Come Clean & Climate Change Proof Your Business with Sodexo

From ABC Carbon Express June 2021

The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated just how interlinked human, business and planetary health are. Increasingly, employees, investors and consumers are demanding that businesses do more to tackle sustainability issues. We asked Sodexo how are you able to help businesses to adapt and innovate to become more sustainable?

Here’s the answer Qi Ni LEE came up with. She’s in charge of Corporate Responsibility and Diversity and the Inclusion Lead for Malaysia & Singapore.

How is Sodexo able to help businesses to adapt and innovate to become more sustainable?

As a company and a citizen of the planet, we strongly believe in contributing to sustainable growth – what we call doing good business in a good way. Sodexo started as a food services company back in 1966 and is now a leading global food services and facilities management company, which has sustainability at the heart of our business.

We help businesses become more sustainable through various collaborations with global organisations – corporate and non-profits – on sustainability initiatives. Sodexo has a Better Tomorrow 2025 framework, which adheres to the guidelines of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Our initiatives and partnerships are aligned to these goals and contributes to the most pressing issues. This is because we recognise that human, business and planetary health are heavily interlinked.

From educating on food sustainability to partnering with businesses to locally source ingredients and enhance energy efficiency of spaces, we are in a unique position to make a real difference.

For example, in 2019, we partnered with Knorr and WWF-UK to identify 50 food ingredients that are both highly nutritious and carry lower environmental impacts. Based on the Future 50 Foods Report, we began rolling out plant-based menus to more than 5000 locations across the world, including Asia Pacific where we aim to increase our plant-based offerings by 30%. One of the ways we’ve done so in Singapore, is to create plant-based burgers for many of the schools that we provide services for, using ingredients like black bean and beetroot, which are not only tasty, but also a good source of plant-based protein. We have also worked with local chefs to train them in curating and preparing planet-friendly menus. 

We also believe that green innovations are crucial in using resources sustainably, and thus have offered services in this area. One area that we have been supporting businesses in is targeted food waste management technology. WasteWatch, launched in 2019, allows kitchens to capture and understand food waste through data analytics and, over time, minimise food wastage. Targeted waste management not only helps us to source responsibly and reduce our carbon footprints – it also allows us to educate our customers on consumption choices and positively reduces bottom line costs. On average, WasteWatch reduces food waste by 50% globally. In the Asia Pacific region, WasteWatch is being deployed to businesses in Singapore, Australia, Greater China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand.

Our Sustainability White Paper, launched in April earlier this year, further highlights the importance for businesses to shift priorities and refocus sustainability efforts. In doing so, they can improve employee engagement, grow consumer satisfaction and boost the bottom line.

Sodexo has also come up with a White Paper to help us all “come clean” in more ways than one.   And here’s a case study on WasteWatch to dip into.

Ethos versus Amazon

Ethos on the Ethics of Publishing
Thought piece from a Singapore publisher  
As Ursula K. LeGuin puts it: “The Amazon model: easy saleability, heavy marketing, super-competitive pricing, then trash and replace…Every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.”

Dear Reader,
Ever wonder what editors do in a publishing house? What books are they reading, what are their pet peeves, and who would they invite to dinner?

Earlier this week, we asked you to share your burning questions. In this week’s letter, our editorial manager Suning answers one which provoked much thought.
Why aren’t your books sold on Amazon, for overseas readers and the diasporas at large? 

This question came in from one of our authors, and it’s a very legitimate question which others, including our readers and collaborators have raised before. We thought it might be a good opportunity to address them here:

At first glance, it might be a head-scratcher for a book publisher to forego distribution at the world’s largest online commerce player (in 2020, Amazon’s net profits went up 84%during a global pandemic), with tentacles in cloud-computing, wholesale foods, and retail, and in many parts of the world. Indeed, it would be very convenient.

Yet, that stat I used should already raise some eyebrows.

Within a purely capitalist framework, Jeff Bezos is doing his best job growing and expanding a business which needs to profit at all costs. And “like all monopolies, Amazon relies on homogeneity: driving customers to a select number of discounted titles to take advantage of economies of scale.” As it is, we can’t win them at their game of convenience and exploit. But what we should be asking is: at what and whose expense are these gains achieved?

