APSIPA 2022 Award Recipients On How Social Businesses And Strategies Can Protect Biosphere Sustainability

With the gradual increase of global risks, how can we develop innovative practices to ensure a future where sustainability will become mainstream? The Asia Pacific Social Innovation Partnership Award is established to explore dynamic social innovation models in the Asia Pacific and to motivate more change-makers to contribute to social innovation, discovering and celebrating social innovation partnerships that connect diverse stakeholders and make significant social impacts. Partnership cases are required to set the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) as their core value.

The award sets motivating social innovation partnerships as its purpose, integrating 17 SDGs sorted into three categories, Biosphere Sustainability, Inclusive Business and Social Prosperity. Three winners were chosen from each category and there was one Special Jury Prize chosen by the judging panel.

The purpose of the Biosphere Sustainability Award is to encourage cases of social innovation partnerships devoted to environmental protection and sustainability, acknowledging that a favorable natural environment is fundamental to all human activities. The highly related corresponding SDGs are SDG6: Clean Water and Sanitation, SDG13: Climate Action, SDG14: Life below Water, and SDG15: Life on Land.

APSIPA Biosphere Sustainability Winners

Dr Brad Huang
BlueMagpieTea

Dr. Huang graduated from Institute of Building and Planning of National Taiwan University, and he is also the founder of the brands of TaiwanBlueMagpieTea and LeopartRice. This is a social enterprise/B corp Enterprise that promotes the 15th item of the United Nations SDGs sustainable indicators : the Conservation of Terrestrial Ecology through a business model.

He was the Secretary-general of Taiwan Wild Bird Federation and the director of the Society of Wilderness. He rewarded with National Sustainable Development Award in 2012, the NTU Altruism Award in 2014, and led the team to get the Star of Social Enterprise Award. Currently responsible for market development and habitat conservation within the team.

He specialises in resource conservation, natural governance, and cultural landscapes.

Cheryl Chen
ShesMy

In 2021, Cheryl Chen was preparing for pregnancy. Like all mothers in the world, she expects to give the best to her offspring. In the conversation between her and her doctor, she found out that sanitary pads contain 90% of plastics which may harm health and take 500 years to decompose. A bolt from the blue, Cheryl thought of her offspring and decided to create a kind of plastic-free, chemical-free sanitary pads that is unharmful to the environment and all menstruators. Cheryl takes responsibility as the resident of the Earth and aims to achieve sustainability for humans to the environment.

Barson Yeh
Tasteme

After graduating with a master's degree in physics from University of California, Irvine, he joined one of the big memory manufacturers in Taiwan and was responsible for the revenue of several product lines and built the company's first intelligent business analysis system. In 2019, he decided to take the entrepreneurial ship and lead Tasteme, the first food-sharing platform in Taiwan, to reach 70,000 users and reduce 40 tons of food waste in the first year.

Highlights from the Panel

(listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Dr. Brad Huang, tell us about BlueMagpie Tea, the impact you are creating and what led to your passion in social innovation?

[Dr. Brad Huang] - Our brand is responding to the negative impact of using chemical pesticides in agriculture and is designed to reduce the environmental cost of agriculture activity while increasing community collaboration amongst stakeholders such as local farmers and corporations. This project takes place in the Northern part of Taiwan in Pinglin, and this region is known for its tea growing culture in its upstream location. In this area, its extremely important to ensure water quality, which is why we encourage chemical free tea growth.

We promote country farmers between our collaboration in order to secure a base income for them. Local farmers can unite and achieve empowerment through a public participation geography information system.

We believe in our plan; we also have a personal impact on the local younger generation which is very important. The industry development also ensures that the act of tea making can be preserved as cultural heritage and create a positive impact through our agriculture products and the local community.

Cheryl, tell us a little bit about Shesmy, the impact you're creating and what led to your passion in social innovation?

[Cheryl Chen] - My name is Cheryl, and I have developed Shesmy, ecofriendly pads providing a healthy sanitary product for all menstruators. Shesmy pads is plastic free (without EDCs) and is a hundred percent biodegradable in six months, which is beneficial to our health and environment. When I was preparing for my pregnancy, my doctor told me that normal menstrual pads contain 90% plastic and take 500 years to decompose. Furthermore, the doctor said the EDCs inside the pad might interfere with hormones and lead to infertility as well as other illnesses. From that day, I couldn't stop thinking about harm to the health and the environment every time I use plastic pads.

I realised I needed to do something to save all the menstruators (especially for those mothers who are preparing for pregnancy) and our wonderful environment for our offspring.

The solution is to use bio-degradable materials to replace plastic use. It might be hard to achieve, yet the Shesmy pad is born on the earth by diligence, for we all have the responsibility as a resident of the earth to pursue better health for every life. Shesmy stands to create a healthy life without chemicals and plastic to accomplish our environmental sustainability goals. We aim to give the planet an eco-friendly period.

