The Eco-Business A-List 2021: Who are Asia-Pacific's sustainability leaders this year?

The Eco-Business A List 2021:
Who are Asia Pacific's sustainability leaders this year?

This year's list recognises individuals in the government, businesses and civic society who have advanced sustainability in their spheres of influence.

The year 2021 has been another tumultuous year for people working in sustainability in Asia Pacific, as budgetary pressures, movement restrictions, and general economic malaise have made the jobs of the people working to make the world a cleaner, green and more equitable place particularly difficult.

Meanwhile, progress has regressed in meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, emissions are returning to pre-pandemic levels as economies start to re-open, and there is disappointment that the COP26 climate talks fell short of what is needed to avoid climate calamity.

But for some organisations, the Covid-19 pandemic has been the shot in the arm they needed to respond to important environmental and social issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and gender inequality.

Pamela Mar, executive vice president, knowledge and applications, for Fung Academy, a sustainability team within Hong Kong-based supply chain and logistics specialist Fung Group, tells Eco-Business that the pandemic has finally provided the corporate world with a "race to the top that we sustainability advocates in business have always dreamed about."

We are headed to a new economy, and every one of us has the chance to shape it as best we can. If we ever wanted impact, the chance is now.
Pamela Mar, EVP, knowledge and applications, Fung Academy and 2021 A-List judge

The tide has turned, she says. "Today it's clearer than ever that minimalist, compliance-only approaches to sustainability won’t win, and that with awareness rising among consumers, government, and investors, companies need to be ambitious and even visionary," she said.

Mar is a former winner of the Eco-Business A-List, which recognises the people who have done most to advance environmental and social sustainability in Asia Pacific over the past 12 months.

This year, the Eco-Business A-List opened up beyond the corporate world to include individuals working in government and civic society. It attracted around 100 nominations from countries and territories including the Philippines, Thailand, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Nominees were judged on their achievements over the last 12 months, with creativity, innovation, impact and leadership the key factors assessed by a panel of distinguished judges established in the ESG and sustainability community. Mar was on this year's judging panel, which also included Jessica Robinson, founder of sustainable investment firm Moxie Future; Steve Melhuish, co-founder of property tech firm Property Guru and founder of PlanetRise; Professor Seeram Ramakrishnan, director, Circular Economy Taskforce, National University of Singapore; and Amelie Tan, regional lead, commit to action, CDP.

The 2021 Eco-Business A-List winners are:

Emiliyn Arboleda-Depon, Acting Capiz Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office, Provincial Government of Capiz

Emilyn Arboleda-Depon is a lawyer, journalist, farmer, environmentalist and community mobiliser who has been leading environmental programmes for the province of Capiz, in the Visayas region of the Philippines, in the Capiz Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (CaPENRO), since 2017.

This year is most notable for Depon's 1m Kahoy Project, which brought a range of different stakeholders for a massive tree-planting intiative in the province. Capiz, 40 per cent of which is covered by forest, lost 239 hectares of natural forests last year, according to Global Forest Watch data. Depon believes that empowering local community groups is the best way to protect forested areas. "To grow a forest, we need to build communities and partnerships,” she says.

The tree planting initiative starts every 25 June, the provincial arbor day, and ends in November, which is known as provincial environment consciousness month. The project has led to the planting of 1,747,518 trees, which has helped Depon to win the Civil Service Commission's outstanding service award in October.

Depon also rallied against an amendment to a mining law that exempted local governments from securing quarry permits, which could potentially have a major environmental imact. She said the amendment was a violation of the Philippine Mining Act. "I’m doing my job as CaPENRO head to protect the environment against those who want to destroy it,” she said in an exchange with a local political rival in June.

Beyond this year, Depon aims to increase forest cover and restore ecosystem health in the region through better collaboration between government agencies, active community engagement, and closer monitoring of the region's forests, which are home to critically endangered species such as Visayan hornbills, leopard cats, and warty pigs.

