Reflections on the Mapletree Forum

There was amalgam of remarkable ideas and solutions from not only the panellists, but also the audience, to combine sustainability and entrepreneurship, which was the central theme of the discussion on Wednesday night. 

With the bleak outlook of the Earth’s environmental condition and the actions (or lack thereof) taken against climate change and global warming, Nancy Ling, who hails from Australia where environmental awareness and conservation is more prevalent and widespread, aims to market sustainable products as a profitable business model. Her business focuses on selling premium sustainable disposable cutlery and tableware in Singapore.

What she observed as a major obstacle that hinders deeper penetration into the Singaporean market is that locals are “addicted” to plastic. Being a local Singaporean, I wholeheartedly concede with her comment that we are plastic “addicts”. Our groceries are all packed in plastic and our food-takeaways are all contained in non-biodegradable plastic and styrofoam, just to list a few examples. We love plastic, because it makes life convenient in our face-paced lives – it doesn’t take any effort to throw single-use plastic cutlery into the trash. 

However, this phenomenon of Singapore’s plastic addiction opens an enormous potential business opportunity. According to Nancy Ling, “being the first to jump into the boat” is paramount to becoming a leader in the market, and that any imitators are merely trying to leech onto your success. With the advent of a more environmentally conscious generation and the looming threat of rising sea levels and increasingly hotter days to come, I believe that more Singaporeans are concerned about saving the planet, and how they can do so. Nancy Ling’s start-up is the realisation of this growing awareness and she aspires to leverage on it to make sustainable products profitable and more commonplace in the future. 

I have learnt, among many other thought-provoking ideas, that it takes passion, a “fire in your belly”, and knowledge to become a successful entrepreneur. An innovative idea, coupled with the right know-how and mindset, sprinkled with a bit of luck, can lead to something wonderful and ground-breaking that can change the lives of millions and save the very planet we live in for future generations to come.