top of page
  • Writer's pictureAlizée CCM

Why should companies implement a Zero Waste Strategy?


Do you want to raise more awareness amongst your peers?

Do you want to have a positive impact around you?

Do you want be a change-maker and inspire people around you?

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the topics around sustainability?

You don’t know where to start?

Maybe we can help.

We have been working with companies from 6 different industries in Shanghai.

We’ve held over 100 workshops in 3 years and reached over 10,000s of people across China.

We are a young and dynamic team that is passionate about sustainability, innovation and the impact we have on our communities.

---------------------------------------------

A big question we often get at Zer'0Waste Shanghai is how we actually work together with our communities, schools and corporations. so we thought we'd explain it clearly in this article.

For starters, we are driven by the positive impact we can have on the environment and the people around us. Preserving the environment, providing healthier lifestyle options and caring more about our bodies and our environment. We are happy to work with ANYONE who wants to be part of the solution.

Our mission is to support people and organizations in their transition towards a more sustainable and environmental friendly lifestyle in Shanghai. We make this transition smooth, simple, concrete and fun! We work together with individuals, schools and corporations, through seminars, hands on workshops and collaborative consulting projects.

Zero Waste is a global movement where people try to reduce the waste they produce by changing their lifestyle. A lifestyle that aims to take a step back from the capitalist and consumer-driven society we live in, with new products entering the market every day that are supposedly there to make us happier, or more fulfilled.

Zero Waste means that you send very little waste to landfill, to incineration, to the ocean. The best way to do this is simply by reducing the waste you "acquire" in the first place, which means reducing it before even recycling it. An easy way to do this on a daily basis is to follow the 5R's: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot.

In a nutshell, our three main areas of work would look something like this are:


We believe that we shouldn’t 'go back to the stone age' and regress in our evolution, but we need to pivot. We need to change the way we design and work

For us, the environmental and human challenges pushes us to innovate even more and re-design the way we work - produce -– create. -

and that is also the strategy we envision to bring to a larger public.

Let's dig deeper.



Let's get one thing straight: recycling will not save the world, nor save you money. Currently, recycling is part of the equation but going through the first three stages of the Zero Waste Strategy will have a bigger impact on our environment and save you a lot of money it will actually cost you more to properly recycle.

Going through the first three stages of the Zero Waste Strategy will save you money and a lot of other problems...

For example, Zer'0Waste Shanghai was able to save a client over 30,000 RMB a year just by switching to non disposable products. We were able to save: money, trees, water, energy, waste, ...


The real strategy behind securing your company's long term future is to start thinking of not overly relying to much on outside resources. Today we rely A LOT on petrol, gas and coal. Everything we do, we use, we work with relies heavily on one of those resources. The problem is: these resources are finite. Very soon we won’t have them anymore. The idea is to try and rely on resources that are not finite: sunlight, water movement, wind movement, …

The process to go towards the Circular Economy is long and if companies don’t make that jump soon, they won’t be able to stay in business for a long time or they will lose a lot of money going through that transition.

At Zer'0Waste Shanghai we believe that the Circular Economy is the most reliant economy out there. McKinsey estimates the market potential globally for the Circular Economy globally to be around $ 1 trillion A YEAR. The automotive industry being the biggest winner with the highest benefits of $ 200 billion a year.*

"A circular economy replaces one assumption—disposability—with another: restoration. At the core, it aims to move away from the “take, make, and dispose” system by designing and optimizing products for multiple cycles of disassembly and reuse. This effort starts with materials, which are viewed as valuable stock to be used again, not as elements that flow through the economy once. For a sense of the scale involved, consider the fast-moving consumer-goods industry: about 80 percent of the $3.2 trillion worth of materials it uses each year is not recovered."

- McKinsey (source at the end of the article)


Like all big projects, companies and goals, it's about taking that first step.

Why not taking it with us?

To find information on our services please click here

or send us an email at alizee@zerowasteshanghai.com


bottom of page