The founders of Your Sustainable Store, BambooStrawGirl, and Eco.Le speak about their origin stories and share their thoughts on sustainability.
I attended a talk organised by the National Library Board (NLB) last Friday (28 May 2021). The talk was titled “The Eco-Friendly Edit” and is part of a series of talks in which they speak with innovators, business owners, entrepreneurs and the like. In this edition of the series, NLB invited three ladies who own environmentally conscious businesses. In this post, I share the notes I made during the talk and the Q&A.
First, each of them spoke about their motivations and how they got started running their businesses. After that, there was a moderated panel in which they answered a few questions before they opened up the Q&A segment to the public. Since this was a talk by NLB, the speakers were also invited to recommend a book that inspired them on their entrepreneurial journey.
Disclaimer: Any sections of this post where I reproduce what the speakers said are not verbatim. I didn’t catch everything exactly so some points have been summarised or omitted. All errors are my own.
🌱 Speakers and Their Origin Stories
Speaker 1: Dawn Chen
First up was Dawn Chen, founder of Your Sustainable Store, a store that curates and sells stylish and affordable products to help you lead an environmentally aware lifestyle. I follow this store on Instagram and I actually purchased something from them just a week before! (Side note: Admittedly, I have yet to use it, but maybe that will change soon.) The store appears to be a one-woman-show and she juggles a full-time job in hospitality on the side. Her ability to juggle these commitments amazes me.
In a way, her career was what got her started in the first place. She spoke about how her job allowed her to travel and experience the beauty of nature. A visit to a melting glacier and run-ins with unusual weather helped her understand the impact that human activity has on the planet. On a visit to New Zealand, she was exposed to a culture where reusables were more widely used. Through that, she founded Your Sustainable Store to fill a gap she saw in the Singapore market for reusables.
Speaker 2: Melissa Lam
Next was Melissa Lam, founder of BambooStrawGirl, a store that sells eco-conscious lifestyle products and works to provide a supplementary income for South East Asian artisans. I also follow her on Instagram where she shares snippets of her daily life (e.g. making glue using cooking ingredients). Running the store is her full-time job, but aside from selling products, she also engages in outreach activities which include giving talks or conducting workshops.
Similar to Dawn, Melissa’s journey started when she noticed the irony in how reliant she was on disposables during a trip into the great outdoors. From that point on, she decided to make small changes to lead a more sustainable life. Melissa started out by distributing bamboo straws for free but that eventually grew into the social enterprise that BambooStrawGirl is today.
The ability to spread a sustainability message and spark conversations with others on such issues is the driving force behind her venture. She wasted no time during the talk to debunk the “zero waste lifestyle”. She believes that the iconic image of a small jar of trash is an extreme stance that discourages people from making simple changes. She also clarified that for her store, sustainability goes beyond the environment. She thus aligns her business goals with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Overall, her message is that every little action counts. Sustainability is about doing what you can and sometimes involves choosing the least harmful choice. She wrapped up her segment with these three R’s:
- Refuse: Ask yourself if you really need it.
- Reduce: Ask yourself how much of it you really need.
- Rethink: Spend time thinking hard about whether you really need something.
Speaker 3: Hui Hien
The third and last speaker was Hui Hien, owner of Eco.Le, a zero waste bulk shop near Beauty World MRT. Hui Hien views her brick-and-mortar space as a great way to start conversations about sustainability. What surprised me was that she came from the Oil & Gas industry, where she said that she saw how the business models of never ending growth were unsustainable. From there, she started the store with the aim to reduce packaging waste and help people to consume less.
For her, “zero waste” is not about having no waste but about reducing the extra waste generated from purchasing. For example, promotions that encourage people to buy more than what they need result in good products being thrown away. The monetary values of items are also not reflective of their actual costs because they exclude things like environmental costs.
As for the meaning behind her shop’s name, here are three ways to read it:
- The Le in Eco.Le is 乐 (le4) which is the Chinese word that roughly translates to “happiness”.
- The Le in Eco.Le is 了 (le) which is the Chinese word that taken together with Eco means you are “already Eco”.
- Ecole is the French word for school, which embodies her idea that her shop is a space for learning and discovery, not just for her customers but also for herself.
🧠 Moderated Panel Discussion
What does it mean to be sustainable? Are there additional costs to be sustainable? Whether as a consumer or as a business?
Dawn:
We may think that sustainability is expensive but it’s likely because the current out-of-pocket costs are not commensurate with the true environmental costs. In terms of running a sustainable business, I’ve found that packaging cost may be more expensive, but negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Melissa:
I recently came across a meme and thought it was pretty interesting. “What’s trashy if you’re poor but classy if you’re rich? — Sustainability”. I believe sustainability is about doing what you can with what you have. I have come across students who ask what they can do because they don’t earn their own pocket money. But even as a student, you likely already have sufficient resources. The water bottles on their desks are one way in which they are already participating in BYO. Similarly, you may have spare containers or cutlery at home that you can bring with you.
