Celine Lim, managing director, SAVE Rivers

Celine Lim is an Indigenous Kayan leader and has been actively involved in SAVE Rivers, a non-governmental organisation that supports and empowers rural communities to protect their land rights.

Lim tells Eco-Business that it is natural for her to advocate for both Indigenous rights and environmental rights. “We are big believers that Indigenous communities, with their very close relationship with the environment and how they sustainably use resources, are experts, and should be a part of important conversations when we discuss how to seek solutions,” she said. 

Lim recalls a key moment in 2023 when she participated in an eight-hour long meeting in the Upper Baram outdoor forested area to discuss an Indigenous-led conservation initiative with the Forest Department of Sarawak and other agency representatives. The meeting resulted in the submission of a declaration to the forest authorities, and Lim believed that these efforts can strengthen the community, as well as showcase a unique approach where parties that held different views can come together in a non-adversarial way.

She said: “The hardest aspect of my work is that we don’t really have as much buy-in from national and international platforms, as some still view NGOs and civil society activists as troublemakers. But we can be huge contributors and play a vital role in nation building too.”

Joy Belmonte, mayor, Quezon City, Philippines

When Typhoon Ketsana, the second most devastating cyclone of 2009, struck Metro Manila, Joy Belmonte realised how destructive plastic pollution can be to the environment.

In Quezon City, the most populous metropolis of the capital where she lived in, Belmonte witnessed how trees and roads were clogged with plastic after the floods subsided. Her father was mayor of the city then, and she remembers how he and his officials were at a loss, having to deal with the deluge of plastic. 

Then, she told herself: If given the opportunity to lead the city, she would put environment at the top of her agenda. 

The following year, Belmonte was elected vice mayor, and she led a ban on the use of plastic, styrofoam, and other non-biodegradable packaging in government buildings. When she became mayor in 2019, she went a step further by prohibiting the distribution and use of single-use plastics.

In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, residents were suffering from job losses, and at the same time, collection of garbage became irregular as Quezon City reeled from piles of infectious waste. Belmonte spearheaded an initiative that allowed residents to exchange recyclables and single-use plastic products for “environmental points” which they could use to pay utility bills and buy groceries. 

Since then, the scheme has collected around 300,000 kilogrammes of recyclable and single-use plastics. This have been diverted from landfill and upcycled into useful products since the initiative's launch in 2021. 

Ultimately, Belmonte hopes that the residents of Quezon City start adopting a zero-waste mindset. "At the end of the day, we want them to do it because it's the right thing to do, regardless of whether they receive any kind of incentives,” she said.

Vijay Prateik, co-founder and CEO, deMITasse Energies

Vijay Prateik runs deMITasse Energies, an India-based startup that builds industrial power plants that are more efficient and cheaper than thermal power plants.

Over the past 12 months, Prateik has shown that his technology can store electricity and industrial waste heat eight times cheaper than lithium-ion technology. It has brought significant positive change to Indian grids and the firm is expanding its footprint to Colorado in the United States. His solutions target industries that waste a lot of energy with thermal power plants, helping them to cut their emissions footprint by over 60 per cent and boost energy efficiency by 40-60 per cent.

DeMITasse is also helping the Indian and US Navy to go green by providing them with energy storage and waste heat recovery technology. It has partnered with Larsen & Toubro, one of the biggest military manufacturers in India, to work on an unmanned submarine project that sources energy without combustion.

Thermax, one of the world’s largest boiler manufacturers, has tapped Prateik to develop their next-generation boilers with energy storage technology.

“I’ve always found sustainability in this space to be a hotbed of innovation. There is so much that can be done,” Prateik told Eco-Business.

Cherrie Atilano, founder and CEO, Agrea Agricultural Systems International

Cherrie Atilano grew up in Negros Occidental in the Philippines, known for its vast tracts of sugarcane.

After graduating from university, she set up an enterprise to eradicate poverty in farming communities through training programmes. She bought their crops and sold them to other businesses, so that the labourers no longer had to struggle to find a market for their products. 

Agrea was born, and for the past 10 years, has provided 500 farmers, many of whom are tenant farmers who own less than one hectare of land, with financial literacy, and organic agriculture skills that have boosted their income to up to US$400 a month.

