.

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Two Months in Tokyo with PwC Aarata’s Sustainability Team

In the later stages of the One Planet MBA our cohort have the opportunity to develop and apply innovative business thinking to solve the real-life challenge faced by one of our corporate partner organisations. The following case study comes from Glendon Filer a member of the 2016 graduating cohort.

Two Months in Tokyo with PwC Aarata’s Sustainability Team, by Glendon Filer – One Planet MBA Alumnus Class of 2016

I have recently returned from Japan where I undertook my One Planet MBA consultancy project,  having spent the summer living and working in Tokyo, while completing an internship with PwC Aarata, Japan. Based 20 minutes’ walk from the entertainment and shopping hub of Shinjuku, I commuted across town each day to PwC’s office in Shiodome. Boasting views of Tokyo harbour and the famous Tsukiji fish market, it was an ideal place for some MBA level thinking. Outside it was a hot summer with many typhoons. Inside the office, days were long but – ultimately – rewarding.

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FT Preview – Teaching the Impact of Climate Change to the Leaders of Tomorrow

What happened yesterday had been anticipated for a long time. The opening of the United Nations’ 21st Conference of the Parties (or COP21 in a nutshell) in Paris yesterday evidences how urgent the need to tackle climate change has become. A recent paper in Nature shows how horrendous the economic and human cost of climate change would be – with about a quarter of the world’s GDP wiped off by 2100 and the burden of the cost falling onto the world’s poorest countries left to pay the price for it.

Teaching the Impact of Climate Change to the business leaders of tomorrow

While the Financial Times gave editorial prominence (subscription req’d) to its coverage of the opening of COP21, it also features an article more focused on MBA programmes that that deliver a more sustainable approach to business and management education.

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Welcoming the Class of 2016

After months of anticipation we finally welcomed our new Full Time and Executive MBA Hello worldparticipants to the Business School. A truly international group once again, we have over 40 students from 17 different countries, ranging from Australia and Canada to the USA, Uganda and Vietnam. With an average of 11 years work experience, the Class of 2016 comprises of promising business professionals with expertise in a range of industry sectors including engineering, IT, marketing, education and law. Throughout the year you will read their stories on this blog as they share their expectations, enthusiasm and challenges as they go through a life changing experience. Continue reading