Bizcuits | Fields of Green…

I dream of a day when all the casinos in Macau have edible gardens on their expansive roof-top real estate.

I have voiced this only once to a fellow gardener – a rare beast in Macau – a person I had heard of but had not met, and he told me that he too visualizes something similar and is currently working towards a productive greening of Macau.

This connection came out of the tenth Startup Weekend Macau recently held at the Sofitel. Held throughout the world at the same time, these events bring together about 30 budding entrepreneurs. They pitch their ideas to each other, then five ideas are selected by the attendees to work on for 54 hours over 3 days, assisted by mentors. Sunday evening each group presents their idea to a panel of judges who select the ideas most worthy of developing.

This most recent Startup Weekend drew on a “Sustainable Revolution” theme because, as the edition summary states, as “environmental sustainability is one of the biggest challenges humanity is facing, it’s our duty to help entrepreneurs find the best solutions to overcome it.”

The teams presented ideas such as recyclable cosmetic containers, pollution extracting infrastructure, recycling systems installed in residential buildings, reusable shopping bags that collect big data, to the winning team’s indoor farming and farming community education systems. I suspect this final pitch won due to the passionate energy which had driven a great deal of systems’ thinking behind the broad scope of offerings: not only were Macau’s organic waste to be used as resources but a community of home farmers would be encouraged to work and learn together about growing and sharing nutrient dense food. Truly the beginning of a sustainable revolution.

The event prompts a reminder that Plastic Free July is just one week away. Big news on this front is that Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, in her monthly video updates reminds her constituents and admiring global followers that this July will see in the single-use plastic bag ban for the nation. Retailers will not be allowed to give out or sell single-use plastic bags: “we are recognizing, and need to recognize that waste not only is a huge environmental challenge, particularly the fact that single-use plastic bags find their way into our environment and into our ocean in a way that reusables don’t, but also acknowledge that actually when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, waste is a part of that as well,” said Ardern. She admits the government recognises that the infrastructure and facilities are not in place to handle the waste currently produced and that there are budgetary decisions in the pipeline to be announced to improve waste management. In all likelihood, New Zealand will not just focus on the down-stream end but the government will address the causes of the problem, not just cleaning up (a never-ending job that no amount of community-minded souls doing beach clean-ups can fix).

New Zealanders appear ready to cut down on waste due to the hazards to nature and the damage to marine wildlife and our own food chain: plastics break down into micro-plastics now known to enter our food-chain with ever increasing toxicity absorptive capacity. The ban is not just a government imposition upon consumers but has seen a general acceptance of responsibility from manufacturers and retailers as well. At each point along the supply chain, New Zealanders are critically aware that everyone has a role to play in changing habits that have been imposing external costs on community resource, our environment, eco-systems and our health.

Clearly, we are at the beginning of a clear change in awareness and mindset throughout the globe. Fascinatingly, it is often the richest countries with high levels of vested interests, like Macau, that are most reluctant to force systemic change.