Emilyn Arboleda-Depon. This year is most notable for Depon's 1m Kahoy Project, which brought a range of different stakeholders for a massive tree-planting intiative in the province. Image: Facebook

Armelle Bihan, founder and CEO, Green Building Consulting & Engineering

Armelle Bihan is the founder and chief executive of Green Building Consulting & Engineering (GBCE), a Thailand-based green building consultancy that promotes human well-being while preserving the planet. "An engineer by training who specialised in environmentally sustainable design, I saw in green buildings the huge potential to fight climate change in an industry currently accounting for 40 per cent of energy use and a 30 per cent of carbon emissions globally," she says.

Over the past 12 months, Bihan has worked on three key projects, including the development of residential housing prototypes in Thailand and the design of the international terminal of U-Tapao Airport in Rayong Province. In all of these projects, Bihan works as the principal consultant, taking an educational approach where she teaches and leads teams new to sustainable design processes.

Her flagship project was in the hospitality sector, devising a project that would serve as a catalyst for change in the industry. It achieved the highest level of green building certification, LEED Platinum, and generated as much energy on-site as it consumed through renewable energy installations. It also used a combination of reclaimed water, rainwater capture and treated wastewater for all of its indoor, landscaping and process needs.

This year, Bihan also led two decarbonisation projects. The built entities are designed to zero carbon certification criteria and completely self-sufficient in energy and water consumption. Bihan says the project aims to change the way people have access to affordable and environmentally friendly housing.

Rob Kaplan, founder and CEO, Circulate Capital

Former Walmart sustainability director Rob Kaplan founded Circulate Capital, an investment management firm that invests in ways to tackle plastic pollution in South and Southeast Asia, in 2018. The firm is backed by big brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone and Dow, which are aiming to mitigate their vast plastic footprint.

As CEO, Kaplan leads the strategy, team and day-to-day operations of a firm working in a difficult business environment, and one of the most difficult times in the history of the recycling business. Waste management services have been affected by Covid-19 containment measures, and plastic pollution has become a bigger problem than before the outbreak.

Last year, Kaplan led the US$100 million fund's first investments in the region, in India and Indonesia, and this year was about building a broader platform of key investments to drive greater impact. In 2021, the firm made seven investments in India and Indonesia worth over US$40 million, on different stages of the recycling value chain, including a waste collection and sorting firm and a digitisation and efficiency company.

Circulate Capital's investments over the last 12 months have, according to company data, prevented 1,330 new tonnes of plastic pollution leakage, 2,360 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent avoided through preventing pollution leakage, 3,800 tonnes of all waste properly managed, and created 210 new jobs.

In June 2021, Kaplan led the creation and launch of a second fund named Circulate Capital Disrupt (CCD), to invest and scale disruptive technologies that have the potential to deliver strong financial and impact returns.

Rob Kaplan's investment firm Circulate Capital made seven investments in India and Indonesia worth over US$40 million in 2021. Image: Circulate Capital

Georgekutty Kariyanappally, Founder and Managing Director, Lifeway Solar Devices

Georgekutty Kariyanappally is a pioneer of solar power technology from the Indian state of Kerala. He has stood out as a leader in the renewable energy industry over the last 16 years, and 2021 was another big year for the entrepreneur. "Living in Kochi city I am seeing and suffering from the pollution in the air," he has said of his motivation to replace dirty energy with clean tech solutions.

Known for launching the province's first electric rickshaw, Kariyanappally has also drawn acclaim for a solar poultry incubator and a solar-powered cow-milking-machine. His electric rickshaw was launched off the back of a discussion with Kochi rickshaw drivers, who complained that they were spending half of their takehome income on diesel fuel. Kariyanappally's solar-powered rickshaws save drivers fuel and gives passengers a cleaner ride. The idea is to have a single mini public transport system as a feeder passenger vehicle for metro stations, he says. “The aim is to make public transport more affordable for the working class," he says.

The former newspaper company boss's solar poultry incubator was matured from prototype to scale, as the Madhya Pradesh government has used the contraption in a conservation project to hatch the endangered Kadaknath chicken, a fowl with medicinal properties. His solar-powered milking machine faced cost issues to begin with, but Kariyanappally persevered by sourcing low-cost parts to get the project up and running. He has even created a solar-powered boat.

Known for launching the province's first electric rickshaw, Kariyanappally has also drawn acclaim for a solar poultry incubator and a solar-powered cow-milking-machine.