Last year, Agrea entered into a partnership which required them to provide more than 60,000 meals daily to corporations. This has improved the livelihoods of about 2,000 farmers.

“In a country where food is under the control of so few entities, I want to keep pushing for farmers to be empowered,” she said. 

Krista Milne, co-chief heat officer and climate change director, City of Melbourne, Australia

Extreme heat is one of the deadliest natural forces in Australia, and more than half of the deaths during heatwaves occur in the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

For Krista Milne, one of two "chief heat officers" appointed in late 2022 by the City of Melbourne, their work is driven by the belief that targeted services need to be provided to the more vulnerable communities, including rough sleepers and low-income families.

Milne and her team have been devising heat preparedness plans, including thinking ahead to plan for cool rooms and community spaces that can offer residents "heat refuge" in extreme heat events. She told Eco-Business: "Hearing stories of people sleeping under stairwells or under trees to hide from heat because they simply cannot access airconditioning has been challenging and troubling for me. We need to engage these people to help them adapt."

Milne said that one of the hardest parts of the job – a new and emerging role, especially in Asia Pacific (besides Melbourne, only Dhaka in Bangladesh has a chief heat officer) – is that 2023 has been a tough year for climate, and it looks like it will only become more difficult. "We are experiencing the tipping points that we know are coming every day."

Eric Lim, chief sustainability officer, UOB

Due to a lack of sectoral and regulatory clarity on what the national pathways for a green transition looks like, many firms in Southeast Asia are struggling to confidently put together high-quality transition plans.

For Eric Lim, chief sustainability officer of Southeast Asia's third largest bank, UOB, financial institutions need to continue working with companies, especially those in hard-to-abate sectors, by providing them with access to high-quality transition finance. Since he was appointed to lead the bank's dedicated corporate sustainability office in 2021, he has been vocal about the issue.

"Striking the balance between being progressive while being pragmatic, and making the judgment call with high ambition but balancing that with relevance, is the trickiest part of my job," Lim told Eco-Business.

UOB now has country teams working to help companies across Southeast Asia and beyond navigate national decarbonisation plans. Last September, UOB published its Transition Finance Framework to support its clients to pivot away from carbon-intensive activities. As of September 2023, UOB had provided S$38 billion (US$28.6 billion) in sustainable financing, surpassing its S$30 billion (US$22.5 billion) target roughly two years ahead of schedule.

Mahesh Nakarmi, founding chairperson and executive director, HECAF360

Improving healthcare is key to improving peoples’ lives today, but Mahesh Nakarmi believes that healthcare systems should put future generations at risk.

Without intervention, the medical industry generates large amounts of hazardous waste, and contributes to 4 per cent of global carbon emissions – higher than sectors such as shipping and aviation. In Nepal, healthcare institutions generate up to two kilogrammes of waste per hospital bed, per day. A quarter of the refuse is made up of hazardous substances that if mixed with the general trash, renders entire consignments unrecyclable.

Nakarmi co-founded the Health Environment and Climate Action Foundation (HECAF, and later HECAF360) in Nepal in 1994, and has since expanded its portfolio to tackling waste and addressing climate change. He helped to introduce autoclaves – industrial pressure cookers for cleaning medical equipment – into Nepalese hospitals, reducing the need for burning trash. Nakarmi also developed simple systems clinics that can be used to either compost, or disinfect and recycle medical refuse.

One of HECAF360’s most significant programmes in recent years, according to Nakarmi, is the handling of contaminated drug needles in capital city Kathmandu. The national government had started a programme to collect used needles to prevent their misuse, and HECAF360 followed up to separate plastic and metal parts for recycling, diverting large volumes of waste from the landfill.

The biggest challenge Nakarmi faces is not technical, but cultural. “Almost all aspects of Nepali culture are governed by traditions and rituals, some of which stand in the way of progress. People in Nepal are convinced that burning waste is the best way to make it disappear – simply because that is the way it has always been done. But the waste does not disappear. It turns into dioxins and toxic gases, causing coughing fits and asthma,” he said.

But things may be changing. Nakarmi says he is inspired by a growing caucus of students who are asking about volunteering and internship opportunities at HECAF360. “What pushes me on is the satisfaction of training a generation of leaders who can take on the sustainable development challenge in Nepal,” he said.

