Greenhope at the 50th Anniversary of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Davos, 21-24 January 2020 - Greenhope had the opportunity to once again fulfil a limited invitation from The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, the initiator of the World Economic Forum, and participate in the WEF's 50th anniversary celebration in Davos, Switzerland in early 2020.

At the international calibre meeting, Tommy Tjiptadjaja met with various world leaders, politicians, stakeholders, environmental and social activists, and many others who were all gathered with one goal in mind, as per the WEF's theme, ‘Committed to Improving the State of the World’.

There were more than 30 sessions on plastic waste pollution at this conference in Davos, and Tommy attended and contributed to many of them. Tommy also presented the session ‘Innovation for Impact: Engineering Sustainable Plastics’ where he shared the holistic 4R paradigm (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Return to Earth/Recapture) where Greenhope's innovative biodegradable materials such as Ecoplas cassava bioplastic, Oxium, as part of Return to Earth to reduce the accumulation of plastic waste in landfills and when accidentally scattered in nature. We are proud that our Co-Founder's work in foreign countries was detected by Indonesia's trusted media as well, Kompas (read the full news here). 

On this occasion, he also met with the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs, Mr Luhut Binsar Panjaitan who was also proud to introduce Greenhope and its environmentally friendly plastic technology to the world as one of the works of Indonesian children that could be an alternative to conquer the problem of plastic waste pollution, it was very interesting to see his Instagram posts on this issue. For more information, please read here 

The Role of Youth, Greenhope Eco-Technology, and Global Collaboration
In his reflection published in Indonesia Tatler, April 2020, pages 60 to 65 with the title ‘Pillars of the Earth’, Tommy Tjiptadjaja conveyed how much he appreciated the role of young people today who have become changemakers such as Greta Thunberg who very bravely criticised adults and held them responsible for the exploitation of natural resources which resulted in various natural damages on earth.

Young people need to be involved, considering that many decisions made by adults, senior leaders, have a big impact on the future with consequences that must be borne and lived by the younger generation. Prof Klaus Schwab, on this 50th anniversary of the World Economic Forum, consciously and deliberately invited the largest number of youth representatives. 

‘Equal and respectful, honest, contextualised and holistic collaboration between local and global solutions is needed if we are to have a significant impact in combating this massive and systemic plastic waste problem. Piecemeal, copy-paste, ego-driven, self-righteous, dogmatic, colonising, etc. solutions will not be appropriate and sufficient.’  - Tommy Tjiptadjaja, Co-Founder and CEO of Greenhope

Another thing that Tommy also conveyed was that Greenhope as an Eco-Social-Technology Company has a mission to change conventional plastics to be more sustainable, be it with degradable plastic technology, Oxium, or bioplastics (vegetable plastics from cassava that can be decomposed and can become compost), namely Ecoplas and Naturloop.

Equal and respectful collaboration, honest, holistic, balanced bottom-up and top-down, contextualised, local solution guidance is urgently needed. The lingering views of certain international and local elements such as ‘we are always right’, ‘the west/east/south/north are always right’, ‘solution x is best’, ‘one global solution for the whole world’, will not be effective. Tommy shared in one of the sessions, that a blend of global best practices can be very helpful, but because waste is a local problem that is inseparable from culture, With the complexity of infrastructure, weather, purchasing power of local people, local solutions combined with local wisdom are definitely needed. Solutions like Go-Jek motorcycle taxi and delivery, for example, would not be possible in Zurich, Davos, Amsterdam, or many other places that are already rich, have no traffic jams, much lower population density, etc. The key is honesty, objectivity/unbiased, and open-mindedness in order to combine the best, appropriate, contextualised global and local solutions. 

This massive and systemic issue can only be conquered together if all parties from all walks of life can work collaboratively as part of a sustainable ecosystem. So it is appropriate for industries, corporations, NGOs, local and international governments, and academics to work together to fulfil the call of the earth and create change for today and the future. Greenhope, as a social enterprise from Indonesia, owned by Indonesia, with patented technologies invented by Indonesian scientists, is ready to contribute in collaboration with anyone, for national and international contributions to tackle this plastic waste problem.