Here’s a summary of some really damning leads and headlines of the company: Let’s Count All the Ways Amazon’s a Big Bully Why boycott Amazon It’s clearer than ever that supporting Amazon is a tacit endorsement of abusive work policies and more Why Amazon is a ‘bully’ Amazon accused of ‘bullying’ smaller UK publishers Amazon’s poor treatment of workers is catching up to it during the coronavirus crisis Simply put, for indie publishers to work with Amazon would be to undercut all that we’ve worked so hard to build—a community that values independent thought, creative labour, plurality and people. And we’re still working on it. As Ursula K. LeGuin puts it: “The Amazon model: easy saleability, heavy marketing, super-competitive pricing, then trash and replace…Every book purchase made from Amazon is a vote for a culture without content and without contentment.”

If you’re a publisher, you could do the convenient thing and work with the giant, instead of building up local capacities, talent and labour, and the local literary ecosystem of which you are a part of. You can choose to import (Western) culture, instead of investing in local and regional literatures, many of which remain minority, invisible and dying.

If you’re a bookseller, Amazon will supply you books, but wait a minute—why are you buying from a competitor who’d undermine your own sustainability?

If you’re a writer, Amazon will give you a platform according to the price you pay, and will ship them pretty much anywhere in the world. Yet at the same time, they carry over 33 million titles, and pay absolutely zero attention to what your book is even about. While barriers to publishing have reduced with Amazon’s model of self-publishing, ultimately, being self-published means you’re also a publisher now, and somewhere down the road, will have to contend with aforementioned points. Further illustration here.

And if you’re a reader, Amazon (or Book Depository—surprise surprise) will deliver, fast. But fast and cheap books aren’t always a bargain. It just means publishers and authors receive less. And workers in the supply chain, even less so (while Bezos is the world’s richest). This doesn’t support the future of book publishing and quality writing, and this further diminishes the possibility of seeing diversity in the books being published and given a voice.

Indeed, working with Amazon would be very convenient. But we choose otherwise.
In Solidarity,
Suning and the Ethos team

The Art of Travel: Books On My Mind

By Ken Hickson

20 June 2021

This is a series of short “reviews” covering a number of books which have been on my mind – received, read, loaned or given away – over the last couple of months. In no particular order:

1. Midnight Library by Matt Haig (Canongate Books, 2021), This has been at the top of the bestseller lists in many places, including Singapore, of late. When I ordered this from Book Depository some months ago – and due to a postal address error, it took a long time to arrive –  I knew nothing about it but loved the title. A tale very well told.  Supernatural yes, but with some very human issues uncovered. If anyone comes across a library like this – or a librarian like  Mrs Elm – let me know. You’ll have no regrets!  It made me want to read more books by Matt Haig.

2. “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, and cleverly translated by Geffrey Trousselot (Picador 2019), was another case of “title attraction”. Very pleased I was drawn to it. Clever, funny at times, disturbing and uplifting. But very readable and left me wanting more. While all about a fascinating café in Tokyo where you can take your seat and go back in time – or Back to the Future, if you like – I also learnt about a real-life Japanese event called the Tanabata Festival, which seems to be all about worshipping bamboo and paper. There is fact in fiction! By the way, the most famous Tanabata festival is held in Sendai from 6 to 8 August.

3. “Novacene”, by James Lovelock (Penguin 2020) was lent to me by my friend Greg, who’s enamoured by the works of this famous 101 year old British visionary scientist-environmentalist-futurist, perhaps best known for his “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth” (Oxford, 1979). I’m half way through the book and can see where he’s going. He speculates that the Novacene – the Age replacing the Anthropocene – could be the beginning of a process that will see intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. Life on Earth (Gaia) is changing but Nature will take its course. Artificial intelligence (AI) might become a dominant force, but will smart and sustainable humans remain supreme? Let’s see.  

4. “A Promised Land” by Barrack Obama (Crown 2020). I ordered this book well in advance from Books Actually and it’s been a slow and purposeful read. Not leisurely, as it’s not designed to be a quick read. It’s heavy in weight – 772 pages, plus hard cover – so I’ve been using it as part of my upper body physio-prescribed exercises! Not heavy-going reader-wise, but President Obama does go into great detail on campaigning and running the Oval Office. He’s good with words and good with names. Nothing is missed. And this is just the first volume. There’s more to come and it’s well worth reading and waiting for the next instalment.

