Press release of the workshop “Product Innovation – Key to Sustainable Future”

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anh 4-Dong Gia

Sustainable products have been collected and displayed in Green Street, located at 45 Bat Su, Ha Noi

Project Sustainable Products Innovation (SPIN) organize a workshop on “Product Innovation – Key for Sustainable Future” with the aim to report the project’s achievements and share its experiences in product innovation in the four-year implementation in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The workshop would provide a comprehensive overview of product innovation practice and the prospects towards sustainability in Vietnam in particular and in Southeast Asia in general.

PRESS RELEASE

WORKSHOP

“PRODUCT INNOVATION – KEY TO SUSTAINABLE FUTURE”

HA NOI November 14th 2013 – Project Sustainable Products Innovation (SPIN) organize a workshop on “Product Innovation – Key for Sustainable Future” with the aim to report the project’s achievements and share its experiences in product innovation in the four-year implementation in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The workshop would provide a comprehensive overview of product innovation practice and the prospects towards sustainability in Vietnam in particular and in Southeast Asia in general. 

SPIN has worked with more than 500 small and medium entrepreneurs in 4 sectors, namely Textile, Furniture, Handicraft and Packaging; supported them to innovate products at the link: Product design (Re-design and New-design), Product strategy, Clean technology consultancy and transfer. As a result, under the tight collaboration between these companies and SPIN’s experts and designers, 2000 products have been re-designed and new-designed to be friendly to the environment, non-poisoned to human’s health, specially, potential to be massively launched to the market.

Based on the methodology of Clean technology and Efficient Natural resources Use, 85 Laos companies have innovated their products in design and 85 Cambodia companies have focus on inside-innovation. In Vietnam, the process of product innovation has not been limited in the sphere of a company but expanded to form a value chain of companies who operate in the same sectors to support each other in production. In Laos and Cambodia, the companies have been oriented to be adaptive to changing environment, in parallel; Vietnam companies have an active access based on transferred technologies which are clustered and developed by SPIN to be suitable for specific contexts of companies and the natural conditions of Vietnam.

This model and innovative business practices would help entrepreneurs enhance their competitiveness and social responsibility as well as environmental friendliness of products.

Entrepreneurs who involve in SPIN project have been raised their awareness and capacity of product innovation and production towards sustainability. Regarding this, Mr. Nguyen Hong Long, Regional Coordinator of SPIN project, shares: “Through SPIN’s workshops and training courses, most of companies have comprehended that it would be not too difficult to innovate their products and still ensure their competitiveness. These companies have been motivated to take action in product innovation with knowledge equipped and technologies transferred in order to use efficiently natural resources and utilize the waste to create the input materials for production.”

More than 30 sustainable technologies have been developed, utilized and clustered into smaller groups to be applied in specific contexts of business and natural conditions of Vietnam. In details, there are three most successful applied groups which are Renewable Energy, Renewable Materials and Zero-waste Knowledge Farm. The group of renewable energy includes solar energy and gasifier for residents and industry which are applied in companies producing mushroom, bamboo products such as Ngoc Dong, Hiep Hoa…The group of renewable materials has been implemented in producing furniture, green composite pots, coiling bamboo products…

Specially, the model of zero-waste knowledge farming named I-Nature embodies 25 sustainable technologies to create circle processes to keep the balance of the environment for the growth of plants and cattle. This model has been developed from traditional agricultural model with applied new technologies, resulting in zero-waste organic farming which causing no harm to environment and human’s health. Now, the model has been deployed at 10 households in Ba Vi and Soc Son, which contributes to their income.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Long, SPIN has created groups of sustainable technologies and a community of entrepreneurs with strong commitment to sustainable development, which would be the foundation for sustainable future in Vietnam.

At the workshop, Dr. Marcel Crul, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, presents the methodology of product innovation used in SPIN project and the typical case study in Vietnam. Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Hoa, Vice-director of Asian Institute of Technology Center in Vietnam, shares about Building product innovation capacity for entrepreneurs in Vietnam. As a result, Sustainable products have been collected and displayed in Green Street, located at 45 Bat Su, which was official open in September 2013.