Barson, tell us a bit about Tasteme, the impact that you're creating and what led to your passion in social innovation?

[Barson Yeh] - Tasteme is trying to solve climate change in meaningful ways. We know that the climate has no borders, and currently in recent years we have discovered food security has become a big issue for everyone in the world. On average, 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted per year globally. We are trying to see how we can deal with this problem, especially in Taiwan. In Taiwan, we lost $400 billion (about 3.6 million tons) of food waste in Taiwan. It's a really big issue, especially for everyone living in Taiwan. We try to discover how we can deal with that and how important is. It’s not just the food waste itself; it’s related to climate change. We know this issue is coming from food waste, so we have created a platform to help all the leftovers not become trash, but a useful product because it hasn't been touched by anyone.

It is just a really intact product, so we try to repackage and resell it to those people who really need those things. We have this platform, and we have created a B2B to C. We repackage this food and let people buy it at a cheaper price while helping store owners to sell leftovers and recuperate costs. This platform will prevent those leftovers going through to waste and becoming a burden to the environment. What we really try to create is a win-win situation for all parties.

What are your observations of the social innovation movement, and where do you see key opportunities and next steps?

[Dr. Brad Huang] - Because we all care about environmental sustainability, the next step of the social innovation movement is to face the climate change, and maybe use the technology, social and even education systems to make a change. This can slow down climate change.

[Cheryl Chen] - Since we have given the environment too much pressure to fulfill human needs, sustainability and green policies are now getting on track as mega plans to protect the earth. Shesmy pads decrease plastic production and lessen pollution, which can be biodegradable and help give back to the environment. We aim to innovate new products like diapers and other daily necessities to make sure children and all humans get involved in a natural, harmless and healthy lifestyle. Not only do we target sustainability, but also optimise convenience. We can create a widespread sustainable product.

[Barson Yeh] - What I think is required is enviro-prevention. In the world, we can really help cure this social issue, especially the global issue about prevention. Prevention is about trying to save the world, and not increase the temperature by 1.5 degree.

However, right now it seems like it's going to happen, so we should try to lower the possibility. We have to see how we can do more prevention.

I think the future in Asia is that all customers really care about the social issue of waste, compared to people in Europe and Latin America where its usually only the fourth most important issue they care about.

For example, in Europe, they care more about plastic waste, but in Latin America they care about more about water shortages. In North America they really don't care about food waste, it's not even in the top five. In Asia, our people really care about food waste, so now we can increase innovation and then try to solve this problem related to climate change.

What advice do you have for impact-led entrepreneurs or innovators, and what would you tell them to do when focusing on biosphere sustainability?

[Dr. Brad Huang] - In the beginning, we thought about organic tea and organic food only in terms of the health of our body. But we know that organic food can slow down climate change. I want to advise other social innovators to develop and explore environmental issues, because the sensitivity can make us care more about our earth. This is very important.

[Cheryl Chen] - Discovery of little things around you are very important. There are too many things that happen normally yet cause big effects over the long term.

Bringing up a new revolution could be tough the first time, as it might be difficult for people when they need to change their habits and thoughts, but that is also the reason why we are here to advocate something for the world. We are taking responsibility and risk together.

We need more courage and determination to make the world better.

[Barson Yeh] - If you think you are doing something significant for others, don't hesitate to keep doing that. Somehow, some day, those people will recognise what you are doing, because your thing is really meaningful to them. However, initially other people think, "oh you're an entrepreneur, you will just stop," because they don’t initially recognise the impact of your work. You will be very frustrated, but if you think your work is a bit meaningful and important to other people, keep doing it. Someday, they'll see that and you'll get all the help from other people you need, because you will really find people who are willing to help.

What books or resources would you all recommend to our listeners?

[Dr. Brad Huang] - I would like to introduce a book to your audience; How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates. Bill Gates presents what he learned over a decade of studying climate change, and then investing in innovations to address global warming. I think this book is good for us.

[Cheryl Chen] - Our product Shesmy, and our brand Shes stand for four words. Sharp, Humane, Elegant and Self-actualisation, which are based on our brands core concept. I like the term self-actualisation the most, a term addressed in a book called The Alchemist. The Alchemist is a book about following your dreams, and it mentions that when you want something, the universe comes along by helping you to achieve it. I do really encourage everyone to dream big and make it a reality to feel and care about life and the environment

[Barson Yeh] - I would recommend a book called Reverse Innovation by Vijay Govindarajan . This book helped me to think a different way when approaching different countries. You can see in older products and instruments in different countries how businesses can work with a cheaper cost to try and create innovation with a reverse idea.

We don't really have to sell our product to everywhere as a standard version. You can see how we fit into the country and the climate.

Nowadays we think climate change is a big issue, so how we see our product can really fit into this situation is important. How we can design the product in different ways could really help a lot.

This content is sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.