5. “Negative Space” by Ranjani Rao (Xpress 2019), is a book of short stories by a writer who I was first drawn to through her thought-provoking pieces in the Straits Times. She admits in the preface that this book marks a departure from her preference for writing personal essays. So, I sense there’s a lot of real-life people, places and experiences intertwined with her short story telling. Which is great, as with any book – fiction or non-fiction – you want to come to know the writer better through her work, whether it shows in print or displayed through her actions/experiences. It’s a delightful collection of 11 short stories set in the places she’s familiar with – India, the US and Singapore.  I’ll keep telling our readers more about Ranjani’s insightful writing, for sure.

6. “DHL: From Startup to Global Upstart” by Po Chung and Roger Bowie (Walter de Gruyter 2018). This is an important  case study which should feature in business schools across the world. Of course, I know the company and many people involved in its progression to the top of the world’s express movement game. But it certainly had its ups and downs. More than its share of competition, some fair and some very much not fair. But beyond surviving as a brand and as a business, DHL has thrived, now part of the German Deutsche Post Group. Po Chung and Roger Bowie – both of whom I’ve worked with as a communications consultant in Singapore in the late 1980s/early 1990s – have made a throughly noble effort.  A valuable business book. But I did feel there were some thing missing.  I recall some of the stories/events that deserve a place in the ultimate record of DHL. For a start, it became an undisputed leader in Singapore as “a good corporate citizen”. DHL started the Businessman of the Year Awards with the Business Times – now more politically correctly called the Singapore Business Awards. DHL sponsored the visit to Singapore of the Mt Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hilary to support the Singapore Adventurers Club. DHL sponsored the first major Singapore Women’s Open Tennis Tournament. DHL brought the dynamic Gold Medal winning weightlifter Precious McKenzie to Singapore to demonstrate ‘safe lifting’. Missing in action? Yes. A missed opportunity to show something of the softer side of DHL. Which all helped add to its success story. But don’t get me wrong. The DHL story by Po Chung and Roger Bowie is well worth the read. A valuable lesson for any start-up  in any sector.  It takes more than money to get a business to the top. It takes hard work.  Dedication. Determination. Getting people on board with passion and purpose, too. I always remember an annual conference in Singapore one year when the theme song was the rousing Queen number: “We are the champions”.  They meant it then. They still mean it now.

7. “About This Girl” by Gemma Manning (Self-published 2020). It’s remiss of me not to have reviewed and/or promoted this book before now. I received a review copy from Gemma herself in February 2020. It must have been put aside while I struggled to get through a load of writing/editing jobs during the pandemic months.  I’ve read it. I enjoyed it. It’s well worth a read for anyone in business or contemplating “going it alone”. As Gemma makes clear – it’s tough out there. And she has had to cope with more than her share of “challenges”. But she tells how she faced up to these and overcame them. Not easy. And she admits there we’re times when she was close to giving it all away and concentrating on her family.  But as friend and business advisor Phil Forrest says:  “This book describes the inspirational journey of an amazing young woman, one who is always upbeat and optimistic in spite of the knocks, always encouraging of others, always supportive of those who need help”. I couldn’t say it better myself. But there’s more to write, Gemma, and I look forward to hearing more of your success stories and client case studies. These, I’m sure, have contributed to your success and are what has helped you win more business. So, another book please.

8.  “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks.    We have to wait a few more months for it – until February 2022, I’m told – but in a recent “virtual” talk to the Friends of the Library (Port of Washington), she was reported in “The Island Now” as saying: “My remarks will primarily focus on ‘Year of Wonders’, which I wrote 20 years ago, never dreaming that we would be facing a pandemic in our lifetime. I will also share some thoughts about ‘Horse’, my new novel due to be published early next year.” Geraldine describes it as a “braided narrative”, set in three time periods: the racing world of the mid-19th century, the birth of Abstract Expressionism in New York City in the 1940s, and the present day at the Smithsonian Museums. Of course, you can order it in advance from any of your usual book sources, but I’m in touch with her publishers and I’m still hoping I’ll get a review copy in the post.  

These book reviews were introduced and linked to the June issue of The Art of Travel, incorporated with ABC Carbon Express and Focus on Forests.

Three Into One – it goes!

See the May issue of ABC Carbon Express, Focus of Forests and The Art of Travel. Combined for the first time in one place. At one time.

Number One: Time is Up For Coal

Carbon Commentary:

Climate change is in the news more than ever these days, but what worries us is that there is still far too much talk – and talk about commitments – without seeing enough real evidence of any change in direction on the ground or in the air.

US President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit was a good move. As was his move away from Trump’s anti-climate rhetoric and the decision to rejoin the Paris Accord.

But as we’ve been saying – and apparently just hitting our heads against a brick wall for 13 years, since we started all this – time is not on our side.

