While they did not invest in her solution, which was part of a class project, they told her that it had the potential to solve the global problem of single-use plastic packaging.
She first started by hiring a biomaterial researcher with money out of her own pocket, and used a room in her house as a makeshift laboratory to experiment with the materials needed to create her final product. “With sufficient volume, we aim to get the price of the containers to compete with plastics,” she said. “We are still playing catch-up with a plastics industry that has a 100-year head-start.”In fact, many firms are vying to be part of an expanding ecosystem of environmentally sustainable initiatives in Singapore.Singapore’s growing sustainability agenda is one that has developed not only organically, but is also due to a sustained push by the Government to nudge firms towards going green.
The range of firms jumping onto the green bandwagon has created a budding ecosystem, which will further help existing and new firms ride the sustainability wave.