From consulting to circular asset life cycle management
What if there are other businesses with under-utilised assets that could be re-allocated to those that could use them? This is the journey of LUP… Will you join us as part of creating the next chapter to our journey…??
Mid – 2019
LUP became the official environmental arm & a part of the ShareTree group of companies.
2019 – Strategic Partnering and Circular Asset Life Cycle Management
Through our organic historical networks and industry experience, we have had the pleasure to be able to work with the initial focus category of laboratory equipment and are growing rapidly in managing these specific type of assets. Whilst we have grand plans for the future, we want to ensure we are servicing this category first with the highest degree of expertise and have partnered with the most amazing technicians, service engineers, ethical and global organisations who believe in our vision and wish to all work together to minimise landfill and maximise the life out of assets.
If you have any networks in this area specifically of laboratory equipment, or if LUP may be able to assist you directly for this, we would love to hear from you. We are after all, only as strong as our network and the number of people and companies we can assist.
Late 2018 – Innovating and Evolving
After working on some other large Supply Chain Consulting projects, in improving Forecasting, Inventory management, Logistics and Procurement, to consider how we could partner strategically and long-term being “proactive” in terms of waste and reviewing total life cycle management of assets and commodities, we identified a huge need for the proactive management of assets which generally end up in landfill. We realised that companies were all generally working “reactively” in terms of how they looked at managing assets or handling waste. We also realised that working with all general types of waste streams was unsustainable for us to manage, despite us being blessed to have been able to work on some large scale projects through our network looking at solutions for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste per annum, from bread and other food waste, through to plastics, pallets, labels backing paper, car rims amongst many others during our first year of trading. Thus with an increasing awareness that we didn’t want to create a “Marketplace for Waste” (to ensure we didn’t encourage the production of more waste as a result of creating an easy sales channel for the disposal of waste), we removed active listings from our website in the second half of 2018.
2018 – Welcome to LUP Global
Our first six months after our initial launch at the end of 2017 was a steep learning curve for us! We went out to market initially just to understand what waste was out there and had our first introductions to the concept of the “Circular Economy”, meeting many amazing people already working in this space. Being Supply Chain experts and our continuous emphasis on creating “Closed LOOP Supply Chains”, plus consistent feedback that our original name the “Social Entrepreneurs Network” (SEN) was confusing, led us to re-brand as LUP GLOBAL to represent our grand vision of creating closed “LUP” Supply Chains globally.
2017 – The Launch of the “Social Entrepreneurs Network”
At the end of 2017 we made our grand debut by launching the “Social Entrepreneurs Network” (SEN). Our goal was to create a global network of people and companies passionate about social causes, in particular with global sustainability and who all wanted to work together for the betterment of our planet.
At our launch, we were initially wanting to set-up an IT platform to be able to facilitate the connection of waste to be re-purposed or spare capacity to be utilised. But we didn’t know what waste was out there or what to expect.
2016 – An Idea is Born
Before we could set-up something as large as our vision for LUP or SEN, we knew it was going to be a huge task, which would take many steps to create on the scale we wanted to achieve. We knew we wanted to reach for the stars but wanted to take small and achievable steps in order to create and sustain LUP.
So at the end of 2016 we started first by setting up “Strategic Buyers Group” a small consultancy firm based in Melbourne, Australia, focused on Business Strategy and Supply Chain Consulting specifically for Social Enterprises. We wanted to start helping and partnering with as many social and ethical organisations as we could to start building our “Network” (which later became SEN).
Through Strategic Buyers Group, we fist set-up our long-term ancillary service partnerships in Insurances, Logistics / Freight and Finance, which we knew would be required to support the future movement of any unused assets or waste
2015 – Founding Back Story
But how it all began was back in 2015 with a road transport and Third Party Logistics (3PL) in Melbourne, Australia called AUZ Country Carriers. As a service provider that on-forwards Australia-wide and provides international freight, they had a fleet of trucks that would always be in operation, trundling around the country.
However, when we looked at their operations, we realised that many of the trucks were operating at 50% capacity.
What if?
We had an epiphany – the trucks had to travel from one location to another regardless… what if there was a way to utilise the remaining space? And not just in terms of boosting profits – what if there is a way to make a positive impact for someone in need?
Community Support Frankston
We partnered with Community Support Frankston (CSF), an amazing organisation who provides support to homeless and disadvantaged people in Frankston, Australia. As a charity, they are always in need of resources and materials.
What if, with the spare capacity of AuzCountry’s trucks, we could find a way to deliver much needed resources to them?
Making the connection
We reached out to AuzCountry’s 1800+ clients in order to seek donations of non-perishable goods, toiletries and any materials that CSF could use. And what was offered to AUZ Country’s customers was this: If they were willing to donate their goods, AuzCountry would collect, store & transport those goods for free, using that spare capacity in the trucks, and deliver them to CSF as and when they needed it.
Within a year, AUZ Country collected over 20 tonnes worth of donated goods. The best part? In many cases, the clients who made donations were often contributing perfectly good products earmarked for waste, for reasons due to stained packaging or over-production. So not only were we able to help CSF with much needed resources, we were diverting materials that would otherwise have ended up in landfill, all transported in the spare capacity of AUZ Country’s trucks.
An idea is born
What if there are other businesses and organisations with assets that could be re-allocated? What if we could divert resources from landfill, towards someone who could benefit from it? What if we could close the supply chain loop for organisations around the world, and change how we think about sustainability?
What if you could be a part of the change? Welcome to LUP