According to the IEA, we’re set for another record year of emissions due to all the fossil fuels we continue to burn.

We discovered last week, for example, that the Asian Development Bank was still investing in fossil fuel projects in the region, despite its stated intention to lead a campaign for Clean Energy for All some years ago. See this 2009 report.

The ASEAN Region is still not doing enough to get itself off its dependence on coal as its primary energy source, despite a lot of private sector regional initiatives to fund clean energy.

The United Kingdom and European Union – previously together, now apart – are showing the way. We can only hope that COP 26 in Scotland in December represents some real change and real commitments that stand the test of time. And now UK has its own Emissions Trading Scheme up and running.

I know this is the first time we’ve communicated this way for a while. But we haven’t been idle. Just diverted by producing a lot of other important content – some of which we’ll share with you here – where it’s relevant and timely.

As this is our first ABC Carbon Express for 2021, we’re determined as ever to keep this online magazine going – even if on a less regular basis. And this time we’ve decided to share with our loyal followers our other online efforts – Focus on Forests and The Art of Travel.

Stay focussed. Stay active. Don’t let the pandemic divert our attention from the climate emergency. It’s all connected. It’s all for real. Let’s collaborate for a change. – Ken Hickson

TWO. Climate Threats – 99 of the World’s 100 Cities Most at Risk are in Asia

Companies operating and investing in Asian cities are going to face an increasingly stiff test to their resilience. According to the first instalment of the Cities@Risk series, which ranks the world’s 576 largest urban centres on their exposure to a range of environmental and climate-related threats, 99 of the world’s 100 riskiest cities are in Asia, including 37 in China and 43 in India. Jakarta (pictured) is sinking faster than any other urban centre in the world.

THREE. Solar Supply Chain: 45% of the World’s Polysilicon Comes from the Chinese Province of Xinjiang

The world’s needs all the solar panels it can get to make a real shift to cleaner, renewable energy. And China has been instrumental in producing most of them and bringing down the cost of solar energy. But the latest report from BBC is worrying. The global production of solar panels is using forced labour from China’s Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, an investigation has found. Xinjiang produces about 45% of the world’s supply of the key component, polysilicon, according to a study by the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University. Polysilicon is extracted from mined quartz, and the research says the world’s four biggest manufacturers use materials tainted by a massive system of coercion.

FOUR. Wildfire Smoke is Killing us Silently, while Forests are Scorched

Climate Change and the Coronavirus Pandemic came together in 2020 to give us twin global emergencies impacting the environmental and economic health of countries and people everywhere. Now we hear from our old friend Bob Henson – the author of Rough Guide to Climate Change (2008) who made a guest appearance in The ABC of Carbon (2009) – about a “Silent calamity: The health impacts of wildfire smoke”. Maybe less dramatic than an inferno’s flames – and less obvious than forest and property destruction – far-reaching smoke may be much more deadly and also more costly. Bob reports that an increasing body of evidence in the US suggests that the biggest societal impacts of increasing wild-land fires are happening in our own bodies, the result of tiny particulates spewed in vast amounts.

FIVE. Banking on Nature to Fight Climate Change

David Fogarty in the Straits Times last month alerted us to this carbon forestry project – perhaps the biggest in the world – with these words: “The vision is grand, the outcome could be just what the planet needs: investing billions of dollars to save vanishing nature and fight climate change at the same time.” It’s the Katingan Peatland Restoration and Conservation Project in Borneo, Indonesia. It involves big players from everywhere, including Singapore, Australia and Switzerland. We need to see more large scale projects like this in Southeast Asia. Also read on CNA how an illegal logger’s switch to a greener job shows a way to save Indonesia’s forests.                     

SIX. Setting Science Based Targets in Malaysia and Singapore

Science-based targets provide companies with a clearly-defined path to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals. More than 1,400 businesses around the world are already working with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Who’s on board? From Malaysia we see Sarawak Energy, Tai Wah Garment Industry Sdn Bhd and Ramatex. From Singapore there’s: APRIL, CapitaLand, CDL, ComfortDelGro, Flex, Olam, SembCorp, SingTel and Zeullig Pharma. SBTi drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling companies to set science-based emissions reduction targets.

