I was in Jakarta recently, and lucky enough to take part in an event to celebrate the “e-ideas” project. Organised by the British Council, and generously supported by LRQA, the programme has challenged young entrepreneurs to design innovative and creative businesses that promote sustainability. I met some of the winners from countries around Asia and the Pacific. The ideas were very impressive. For example, one winner had designed a system that allows you switch your home lighting on and off by sending a text message; while another was promoting the use of worms to generate fertiliser (thereby reducing the amount of chemicals used).
To give you a few examples. Nerida Lennon is a young Australian designer who is promoting the use of sustainable practices in the fashion industry. With its high turnover of designs, and encouragement to buy the latest “in thing”, the fashion industry is probably not the most sustainable activity around. Nerida is tackling this by promoting the use of natural fabrics; discouraging the desire to buy the “latest” designs ; and supporting the use of local materials, to reduce emissions associated with shipping. Nerida will shortly be working with a high profile designer to create a fashion garment that adheres to sustainability best practice. More of her work can be seen here.
Hiromi Morimoto is a young Japanese fashion designer who has adopted an intriguing business model – she take second hand ties and scarves and recycles them into new designs. This reduces the need for new production, saving on energy use. In her words, “Tie for Change (TFC) aims to help us change our perception and behaviour from a position of ‘looking at what we don’t have’ to one which ‘realizes and embraces the richness of what we already have’. The wonderful ties, cufflinks and brooches that she produces are testament to the creative way that old fabrics can be used. (And even I couldn’t resist buying a pair of cufflinks). More information on this work can be found here
Finally, Stephen Mushin has combined Australian and Japanese practices by designing ’Origami Farms’, which are like pop-up market gardens. The project aims to kick-start urban food production by empowering local communities to build small urban farms. Hopefully this will develop into an affordable micro scale vegetable production system which can be supplied to communities experiencing food security issues resulting from climate change and other environmental and social impacts. More information can be seen here .
I was truly inspired by the creative and innovative work that so many people from around the region have put into this programme. If you would like to find out more, visit the e-ideas website.