Available at http://scp.vn

WWF about Establishing a Suitanable Pangasius Supply chain in Vietnam – SUPA

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Ms Sabine Gisch – Boie, Project Leader of International Program, WWF Austria, emphasized the importance of quality and food safety in Establishing a sustainable Pangasius supply chain in Vietnam

Building Sustainable Pangasius Value Chain in Vietnam

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The project “Establishing sustainable Pangasius value chain in Vietnam” is set to be launched in August and implemented in four years from 2013 to 2017 with a total budget of EUR 2.37 million, or an equivalent of more than VND 64 billion.
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According to the General Department of Fisheries, the Vietnamese pangasius industry has dramatically expanded 50 times in output and 65 times of export value since 2000. Vietnamese tra fish, or pangasius, has been present in nearly 140 countries and territories around the world and accounts for over 90 percent of global pangasius output. The catfish also contributes 30 – 34 percent to the country’s total seafood export value.
Nevertheless, despite high growth, the sector is posed to huge problems that may cause significant damage to pangasius farming. Specifically, spontaneous farming is undermining the sector development planning; uncontrolled construction of processing plants and lax vertical and horizontal linkage of processors, farmers, feed suppliers and exporters caused supply/demand imbalance and volatile prices. This reality, coupled with anti-dumping lawsuits, leads to instable development of Vietnamese pangasius industry. Giving an overview of that reality, Mr Truong Dinh Hoe, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), said the comprehensive management of pangasius industry from production and consumption to processing and export in Vietnam is not implemented thoroughly. The quality of parent fish, quality of baby fish, the quality of feeds and medicines, the output and quality of commercial fish, input prices, and selling prices are not actively managed.
This actuality is also a reason for VASEP to launch a programme in support of the sustainable development of Vietnam’s pangasius industry. The project “Establishing sustainable pangasius value chain in Vietnam” was jointly carried out by VASEP, the Vietnam Cleaner Production Centre (VNCPC), the World Wide Fund for Nature in Vietnam (WWF Vietnam), and WWF Austria.
VASEP said EU organisations and businesses will sponsor approximately EUR1.9 million, equivalent to 80 percent of the total budget for this project. The project will focus on specific activities like activities related to EU buyers, establishing a sample farm model and training centre; supporting companies to obtain ASC certification; training resource efficient and cleaner production (RE-CP), product design for sustainability (D4S), and sustainable product innovation (SPI) in enterprises. The project will also support the development of legislative framework; improve and perfect the legal framework in order to promote sustainable manufacturing practices in tra fish farming and processing in Vietnam; and train stakeholders to improve branding and assure product quality, and implement certificate of origin of seafood based on ASC and GlobalGAP standards.
In four years, the project will benefit approximately 200 companies and manufacturers of fish feed, 1,000 hatcheries, 750 small independent farms, 150 big farms, and 100 big pangasius processors in Vietnam. Once the project is completed, at least 20 new products and sustainable development technologies will be put on the market.
After many unsuccessful support programmes for the sustainable development of Vietnamese pangasius industry, this comprehensive, well-defined project is expected to bring the Vietnamese pangasius industry to the right path of sustainable development.
Source: VCCI news

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEai3GGuqM

Value Chain of Bamboo and Rattan

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Joint programme entitled ‘Green Production and Trade to Increase Income and Employment Opportunities for the Rural Poor’ in Vietnam. The programme’s approach is to develop better integrated, pro-poor, and environmentally sustainable “green” value chains, enabling poor growers, collectors and producers to improve their products and link them to more profitable markets. The complex challenges faced by the five value chains, ranging from sustainable raw material production, entrepreneurial skills development and cleaner production to market linkages and trade information deficits, can best be addressed by a joint programme which combines the core competencies of the relevant UN agencies: UNIDO, FAO, ILO, UNCTAD and ITC.

VNCPC and the project “Conservation of Environmental Resources in Vietnam”

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CONSERV, or Conservation of Environmental Resources in Vietnam is a PPP Capacity Building Project initiated by PUMA for all of its suppliers in Vietnam. It is co-financed by the German Bank DEG-KFW and managed in cooperation with ASSIST , an NGO operating in Asia. CONSERV applies the concept and methodology of UNIDO’s Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production (RECP) to enhance the capability of suppliers toward an efficient use of resources such are energy, water and materials of production as well as addressing the issue of environment protection.

The project aims to equip PUMA suppliers with the necessary knowledge and skills to help them achieve the 25% sustainability targets of PUMA by 2015 as well as help them improve their production efficiency.