SEVEN. Only Scientists & Voters can Change the Politics of Catastrophe

There are parallels in how governments and business have responded to the coronavirus pandemic and how the world needs to face up to the climate emergency. John Thornhill writes in the Financial Times: “As the historian Niall Ferguson writes in his latest book “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe”, the distinction drawn between “natural” and “man-made” disasters is often misleading. What matters is how humans anticipate and react to such events, which are foreseeable in their frequency if not in their particularity. And while it may be tempting to blame such disasters on incompetent leaders, they also reflect a broader societal incapacity to prepare and respond. Read what Andrew Anthony writes in The Observer/The Guardian.

EIGHT. Germany Must Beef Up Climate Law to Protect Youth

Germany must update its climate law by the end of next year to set out how it will bring carbon emissions down to almost zero by 2050, its top court ruled on 30 April 2021, siding with a young woman who argued rising sea levels would engulf her family farm. The court concluded that a law passed in 2019 had failed to make sufficient provision for cuts beyond 2030, casting a shadow over a signature achievement of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s final term in office. Read the Reuters report.

 ABC Carbon is Media Partner for Singapore International Energy Week 2021

Focus on Forests – Eight of the Best   

PEFC & UN-REDD Work Together in Lower Mekong:

The UN-REDD Programme involves working with key institutions in five ASEAN countries, and in China, to reduce the opportunities for forest crime by strengthening governance, particularly by increasing the effectiveness of systems designed to ensure legal and sustainable trade in timber. Read the full story in THE ASEAN POST.

2. DNA Test & Trace to Save the Endangered African Cherry:

The science of DNA testing to check on crimes of a human kind is now being increasingly utilised to help bring an end to environmental crime or at least to reduce the level of illegal trade. The latest focus of attention is the endangered African cherry – officially known as Prunus africana. Go to Double Helix for more.

3. Circular Economy & E-commerce to Support World Furniture:

Ken Hickson writes: If we apply this – the circular economy – to the furniture industry and add in the new norms of e-commerce, we see that we cannot just rely on responsible sourcing or managing a sustainable supply chain right to the end. We have to look beyond the retailer to the consumer to make sure that our products have “lasting qualities”, and that they can be used, reused and/or recycled. Read it all in Panels & Furniture Asia.

4. “Restor” the World’s Forests to Save the Planet:

Conserve nature. Protect nature. Restore nature. Crowther Labs aims to help generate a better understanding of Earth’s ecology and aim to inspire responsible ecosystem restoration. It’s team believes that conserving, protecting and restoring nature can help fight climate change and enhance human health and wellbeing. Read all about Restor.

5. Plant the Right Trees in the Right Places:

Reforestation is increasingly popular amid growing recognition of the many convergent environmental crises we’re facing, from climate change to biodiversity loss and water scarcity. The urgency of restoring degraded forests and other ecosystems is such that the UN declared the years from 2021 to 2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Read what Mongabay has to say.

6. Resurgence & Ecologist: Defending our Forests

Helen Dancer asks in the May/June issue of this respected British magazine: “At a time when we are reaching for Nature as fast as we are losing it, people and states will need to reimagine how ecological approaches to law could be developed and how power could be shared equitably between people and the state in different contexts. Rights of Nature is one possible approach, but it is not without challenges and it needs public support to be an effective legal tool.” She goes on to give examples from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ecuador. Read the rest here.

7. Forest Fibre to Fashion in Asia and Europe

PEFC has been highlighting the true value of fibre from forests. Thanks to new technologies, wood-based fibres can be used to produce recyclable, renewable and biodegradable textiles with a low environmental footprint. From Indonesia, Asia Pacific Rayon is taking a fashionable lead. APR’s viscose rayon fiber is widely known as a textile raw material that supports sustainable fashion trends. It also supports the government’s campaign that encourages the use of domestic products. See the May issue of the PEFC Media News Bulletin.

8. Amazon Deforestation Rises, as Forest Crime on Increase

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest rose 43% in April 2021 from the same month a year ago, reports Reuters. In the first four months of 2021, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon totalled 1,157 square kilometres, an area nearly the size of Los Angeles, according to national space research agency Inpe. We hear from Africa that as “the world watches the pandemic, global climate goals are being compromised when it comes to fighting deforestation”. Meanwhile, Double Helix Tracking Technologies is doing its best to help manage legal timber trade from South North America, as this story demonstrates.

