How Sourceful is making businesses more sustainable and less polluting

Wing Chan spoke to Andy Martin about how you can make a product good, not just functional but ethical too, and, above all, sustainable

Wing Chan says who would have guessed the supply chain would be headline news? (Sourceful)

When Wing Chan started Sourceful, the company which aims to help other companies clean up and slim down the carbon footprint of their supply chain, he said to himself, “I want to do something boring and non-sexy, but good for the world.” He was convinced that no one was ever going to write any articles about supply chains. There would no buzz and no publicity. Nada.

And then, in the wake of the pandemic, those two simple words, “supply” and “chain”, took off and rocketed up the charts of the collective consciousness. And Sourceful found itself squarely at the heart of a national or global crisis. “I was taken by surprise,” says Chan. “Who would have guessed the supply chain would ever make headline news?”

Wing Chan was brought up at the southern end of the Northern Line. He studied computer science at Trinity College Cambridge and not only graduated with a First but came out top of his year in 2013, even while masterminding IT for the Trinity May Ball. Which helps to explain how he became an MD at the tender age of 22, working for The Hut Group (now THG) and running a business within the business. Preloved was his initiation into the circular economy and it soon became a big deal with over 5 million users who refused to throw their unwanted Christmas gifts in the bin.