"For us, the jungle is our shopping mall, pharmacy, and grocery store," says Temuan activist, Shaq Koyok, who campaigned to save Kuala Langat Utara Forest Reserve (KLNRF) in the Malaysian state of Selangor this year. Image: Shaq Koyok

Shaq Koyok, contemporary artist and indigenous activist

There aren't many people who can claim to have saved a 958-hectare rainforest from the bulldozers this year. In September, news emerged that the Kuala Langat Utara Forest Reserve (KLNRF) in the wealthy Malaysian state of Selangor was to be quiety degazetted, allowing the conversion of a forest that the Temuan indigenous people have called their home since the 1800s into a mixed commercial development. Shaq Koyok, a member of that community, played a key role in protecting a forest that has been gazetted since 1927, when the rare expanse of peat swamp was 75 times the size.

“For us, the jungle is our shopping mall, pharmacy, and grocery store,” said Koyok, explaining that the forest has provided a lifeline for the Temuans during the Covid-19 pandemic, providing food and water after many lost their jobs.

Koyok has used art as a weapon of defense for his forest, which is home to endangered species such as the Malayan sun bear and clouded leopard, and endemic species such as the Selangor pygmy flying squirrel. In his early life, land developers encroached the jungle around his village and this experience is reflected in his many works. That trauma from his childhood has fuelled his passion and led him to fight for his people's land rights.

“In a rapidly modernising Malaysian state, I’m always trying to capture the tension and pressure faced by my people, whose lives interact with and respect the natural environment. My work emphasises the inequalities that exist between modern consumerism and traditional sustainable ways of life," he says.

Koyok is one of the key members of the Pertahankan Hutan Simpan Kuala Langat Utara coalition (PHSKL), made up of several non-governmental organisations. The collective was founded to mobilise civil society efforts to defend the reserve from degazettement. His efforts to galvanise support against the loss of rights for the forest, including protests and the use of his social media clout, were rewarded with the Selangor government reinstating the forest's protected status in September.

Horace Luke, chairman and CEO, Gogoro

There are few people who have had a bigger impact on the world's mobility sector this year than Horace Luke, the chief executive of Taiwanese battery swapping and electric scooter firm Gogoro.

Luke has led the charge to drive down emissions in the transport sector this year, launching his battery swapping electric mobility platform into the two most populous countries, India and China, and has developed new technologies to extend electric vehicle (EV) range and a two-way charging system that enables power to be fed back to the grid, a world first.

His company was recognised as the global company of the year by market analysis firm Frost & Sullivan for its battery swapping platform and ecosystem that is replacing plug-in charging with a more efficient model.

In September, he announced that Gogoro would merge with a special purpose company to list on the Nasdaq to fund a regional expansion plan. In April, Gogoro announced a strategic partnership with Indian two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp to establish a battery swapping joint venture in Asia's third-largest economy. He brokered a deal with Gojek to launch a battery swapping system in Indonesia in November 2021.

Luke partnered with Taipower to launch the world’s first two-way charging system in Taiwan in 2021. The system enables energy stored in Gogoro's electric vehicle batteries to be transferred back to the power grid when the batteries are returned to the stations, which could help smooth out temporary spikes in electricity demand.

In Taiwan alone in 2021, Gogoro was managing more than 270,000 battery swaps per day. He developed new technology that allows for ultra-fast battery swapping in 2021. Gogoro's Powered By Gogoro Network programme has accrued eight vehicle partners, making it the largest battery swap platform for electric two-wheelers in the world. Luke is working towards launching battery-swapping stations across India by 2022.

The founder and CEO of Taiwanese battery swapping and electric scooter firm Gogoro has launched into China and India this year. Image: Pracob.blogspot

Sonika Manandhar founded Aeloi Technologies in 2019 to help Nepalese women in the informal sector get better access to finance. Image: UNEP

Sonika Manandhar, co-founder and chief technology officer, Aloi

A software engineer by training, Sonika Manandhar founded Aeloi Technologies in 2019 to help Nepalese women in the informal sector get better access to finance.

Aeloi Technologies is an SMS platform which channels business loans to small sustainability-based businesses via digital tokens. In 2021, under Manandhar's leadership, the company worked with the electric vehicle sector in Nepal to help women micro-entrepreneurs get credit to buy batteries for their vehicles. Electric minibuses are ubiquitous in Kathmandu and often women-owned.

