CEMS Magazine | May 2011
Interview
Pernille Son Paulsen,
CEMS 2008 (CBS-RSM)
Interview BY Blandine Avot Secretary General, CEMS Alumni Association
LABELLING ORGANISATIONS OR HOW TO HELP THE CUSTOMER TO FIND HIS WAY IN THE FAIRTRADE WORLD “CSR can cover very different types of realities. To me, CSR is no philanthropy. It is the integration of social, economic and environmental considerations in the way you do business,” says Pernille. Her interest for CSR started during an exchange programme in Peru where she was directly confronted with a harsh microeconomic local situation where she clearly noticed “the inequalities in international trade today and throughout history”. Once back in Denmark, she enrolled in a Masters program on business and development for the academic part, and then did her CEMS internship in Kenya. Here, she worked for a Danish sustainable investment fund. Her specific project focused on climate change mitigating investments. She is now working as a Certification Analyst for FLO-CERT, a company founded in 2003 delivery fairtrade certification. This independent certifier sends auditors to visit all the value chain actors before labelling a product Fairtrade. Her job consists in getting back to companies after the audit and building with them action plans to correct non-conformity points in order to obtain or maintain their certification.
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Meeting customer needs for traceability To Pernille, labelling brings a real value to the customers who are now demanding traceability of the goods they buy. “This demand will keep on increasing and the range and availability of Fairtrade certified products is constantly expanding.”
CEMS fits the bill Pernille reckons that opportunities for doing sustainable business in developing countries are still huge: “Entrepreneurs don’t have to reinvent the wheel but to customize them to the need in the local market.” And CEMS people are fit to take over such a challenge, especially with the opening of the community outside of Europe, that creates more diversity. Her advice to those willing to commit to CSR is very pragmatic: “CEMS is a great combination of academic and practical professional experiences. So build up your profile in a consistent direction while choosing your courses, your business project, your internships. Seize the opportunity to create contacts with companies. Work on your languages and your international exposure, especially in the Global South, as CSR is working on a global scale.”