Miranda BirchMake It China’s Miranda Birch worked at the BBC, including the national network BBC Radio 4, for 24 years. She draws on her journalistic experience to find different stories hidden within companies. Stories that draw in new customers by bringing to life the values of those companies. Stories that demonstrate the difference they make to clients, staff, and, in the case of BROAD Group, the planet. One company's commitment to sustainabilityYou might not be familiar with the name BROAD Group. But you might be aware of its Chairman, Zhang Yue, who founded the company 30 years ago. He became noteworthy in the West because he was the first businessman in China to own a private jet. And you might remember a smattering of headlines in 2015, about a Chinese construction company which managed to build a 57-storey skyscraper in 19 working days. The birth of ‘Mini Sky City’ was strikingly captured in a time lapse film: ‘Building 3 storeys a day. China’s new normal’. In 2015 people focussed on the speed at which the glass and steel structure rose into the sky. The process was impressively fast because the building is made from prefabricated steel slabs. The slabs are meticulously manufactured in BROAD’s factories, ready to be pieced together on site. But by emphasising the speed, much of the coverage underplayed a more important point. A point that lies at the heart of BROAD Group. Sustainability as well as speedThe modular approach which makes the process so fast also makes the building sustainable. The energy and environmental costs involved in construction are slashed. There aren’t any trucks ferrying raw materials to and from the construction site. No constant rumbling. No clouds of dust contributing to smog. There’s more. The finished building boasts 20 cm thick insulation, fresh air heat recovery and triple-glazed windows. That means it consumes a fifth of the energy of comparable buildings. BROAD SUSTAINABLE BUILDING (BSB), the BROAD subsidiary behind Mini Sky City, is confident that the ‘core tubular stainless steel slab’ structure it has developed, will outlive buildings made of concrete and conventional carbon steel. So when the tower block nears the end of its useful life, its steel skeleton will be able to be dismantled and reused – unlike many buildings in the past that were demolished and carted off to a landfill graveyard. In short, speed wasn’t the point. Sustainability – from start to finish – is. And while the 19 day skyscraper grabbed headlines in 2015, the truth is that BROAD Group has been innovating on behalf of the environment well before that. Sustainability – the desire to preserve life by turning ‘waste into treasure’ – frames everything it does. The products that prove itLet’s start at a relatively small scale. (We’ll move onto how BROAD has turned an entire town into a product in a moment.) Another part of the BROAD Group family is BROAD Air Conditioning. For more than two decades it has invested money and IP effort in developing non-electric chillers. The chillers cool and heat water for large-scale air-conditioning units. Think airports, office blocks, shopping malls, hospitals, factories. There are different versions of these huge installations… …but the guiding principle behind all of them is the same: wherever possible use green energies as power. And the greenest of them all is waste heat. As the General Manager of BROAD Air Conditioning International, James Wu (above), puts it, “waste heat is the future. With Waste Heat Chillers, we can achieve zero energy consumption and zero carbon emissions. This is the future. We are confident about this for our company and the planet.” What that means is you need to capture the steam and the exhaust from other parts of your building (or neighbourhood) and convert it into useful energy. Don’t let a single vibrating joule get away. It’s the equivalent of mending every single dripping tap across a city. Each droplet (or joule) might seem inconsequential on its own, but taken en masse, it all adds up to terrible waste. And BROAD wants to turn that waste into treasure. Jason Jian (far right below) is the Sales Director of BROAD Air Conditioning International: “In cold places with long winters, we help central heating companies to use the heat which is not used directly for heating. For example, water that’s 10°C or 20°C, which can’t be used for heating. Our technology can pick up the heat from that temperature heat source and raise it to about 65°C or 80°C. That means we can almost double the efficiency of conventional heating systems, which is why BROAD technology is being welcomed by heating companies all over the world.” Living proof of sustainabilitySo that’s one example of a sustainable product. But actually BROAD strives to make everything it does sustainable. That includes everything behind the scenes, in BROAD Town. In Jason’s words, “our legacy will be to package up BROAD Town as a product”. Broad Town is a campus, home to the company’s headquarters and ten dormitory buildings where 3000 of the staff live. As you wander around you see more evidence of BROAD treasuring its waste. The outdoor furniture is made from off-cuts of steel: And in the offices many of the desks and cabinets are the reincarnations of product packaging. It was in 2008 that the company started to scale up its efforts to create a truly sustainable community. So Mini Sky City, which grabbed the limelight in 2015, is actually just one of 30 buildings which can boast impressive energy efficiency and air quality. At this point, it’s worth noting that in 2008 the world’s governments were still a year away from the ill-fated Copenhagan summit on climate