It’s funny sometimes, coming from a retail business, but I think you shouldn’t have to buy what you don’t need. This is why for my business, we’ve been moving towards essentials such as soaps because these are things that people will have to come back and buy more of. There may be a higher monetary cost for my business but where there are areas where things are more expensive, I think my customers are generally understanding. I guess it’s important to be accountable and transparent about it.
Hui Hien:
Sustainability kits (e.g. portable cutlery) are nice to have, but you can make your own. You can be sustainable at a low cost as it’s ultimately about working with what you have. I think it’s not that sustainability is expensive, it’s about the perception of value. Sometimes, customers come to us and say our things are more expensive but the reality is that we just cannot compete with grocery stores like NTUC. I think the economies of scale will arrive someday, but people need to take the plunge first.
As a small enterprise, I don’t have bargaining power for rental or supplies. It’s also unlikely that Singaporeans are not going to convert to zero waste consumption so quickly. So I’m realistic about my business and only purchase how much I expect to sell.
In the commercial world, they reward you for consuming or buying more, but often that is more than what you need. What I offer is the ability to reduce the amount of packaging waste you generate.
🎤 Question & Answer with the Public
I was fortunate enough to have two of my questions answered during the Q&A portion. Here are their responses to my two questions and the last question was posed by another attendee.
Do you have any advice for people who work in large organisations on what they can do to nudge their companies to become more sustainable and responsible?
Melissa: What you can do is to change people’s mindsets. I conduct a lot of workshops with corporate partners to spread the message and try to change their minds. From that change in mindset, change happens. People make up organisations. So without the people changing their minds, then organisations cannot change.
Dawn: I work in sales, which has nothing to do with sustainability. But I try to insert myself into all kinds of related business activities. I went to HR and asked if I can do this [activity] and whoever is interested can join in. Another thing we did was that instead of discarding leftover bar soaps from our hotels, we processed and recycled them to give to migrant workers during the Circuit Breaker period last year. When you have an idea, act on it, speak to your company, and see if it’s doable. I was surprised but all the General Managers were on board. Everyone was enthusiastic about doing it together.
It seems like a lot of what made you rethink your consumption patterns is from experiencing nature. Do you think part of the indifference of Singaporeans is that we don’t have such “majestic” natural wonders? What might we be able do about that?
Melissa: We do have natural spaces here. Jurong Lake Gardens is the closest one for me. You don’t realise until you actually go there. Another experience could be joining a beach cleanup, where you can feel accomplished looking at the before and after.
Do you think that trendy look of sustainability has helped to push the cause forward?
Dawn: I was very picky about the things that I purchased or used because I want them to last. So what I use had to be practical and stylish because the nature of my job requires me to look good.
Melissa: For a lot of people, looks matter. I think it is a good thing that this trend could have helped some people start their journey. But trends can go forwards or backwards. I’ve seen some campaigns that don’t make any sense, or companies selecting corporate gifts for the sake of looking sustainable. For example, you don’t need bamboo teaspoons in your pantry, you can just use a metal spoon.
Hui Hien: It’s do as the Jones-es do. Now in Phase 2, I see more people bringing their mish-mash containers out. By doing it more, and making it look more normal, it makes people feel like they are not the odd one out. You don’t have to spend more or look good to be sustainable. For anyone thinking of how they can start, just try it once or twice in a week. Try to be visible. This will help others and help the overall movement a lot more. You have to be brave to take the first step.
📚 Book Recommendations
As the talk was hosted by NLB, the speakers were asked to share any books that had inspired them on their entrepreneurial journey. Here are the two books that were mentioned:
Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
This book is about the lessons that the author learnt from starting and selling his business. Funnily enough, I’d actually downloaded a copy form the library a few days before the talk. I still haven’t started reading it though, but I’m encouraged that it’s a very short book.
Melissa: It’s a fairly short book, I got through it in one afternoon. There is one part where he addresses what to do when you think “What now?”. I liked the mindset that he suggested. He asks: “Are you helping others? Are you happy? Are they happy? Are you profitable? What else would you want?” So when I think of my business that way, its’ comforting.
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
This book explores why some nations prosper and others fail. I remember seeing this book for the first time when a friend in my ecological-literacy club was reading it. That was nearly 5 years ago now. Goodness how time flies. Perhaps it is also a sign that I should read it soon!
Hui Hien: This is quite a heavy book. It analyses various cultures and countries to see which ones prospered and which stayed backward. Central to the book is this theme that there is constructive destruction. The WEF has called [something] “the great reset”. We have to change our priorities and mindset about how we consume and make money. I think the analysis is fairly convincing.
📍 Where can you find them?
- Click here to visit Your Sustainable Store
- Click here to visit BambooStrawGirl
- Click here to visit Eco.Le
Thanks so much for reading!
💜 jy
About Sparknotes
I don’t quite know if this will be a series of its own yet but future me will come back to edit this series description when I figure it out. For now, these summary notes and thoughts don’t quite fit in anywhere and also aren’t quite opinion pieces either. I just hope to share things that were thought-provoking, insightful, or just interesting.