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The young generation created 内卷 and 躺平 to speak out: We don’t want a Neijuan Society, but lean-in doesn't work at all, as Sheryl Sandberg said. Pre-edit | Zijing Wang Why does company exist? To make money, many might say. But historically speaking, company exists to solve problems. Money is not the purpose, but a tool to raise efficiency, to help us live happier and easier. Why does journalism exist? Reasons vary. To reduce information dissymmetry, to make people feel sure and safe about the world is one of them. But when internet developed, information chaos appeared. Media lost part of its functions, even caused anxiety. Cyber bullying, netizens arguing are good examples. The fast growing business and media industries can be confusing, letting us forget why they were created in the first place: To take care of humans, society and nature. This is why we need to talk about ESG. It is not only a guide for investing, a principle for companies, but also an area media needs to pay more attention to. During the International Worker’s Day, Youth for World Sustainable Development Forum was held online to discuss the current ecological environment, companies’ practices on sustainability and actions from the youths. The Founder and CEO of 着陆TouchBase Jiajia Guo has attended this forum as guest speaker. She traced the sources of business, companies and media, explained why media needs to report ESG. Jiajia Guo，Founder and CEO of 着陆TouchBase
Below is the speech given by Jiajia Guo, edited by 着陆TouchBase： Good afternoon everyone，My name is Cindy, the founder and CEO of 着陆TouchBase. Thanks for the invitation from the sponsor Mr Wu, I'm so glad to be here to give this speech.My topic for today is “Company, media and ESG”, to be more specific, why does media need to repoet ESG. Is it a PR thing for a company?What appears in your mind when you first saw this topic? When I started looking at these three words and did the research, I realized they are so complex and powerful and deserve to be discussed. I couldn’t give you a perfect explanation yet.But I am not here to teach. I am here to tell you some stories, and hope they can inspire you to find out an answer together with me.I will tell the stories from two parts.Look at the word “company”. Where did it start?Human envolves since ancient times, gathering in tribes, nations and developed modern society. We created concepts that we believe represent advance or intellengence. Company and media are two of them. When they were created, I believed they contained lots of good wishes and expectations from people, such as bringing us more civilization. But now, if you ask someone “Why do company and media exist?” The answer might be “for ambitions”.There is an interesting practice in meditation. When you feel not so good about something or somebody, imagine them as a baby.Let’s do this practice here together. Close your eyes, imagine they are two babies just born into this world.The first one is baby company. In ancient times, people lived by the river. They learned hunting and farming and became more efficient. Then they realised they can’t do everything just by themselves, so they started to cooperate with a due division of labour, they traded. For the further optimization of efficiency, people invented money, capital and companies. At that time, the significance of a company was determined by its contribution to the society.
Unfortunately, this has changed. Enterprises exist now to seek interests for their shareholders. The supremacy of shareholders' rights and interests turned to the unchanging truth pursued by many.Many years ago, Carl Marx found out the evil side of capital. But will capital or companies die? I don't know. One day, maybe. But at least not now. This is why we need ESG: Although we can't eliminate companies or capital, we can still guide them.The concept of ESG, in short, is that when capital invests or when company operates, they should not only pursue financial returns but also take interests of society, environment and surroundings into account.The term ESG was raised in the early 1970s and played an increasingly influential role in recent years. It also becomes more and more popular in China. Reasons could be the awakening of capitalists and business owners. In a word, The more they change the society, the more powerful ESG would be, the more it can influence. That’s why it deserves attention from all sectors of the society: the central government, the local governments, business, academia, investment institutions, enterprises, start-ups, NGOs and individuals.Now, let’s look at the baby media.Language is a wonderful piece of art. The two ancient rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, gave birth to the river civilization. The streams hit stones, made beautiful sounds. Using themselves as an instrument, people invented language. It is hard for us now to imagine how language started between a small group of people, and developed from some random symbols to a tool that transfers information, and is passed on from generation to generation.It is also hard to imagine how they first broke the language barrier, understood each other's words, even learned each other's language.Thanks to the art of printing, information is no longer transmitted by word of mouth but can be printed on paper as text. This is the primary form of media. With the industrial and information revolutions, technology developed, media “evolved” into modern media.