 Asian Journeys and The Art of Travel

 I. All the World’s a Stage – but not here!

It’s great to hear that finally you can go to the theatre – on the West End anyway – but Singapore’s attempt to get back on the boards was short-lived. Wild Rice, Pangdemonium and Singapore Repertory Theatre had opened up to smaller audiences, but even the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) had a false start on Friday 14 May before new Government pandemic restrictions came into play two days later for a month, affecting restaurants, bars, cafes, theatres and cinemas. Singapore’s wonderful veteran drummer Louis Soliano scraped in with a concert honouring him at the start of SIFA. Read what the Straits Times had to say about that event!

II. The Art of Cybersecurity

Another big cyber attack – this time on the Colonial energy pipeline. Author of “The 4th Competitive Force For Good” Hendrik Troskie says: “There’s an alternative to thinking about business leadership, ethics in business and purpose that has already proved highly efficient and effective in addressing sustainability problems and the environmental crisis. Only then can we stop this dangerous game we are playing.” Cyberattacks are second only to the climate emergency as a major business risk, according to the World Economic Forum. And during the pandemic, big cyber attacks have continued apace. See what more Hendrik has to say.

III: Celebrating Forty Years of Transforming Lives

Books come and books go, but this one had the most memorable take-off ever. Yes, it was the first time a book launch had been conducted at the Hybrid Broadcast Studio at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Thanks to Paul Town. MC was Rachel Kelly and you can catch her reports on Money FM 89.3. There was a live audience restricted to 50, but it was broadcast to thousands in at least 10 countries. What’s this all about? The 40th Anniversary commemorative book for the Lions Home of the Elders, authored and published by Ken Hickson and printed by Times Printers on PEFC-certified paper, of course! Read what Floyd Cowan had to say about it online.          

IV: Advice for the Spare-time Writer – from a Scientist who Writes!

Ranjani Rao somehow makes time to write in her spare time. Her day job is as a pharmaceutical scientist and she’s been particularly busy with that. But when you have a hobby like writing you have to make time to do it. See her latest Straits Times essay on Motherhood and read about her latest book project and other things she cares about on her Blog. Last month she signed up for a professional photoshoot. Dressing up, smiling for the camera. finding an outdoor spot during a thundershower – all new experiences. See one of the results at left!

V. Patina Resorts to Sustainability

Floyd Cowan writes that visitors to the Maldives immediately become aware of its precious fragile environment and most guests are sensitive to the need to protect and preserve it. Developer Pontiac Land of Singapore took every imaginable step to be as sustainable as possible. It not only uses PEFC-certified timber, but the onsite James Turrell Skyspace is PEFC Project Certified by Venturer Timberwork of Singapore. DoubleHelix was engaged to verify the flow of certified timber from European forests to the Indian Ocean island, transparently presented by Sourcemap.

VI. On Asian Books Blog

Pot-sticker dumplings and srlet gloop: Nicky Harman reviews Maisie Chan’s “Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths” and looks back at Timothy Mo’s 1982 “Sour Sweet”. It’s just one of the latest offerings in Asan Books Blog, which also gave favourable mention to my epic Lions Home book launch. Read what Nicky has to say about this book for children of all ages and how she relates her own experience encountering cultural differences. Read Asian Books Blog.

 VII: Sustainability in Packaging Asia

Once again PEFC’s CEO Ben Gunneberg makes a guest appearance at this virtual event. If you have any questions about the conference, programme or need assistance with your registration, you can visit the conference website          

IIX: Fashions Change, Forests Stay with Sustainable & Renewable Materials

Art on the catwalk and the Art of Sustainability come together in what Asia Pacific Rayon is doing in Indonesia and further afield. In addition to meeting international standards and securing PEFC certification, APR also opened the Jakarta Fashion Hub as a collaborative space to unlock the potential of the domestic fashion, textile and creative industries. This is in addition to the many partnerships and collaborations, like the UNFCCC’s Fashion for Global Climate Action, in which the company is actively involved, as it embeds itself in the sustainable textile and fashion market. Read my article here.

Tune in to Money FM 89.3 in Singapore on Friday 21 May to hear a report on the first book launch held at the Hybrid Broadcast Studio at Marina Bay Sands on “Celebrating Forty Years of Transforming Lives” by Ken Hickson for the Lions Home For The Elders.        

STOP PRESS:

NET ZERO BY 2050

A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector

This special report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), released on 18 May 2021, is the world’s first comprehensive study of how to transition to a net zero energy system by 2050 while ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robust economic growth.

To read and see the complete 3 into 1 issue – with illustrations and links – go to this site.

If you would like to receive email newsletters, magazines, articles and announcements from Ken Hickson, please email and you’ll be put on this select data base. Kenhickson@abccarbon.com