We spoke to the purpose-driven social impact leaders of our partner companies during the COVID-19 pandemic to find out the challenges they faced, how they resolved to overcome them, and their thoughts on accelerating Shared Impact.
In this series, we will continue the session with Naveet McMahon and Tania Sibree, Co-founders and Directors of bakbamboo.
bakbamboo are consultants and a wholesale supplier of customized eco-friendly products with the aim to provide reusable, durable, and biodegradable materials that can replace everyday, single-use plastic products. As bamboo is at the heart of its business, bakbamboo supports communities that cultivate and harvest bamboo as accessible sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics.
What are the unique challenges faced by Bakbamboo during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how are you adapting to them? What are the major lessons you have learnt that would go into building resilience in your organization, and/or further your impact going forward?
As a supplier of bamboo amenities mainly focusing on the hospitality and tourism industry, we were faced with a sudden, sharp contraction in orders as hotels and airlines saw a decline in businesses due to travel restrictions globally, as governments grappled to control the spread of COVID-19.
To adapt to this challenge, we decided to pivot and partnered with local companies such as Liz Fry Design to launch a line of limited-edition Hong Kong-themed bamboo cutlery sets, which are currently being sold on her website. We are currently talking to various wholesale retailers across Hong Kong with the aim of making our sets more widely available to customers.
At the same time, this pandemic has allowed us more time on the research and development of new products, such as our wholesale hemp and cotton face masks, and “Sporkei”, our all-in-one spoon-fork product which we launched for the takeaway restaurant and airline industry earlier this year.
In addition to releasing our exclusive survey proprietary report we have also launched our second annual in-person event, “Powering Sustainable Opportunities”, a panel discussion with leading industry professionals to explore how businesses locally and globally can implement sustainable goals into their supply chain.
Where do you see bambamboo five years from now?
Sustainability is becoming a big driving force for more and more corporations globally, especially for Hong Kong’s hospitality and tourism industry, which tends to be flexible, agile, and has great problem-solving resources.
This pandemic has given us more time to do the things we couldn’t before. It has given us a chance to reset the clock and to repackage eco-tourism: reassure guests about hygiene, focus on their health and their tranquility while also caring for environmental issues.
We believe that bakbamboo can continue its mission in building awareness in the reduction of single-use plastics, by guiding and educating consumer habits while also facilitating corporate responsibility in the management of waste.
