Welcome to the “Women Driving Circularity” series, part 10. In this part, we feature the inspiring story of Ms. Kim Le and her consulting firm on Circular Economy – CL2B.
I have never stopped asking more questions. And the question that get me started with CL2B is: Can we approach sustainability differently? What if sustainability is not a force of commitment but the pull of its values?
In 2019, I established CL2B as a management consulting firm focused on circular economy acceleration in Vietnam. It started as I saw the environmental and economic challenges that Viet Nam was having. As a big manufacturing country, Viet Nam lacks production material for the manufacturing to sustain, the recycled material plays an important role as a secondary material for Viet Nam’s economy. While the recycling sector exists, Viet Nam mainly processes low-value recycling which is not a circular economy. Our ambition is pushing the recycling ecosystem to a new level: higher value, more transparency, and full traceability. Hence, the circular economy is the model for the current challenges that Vietnam has and to leverage domestic SMEs in Viet Nam.
CL2B has been growing toward the values of benefits that Circular Economy can bring to business, at a minimal level, it fulfills compliance and public expectation; to the extent, that it is customer experiences and insight, and opportunities that bring benefit to all stakeholders where its operation creates positive impacts by continuous improvement. It requests decent work done in a comprehensive assessment of impacts.
While the Circular economy is rather new, we are very grateful for having partners and clients that are open to exploring with us in their value chain to adopt the circular economy, from product and operation point of view to strategic level. The circular economy journey for me is a lot of testing and trialing on what is feasible. In the first two years, we have run a trial of many materials, frameworks, and concepts to test what is feasible and what is not. I used to receive many waste materials and try with a different lab to see how we can recycle them. I used to launch different concepts which never actually been taken off as well. The important thing is to be resilient and keep trying.
An important part of our operation is a partnership and leveraging of the capabilities of the local circularity network, in which, we select some intervention and local business to support regarding market entry and expansion. Without market commitment and viable finance, the circular business won’t sustain itself. Hence, we invest our effort and resources to create a supportive market condition for circularity to scale.
Story and photos shared by Ms. Kim Le
Read how UNDP is advancing a gender-sensitive inclusive Circular Economy: The tactics “3Vs” to drive a gender-inclusive circular economy – Viet Nam Circular Economy