Felix Ayque, founder and CEO, Komunidad

Felix Ayque runs Komunidad, a climate tech startup that specialises in analysing and disseminating climate-related data through real-time messages. The firm operates in the Philippines, one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world.

Since a young age, Ayque has lived among coastal communities in his hometown of Legaspi City, and had witnessed first hand the devastating consequences of typhoons and earthquakes. Trained as a tech engineer, he quickly realised that the simplest technology, if applied effectively, can save lives.

Ayque's team is made up of meteorologists, data scientists, IT developers and disaster risk reduction experts. He tells Eco-Business that the passion of these individuals continues to drive him to do his best to deliver impact to end users.

Last year, Komunidad partnered with Quezon City in the Philippines to help integrate monitoring systems of the locality's early warning devices, remote sensors, data loggers and field equipment. Residents are also able to access the information through a web mobile application.

Cate Harris, group head of sustainability and global head of Lendlease Foundation, Lendlease

Cate Harris has occupied senior roles in Australia's sustainability space for the past two decades.

An environmental engineer by training, she cut her teeth in Australia’s state governments assessing the sustainability management plans of developers. Now, she is on the receiving end of this assessment as the group head of sustainability of real estate giant Lendlease – where she has held seven different roles and even managed to squeeze in a secondment at the UN Global Compact Network Australia in her 15-year career.

Lendlease has a target to reach net zero carbon for its Scope 1 and 2 emissions – a company’s direct and indirect emissions – in Asia by 2025. But under Harris’ leadership, the group is going a step further to eliminate its supply chain emissions, also known as Scope 3, without the use of offsets by 2040.

One of last year’s highlights was launching a new protocol aimed at Scope 3 emissions, in the hope of sparking a global conversation and collaboration across the built environment to accelerate the decarbonisation of the sector.

Scope 3 emissions make up the bulk of most companies’ emissions and are notoriously tricky to mitigate, especially for a real estate firm like Lendlease, whose suppliers come from some of the hardest-to-abate sectors like steel, cement, concrete, glass and aluminum.

To bring everyone along on this journey, Harris told Eco-Business that Lendlease has chosen to openly share its new protocol and case studies to also benefit others without the time or resources to do the research.

So far, the protocol has been overwhelmingly well-received by the industry, she said. One example of where collaborations are starting to happen is around renewable diesel, such as promoting the use of it on construction sites and creating buyer’s clubs to improve access to this energy source, which is typically made from waste vegetable oil.

Aida Greenbury, senior sustainability adviser, Independent Oil Palm Smallholders Union; board member, Farmers for Forest Protection Foundation

Aida Greenbury does not like the bad reputation that small-scale palm oil farmers have been getting thanks to the international media.

Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer in the world, accounting for some 60 per cent of global production. Just under half its output can be traced to smallholders, who typically manage just a few hectares of land. They tend enter the spotlight during El Niño years, when they are accused of causing forest fires and haze air pollution by using slash-and-burn land clearing techniques.

Instead of pointing fingers, smallholder farmers should be empowered to partake in conservation efforts, Greenbury believes. Last year, she helped set up a Farmers For Forest Protection Foundation (4F), on whose board she now sits, to help farmers adopt deforestation-free best practices on their land. 4F solicits funding from government and private-sector donors, for use in forest restoration programmes, raising agricultural productivity and ensuring traceability of farmers’ produce.

The hope is that these measures will help farmers meet strict requirements set by the European Union on imported goods, which will kick in at the end of the year. Indonesia and Malaysia have been particularly vocal about the EU’s law hurting its agriculture businesses.

“4F is probably the only incentive and benefit mechanism designed by smallholders, for smallholders. Hopefully the market, consumers and producers can now work together with government, scientists, communities and smallholders to create deforestation-free landscapes for the future of our planet,” Greenbury said.

Greenbury has been managing Indonesia’s palm oil sector for decades, having been the managing director of sustainability at pulpwood giant Asia Pulp and Paper for 13 years until 2017. She also spent three years on the board of the High Carbon Stock Approach foundation, a methodology for preserving carbon-rich tropical rainforests. Greenbury is currently a senior sustainability advisor to Indonesia’s Independent Oil Palm Smallholders’ Union, where she is involved in forest management and fair pricing schemes.