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Marc Curtis

Lyreco Asia: Sustainable Innovation

At Lyreco Innovation, our purpose is to promote great work days while taking care of the planet and its people.

Creating game-changing solutions and initiatives for our customers and their end-users.


PIONEERING! That's Lyreco's DNA.

To achieve this, Lyreco Innovation is organized with an inspiring core-team in its headquarters and a dynamic network to catalyze, share and stimulate innovation in every country. In Asia, we are focusing on two main trends in the workplace: Sustainability (#OnAMission) and Breakroom solutions (#WorkWell). We are actively developing wellness and sustainability offers to support these initiatives.


All innovations start from understanding what our customers need. In most Lyreco Asian countries, our medium and large corporate customers have corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments to achieve and regulations to comply with.


Since the onset of COVID-19, however, our customers have also had to face a tough economic reality, in which there is exceptionally high pressure on financial results. Therefore, we need to partner with our customers to answer this question: “How do I fulfill my CSR commitment in a cost-effective way?”


Lyreco Innovation’s focus in Asia is on identifying disruptive business models and technologies in order to deliver sustainability with affordability and convenience.

Let’s look at an example. Aquama is an eco-friendly hand-sanitizing solution that is made from only water, salt and electricity through hydrolysis. This solution complies with all safety requirements in the field of virucide, including COVID-19, bactericide, disinfectant and detergent, with internationally recognized certificates. It is safe for people and safe for the planet. Aquama’s hydrolysis technology enables a significant cost reduction versus non-eco-friendly hand sanitizers. Additionally, we proposed distributing the sanitizer in a convenient, refillable bottle to make it “zero-waste.” Through the subscription model, customers will have their hand sanitizer delivered on a scheduled date every month. Rather than ending up in the trash, the empty bottles will simply be refilled.


When we launched the test of this model in Singapore, our pilot sales team organized “Aquama days” to present the offer to our customers and gather their feedback. This allowed us to quickly adapt the model based on their suggestions and ensure the greatest convenience. The only way to deliver sustainability, affordability and convenience to your customers is to test the product and learn from them!


Another area where sustainability is important to our customers is the pantry, especially with regard to single-use plastic cutlery and disposable plates. There are several options to replace single-use plastic in this field, including bio-sourced disposable items and reusable cups and plates (though these have the added inconvenience of requiring cleaning). Or, companies can pursue new business models, such as re-usable boxes that are managed by a provider. There is also an opportunity for employees to receive discounts at restaurants when using these boxes as take-out containers. This is the Barepack model, which we will test soon.


Our second challenge and opportunity at Lyreco Innovation in Asia is to embark everyone on Lyreco’s circular economy & innovation journey. We are raising awareness of this journey by explaining why Lyreco aims to be a pioneer in Asia’s B2B sustainability market and what’s in it for our employees. We are also turning our Green office initiatives into fun games by organizing waste sorting and reduction challenges to encourage participation. These initiatives will be the basis for sharing ideas with and building Green office offers for our customers.


Finally, we want to extend the sustainability mindset towards every new offer. For example, when we created the New Enzo coffee solution, we promoted sustainability through the collection and recycling of coffee grounds (https://www.lyrecodeliverswellness.com/).


In the future, we want to communicate even more with human resources managers, communication managers, and health/safety/sustainability managers to gain a better understanding of the necessary areas of improvement in the sustainability field, and to continue delivering great work days to our customers.


In a nutshell, we aim to deliver convenient, affordable, trustworthy and sustainable offers to our customers to help them reach their CSR goals. In order to embark everyone on the journey and develop the sustainability mindset, we are listening, testing, and learning from our customers!

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