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The modern media also has its developing path. The earliest journalists in China were intellectuals, who assumed the responsibility of "carrying morality with iron shoulders and writing articles with skilful hands". And then we have national media.In the past decade, The Internet Age created many listed companies. Media companies started to have their way to operate independently, made profits, fed themselves, developed. For example, China Computerworld, started in the 1980s, was once very popular in China and was said to be the “wind vane” in internet industry. Technology and financial media Jinrong Jie are also listed on Nasdaq. More and more media began to emerge and took a share in the capital market.But soon, people started to suffer from information overload. They spent more and more time on fragmented but useless information.What happened to the media?China Computerworld declared its closure in April. At the beginning of this year, JinRong Jie was forced to delist by Nasdaq.
@China Computerworld What’s wrong with modern media? I am not here today to analyze why they ended up like this. But I do want to raise a question: Do their valuations on market match their contributions to the society?We took a look at what they write. Most of them are telling their readers: We’ve found out where the money are, and here is how you can make them. Yes, this sort of stories receive a lot of attention, and indeed, the information transparency they provide can somehow promote market equity.But, is it still the case right now?Just look at yourself as a reader, how much money have you made from the internet? When you browse, seeing how much money people made, did you learn from this and make a lot of money as well, or just feel more anxious and panic?More importently, when you saw the problem, do you choose to battle or give up?Let me introduce you to two popular terms created by the young Chinese.Here is an example sentence:
Image from《The King of Commedy》by Douban Movie
I brought up these terms because I saw what’s happening from my experience, which forced me to reconsider the meanings behind.
I used to be a financial writer. My job is to interview start-ups, report them. When investors are interested in them, I can let them get in touch. The original purpose of doing so is to reduce the financing difficulty for start-ups.
Last July, I interviewed a start-up working on children’s drama. They don't teach a child how to perform or dress like an actor. Instead, they use drama as a tool to help them understand the world, society and themselves. They introduced the teaching system in the UK to China，every teacher there has to pass a standard exam. They also set a strict protection mechanism, in case children suffer from psychological trauma during the performance.This company has run for 10 years. As you can see, they are really serious about what they do, and they tried a lot. Now they needed money to develop their online products.I was so moved after I watched one of their performances. I saw that children could openly discuss life issues and give their critical opinions.I finished the article, published it happily, waiting for investors to contact me. Normally, when I published consuming start-ups that sell foods, clothes, mirrors, even toothbrushes，mesages flew in. But this time, I waited the whole day, nobody asked me anything about this company.I was confused, I asked some of them. The answers are shocking.They said: “You know, after the double reduction education policy, we don't invest in education companies anymore.”They said: “They are so idealistic. They focus too much about our society, I doubt their profitability.”This makes me feel sad. I thought: “You don’t look at what they did and what they will do, you don’t care about their strategies. But you think they don’t make money only because they care about the society?”
When I was at University College London, I followed my supervisor Elaine Unterhaulter to study the localization practice of SDGs in developing countries. Since then, I’ve been wondering, except for NGOs, where else can SDGs be practised in China.There are topics like impact investment, B-corps and ESG. I know the importance, but I don’t know how to link them exactly with my work. When I saw such an excellent start-up couldn’t get much attention just because they are “idealistic”, I know I have to do something.So I founded TouchBase, I want people who care about the same things as I do to touch base with each other here, in an easier way. We are a platform. Starting from media, I hope to restructure the way of modern reporting.1.ESG interpretation. We analyze the ESG related trends and policies. 2.ESG investment. We focus on start-ups that not only make money but also do good things to society, environment and related fields.3.ESG practices in big companies.In the previous company I worked at, I was the first one that wrote about ESG. I started last September, when most people didn’t know what ESG is. You had to explain everything. It’s getting better now, but it is still essential to educate the market.Earlier this year, a fellow entrepreneur in media industry said to me: "Have you seen an ESG related market? If not, how can media go faster than the market? " It was a rainy day - I remember quite well - and I lost my tongue hearing this.But soon I realized, on the contrary, media should be the first one to step in and lead the way. We have the responsibility to speak out, guide, and lead the market to the right way, only because we are media.You can call it a Dutch Act of an idealist. In fact, I am optimistic about this. People will see and join in if we start and keep going.The young generation created 内卷 and 躺平 to speak out: We don’t want a Neijuan Society, but lean-in doesn't work at all, as Sheryl Sandberg said.Nobody wants to give up if they have a chance. So companies and media, please do what you should do.TouchBase is not perfect. We are still young, but we are trying with all efforts.Featured Image | Unslpash
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