"Our vision is to help women own and upgrade their electric vehicles through low-interest impact financing," Manandhar, whose efforts have been recognised by the United Nations, explained. Her big data platform collects data about transportation demands, rush hour traffic patterns, passenger preferences, and loan repayment abilities, in order to provide an alternative credit score for the women micro-entrepreneurs she works with.

The platform also gathers data for governments and urban planners to plan bus routes, design road expansions, and manage traffic flow. The green vehicle reservation and payment platform can be used on any phone and incentivised rewards frequent users with digital tokens called GEM miles, which are similar to air miles.

In April, the first batch of women micro-entrepreneurs received the digital token loans for the three-wheeler electric minibus training and soon these entrepreneurs will be driving their e-minibuses and will start making an income for themselves on their own terms.

Sandhya Sriram, co-founder and group CEO, Shiok Meats

As the boss of Southeast Asia's first and most valuable cell-based meat company, Dr Sandhya Sriram spent another big year making the case for cruelty-free, climate-friendly alternatives to seafood, consumption of which is growing by 5 per cent a year in the regional bloc.

She wants to help make Singapore the global centre for lab-grown meat alternatives, and in August debuted the world’s first cell-based crab after a series of other innovations in cultured crustaceans, including lab-grown shrimp and lobster, which have been showcased at various tasting events around the region to spread the word. A cell-based seafood manufacturing facility is now being built in Singapore, and will also be the region's first, as Sriram sets her sights on making cell-based crustacean meats commercially viable and available by 2023, a goal that she has said is ambitious but within reach. Currently, the company is aiming to get the price of cell-based crustacean meat down from $50 per kilogram by 2022, a big drop from the $3,000 required per kilogram currently needed.

Key to building the manufacturing facility has been fundraising. A key focus for Sriram this year has been raising capital from investors including Netherlands-based ocean impact fund Aqua-Spark, American fund Big Idea Ventures, and Monde Nissin CEO, Henry Soesanto.

Sandhya Sriram spent another big year making the case for cruelty-free, climate-friendly alternatives to seafood. Image: Shiok Meats

Tanah Sullivan has driven the Indonesian ride-hailing app's new sustainability strategy, which was the first in the transport sector to set targets to reduce emissions to zero by 2030. Image: Goto

Tanah Sullivan, group head of sustainability, GoTo

Tanah Sullivan is only a year into her role running the sustainability team at Gojek, having joined the company from the World Economic Forum in October 2020. But in that time, she has pioneered the transport sector's decarbonisation drive in Southeast Asia. She drove the Indonesian ride-hailing app's new sustainability strategy, which was the first in the sector to set targets to reduce emissions — and to zero, by 2030, by aiming to electrify its entire fleet of more than 2 million riders.

This is a bold ambition, which took early steps with a deal with battery swapping and electric scooter maker Gogoro on a pilot programme in Jakarta in November. But Sullivan's plan is not just about decarbonisation. After consulting stakeholders, the Jakarta-headquartered tech firm known for trying to clear Indonesia’s roads while providing jobs to vulnerable workers now also plans to reduce its waste footprint to zero and remove the socioeconomic barriers that exclude its drivers and merchants, whose vulnerabilities the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare.

"We are not just going to offset our emissions, and lo and behold we’re carbon neutral — we’re fundamentally changing the way that our business operates," Sullivan has said. "It’s not going to be easy, as they’re are many factors and stakeholders involved. At the core of that change are the drivers. We need to ensure that becoming a carbon neutral platform does not leave them shortchanged."

Over the past 12 months, Sullivan set up a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) council, a governance body comprising senior leadership and representatives from across local and global offices of GoTo, the company formed following the merger of Tokopedia with GoJek earlier this year, at all levels of the organisation. She also has been working to support Gojek’s efforts in building more accessible products, to support visually or hearing impaired users and partners. Her efforts over the year were rewarded with an expanded rule running GoTo's sustainability efforts at the group level.

This story is published to celebrate the winners of the Eco-Business A List 2021. It is part of Eco-Business’ series on leadership in sustainability.