The Power List 2021
From urban farming and seagrass meadows to circular fashion and climate tech, these eight Singaporean women have dedicated themselves to sustainability and a better tomorrow.
These last 12 months have made everyone stop and take stock of how we live and the impact it’s having on the world around us. While we may have clung to the idea that staying at home has been good for the environment—cleaner air with reduced fuel emissions and nature coming out to play more—experts have warned us about the next recovery phase. Not only are we at risk of reverting to old ways, but in our rush to return to normal, things could worsen as industries and businesses play catch-up after two years of huge financial losses. What can we as individuals do to make a difference? And what does it really mean to live sustainably? To help us find the answers and inspire us to do better, this year’s Power List puts the spotlight on sustainability champions, from industry heavyweights to empowered self-starters, who will set you thinking about your actions—in ways that go beyond ditching single-use plastic bags and carrying around reusable straws.
DANIELLE CHAN Co-founder, Citiponics
With the mission to grow food productively, safely and sustainably for people in Singapore, Danielle Chan, 27, co-founded agritech business Citiponics, which has a unique system that uses space-saving vertical growing towers. It is one of several urban farming businesses that are converting underutilised rooftops into urban farms that can grow local produce and contribute to food sustainability in Singapore.
“[We wanted] to be able to connect locals directly to their food source and help raise awareness about sustainable farming by bringing our urban farms to them,” she says.“Since launching our Citiponics Urban Vertical Farm at Ang Mo Kio in 2019, we have started an e-commerce online store to make it easy for locals and nearby communities to get our freshly harvested vegetables, hosted more than 100 farm tours, and worked with more than 20 schools to provide agritech workshops and set up urban farms at their premises. We hope to widen our sustainability footprint as well as help more people experience the freshness of our urban farm’s produce and understand the importance of sustainable farming.”
Chan sees food as a universal language that can cut across different interests, age groups, races and religions, adding that “it’s the perfect conversation starter to help encourage people to kick-start or get engaged in their sustainability journeys”.
MARIE CHEONG Vice-President, Venture Build at ENGIE Factory Asia-Pacific
To get to the root of climate change, Marie Cheong has been on a mission to find the newest solutions in climate tech— technology that directly addresses climate change. The 36-year-old, who leads ENGIE Factory’s Venture Build programme, has made it her business to find talented entrepreneurs who can drive businesses that will help decarbonise the world. In fact, ENGIE Factory is currently launching two new start-ups: One to help food manufacturers decarbonise and improve their factory efficiency, and the other to support large companies to adapt to the latest workplace trends by reducing the carbon footprint of offices while increasing the employee experience.
“About five years ago, I felt an incredible amount of purpose in being a ‘builder’. At the same time, like many people,
I started to feel a growing urgency about climate change. Addressing climate change and decarbonising our economies is the challenge of my generation,” she says.
Her push for sustainability is also personal. “[Sustainability is about] creating opportunities for communities and more people to thrive. I have a four-year-old son, and I don’t want him to grow up in a world that’s destabilised by war, high unemployment and inequality, or one where he has to worry about food security for his family.”
In addition to this, Cheong is keenly involved in supporting female entrepreneurs in the climate tech space: “We consciously look at ways to promote women in entrepreneurship because we believe that women play a critical role in building an inclusive and fairer decarbonised energy sector that represents the customers and communities that it serves.”
CHERIN TAN Co-founder, LAAT; founder and interior designer, LAANK
Interior designer Cherin Tan, 37, believes in “repurposing with purpose”. That’s how new upcycling furniture label LAAT came to be in 2020. LAAT is a collaboration between Tan and multi-disciplinary artist Alvin Tan, who is the co-founder of contemporary art and design collective PHUNK. The pair have since launched two collections. The first, Klaus, was a sold-out lighting series inspired by German countertenor and bold stage performer Klaus Nomi. The second, Monolith, is a homeware collection of geometric mirror pieces, which was created to find new ways to present broken and offcuts of marble slabs. This second series is now showing at Art Now gallery at Raffles Hotel Singapore. “We have customers who are art buyers, homeowners, business owners and young creatives who appreciate the different slant we have to our pieces,” Tan says. “Not everyone is open to the idea of upcycled materials. A lot of people still want things that are brand new or want to be the ‘first’ owners. With this in mind, we try to position our pricing to be as friendly as possible to allow our products to be more accessible, in hopes that this becomes a stepping stone for Singaporeans to see value in what we do.” Tan believes everyone can put more thought into what we purchase to live sustainably. “We’ve earned ourselves a comfortable life of convenience,” she concedes, “but it’s time to be responsible for our choices and open our eyes to what they are costing us.”
JASMINE TUAN Environmentalist; Marketing Associate Director, Zero Waste SG
You might already be familiar with Jasmine Tuan’s sustainability journey. Once an ambitious and highly stressed out businesswoman, the 42-year-old went through a period of self-discovery and hung up her entrepreneurial boots to seek a life more minimal. Today, she’s a zero waste advocate who has managed to downsize her former shopaholic-sized wardrobe to one clothing rack. She has conducted workshops expounding the benefits of a zero waste lifestyle, and runs fashion swap events with Cloop. So fervent is she in her mission that she recently joined Zero Waste SG as its marketing associate director. For the experienced branding consultant, the transition is a natural one and she wants to debunk the misconceptions of the term “zero waste”. “It’s not about aiming for no waste, but to make sure nothing goes to waste,” she says. In the words of the great will.i.am, “Waste isn’t waste until we waste it.” That’s why the fashion enthusiast continues to feed her passion with fashion swaps. “I love fashion and I also struggle with buying [unnecessarily]. But then because of swap, I learned to enjoy fashion in a sustainable way,” she says. “You can still enjoy fashion and you can consume, but consume mindfully.”
Founder, BHUMAN
After years living in Shanghai, where air quality checks, reusable grocery bags and general environmental consciousness are the norm, Yeeli Lee was surprised to find that single-use plastic bags were still commonplace in Singapore. That was back in 2013. Having worked in fast-moving consumer goods and luxury personal care, Lee, who is in her 40s, is all too familiar with the ugly truth of the beauty industry, which produces more than 120 billion single-use plastic units every year globally. “Armed with beauty industry connections and a clear case of #plastikophobia, an apt term created by Laura François, a social impact strategist and my mentor at the Textile and Fashion Federation’s The Bridge Fashion Incubator, I decided to apply what I learned about systems thinking and circular economy, and created BHUMAN,” says Lee. BHUMAN is a two-year-old natural beauty brand that got its big break via Kickstarter. Her unisex face wash, BCLEAN, is 97 percent natural. The other 3 percent? Niacinamide, also known as vitamin B3—“a superstar ingredient with proven benefits for the skin,” she shares, adding that “the version used in [BHUMAN] skincare is produced synthetically”. The brand offers water-activated powdered skincare, which is more concentrated, allows for more washes per refillable bottle, presents no leakage risk and wastage, and has a lower carbon footprint because you naturally order less. Its latest product? Bättre (it means better in Swedish), a water-activated powder-to-lather hair wash that provides up to 50 washes—the equivalent of about roughly three 8oz plastic shampoo bottles.