change. And while the world’s leaders ummed and ahhed over their respective responsibilities, BROAD Group were quietly getting on with it. Putting the principle of ‘preserving life’ into practice, at the office and at home. Sustainability presses the self-destruct buttonThis next bit is striking. It’s a measure of how committed BROAD Group is to sustainability. Because, in the longer term BSB will lead to the demise of one of its sister subsidiaries. In Jason’s words, “it will kill the air conditioning business”. As BSB creates more energy efficient buildings, keeping the air at comfortable temperatures all through the year, the need for air conditioning will eventually disappear. Jason says this with pride because it means that the company will have achieved a new level of sustainability – and the effort that BROAD currently invests in air conditioning will be invested in innovations that we haven’t conceived of as yet. Bringing deeply-held beliefs to lifeBuildings are one thing, but the long-term future of BROAD’s sustainable ethos relies on belief. When people truly believe in a vision, change their behaviour accordingly and influence their family and friends as they go – that’s when an ethos embeds itself, widely and deeply. In Jasons’ words, “we see it and we feel it”. How does it happen? Much of it comes from the company practising what it preaches; creating the conditions which prompt people to think about how their day-to-day behaviour can help safeguard the environment long term. That might mean carrots and, yes, the occasional stick too. One of BROAD’s ‘carrot’ incentives comes in form of Low Carbon Subsidies, which are available to every member of staff. Jane Xiao (above) is the Administration Manager of BROAD Air Conditioning International: “I think this policy is unique because our Chairman doesn’t have an obligation to provide this subsidy to the staff. So if you don’t have a car, you receive 1,580 RMB a year. That is enough, approximately, to cover all your local bus travel, or to buy a pretty nice bicycle. I think this is the first time ever in China that the owner of the company has offered this type of subsidy to the staff.” As for the stick? Whether you’re part of BROAD or a guest, this is what you will see when you sit down to have lunch at the canteen: Jane continues: “A member of staff once left some vegetables on his plate and they were forbidden to eat in the canteen for two days. In China there is a tradition that, when you have guests, you need to provide as much food as you can. Our Chairman is determined to change that, not because we cannot afford it, but because we don’t want to waste food.” Perhaps this sounds too stern. But 80% of the meals served at the canteen are grown on organic farms owned by BROAD. If you stop to think about the effort involved in growing a side serving of vegetables – preparing the soil, sowing seeds, feeding, watering, fending off pests – only to see that food scraped off someone’s plate into the bin… two days banned from the canteen makes a valid point. It’s not just a waste of food. It’s a waste of all the hard work that the food represents. Spreading belief, far and wideHard work and commitment to sustainability is what BROAD expects of all its employees. And the company gives a lot back in return. James joined as a graduate over a decade ago:
“I love BROAD. After 13 years I’m still very enthusiastic. If we want to do something, we can do it ourselves. The relationships between people are very simple. The company encourages us to work hard and we get a return. I like that philosophy. “Also, the health of the employees is most important to our Chairman. That is why the company invests a lot to make sure our staff can have organic food and work in a very good environment.” Jason joined the company 11 years ago. BROAD first caught his attention when the news broke about the Chairman acquiring his first private jet: “I like jet fighters and anything that flies in the sky and I was attracted by this.” His enthusiasm remains, but for different reasons: “Unknowingly BROAD changes your life. This is just a small example but for instance, when my family and I go to the movies, kids always like candies. So when my daughters finish a candy and I can’t find a trash box, I always put the wrapper in my pocket. Also, if it’s not necessary, I don’t go out in my car.” And for the record, the private jets are on the way out. James: “Yes, BROAD was famous because we were the first company to use a private business jet in China. And later, we bought five more jets. But business jets consume a lot of energy and we wanted to support environmental protection. So now, after 10 years, we are the first company in China to stop using business jets. So that is why we are famous now: we were the first to buy a business jet and now we are the first to stop using them!” And finally to Jane, who joined the company in 2010. She was a sustainability convert already. So she was in a position to assess BROAD’s environmental credentials more rigorously: “Being environmental for me is part of my genes. I just naturally think that saving energy and preserving the environment is a kind of obligation for every human being. As a student, I hated using plastic bags from the supermarket. So this is part of my character. And when I came to BROAD and watched our Chairman and the company do what it does, BROAD has strengthened me. I feel very proud of it.”
3 Comments
12/4/2023 23:09:32
What a great model to follow, to be inspired by!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Make it ChinaNews and views on all things consultancy, marketing and China. ArchivesCategories
All
|