Business Times 7 Dec 07;
More retailers offer eco-friendly wares as concerns about the environment gain ground, report CHEAH UI-HOON and CHRISTOPHER LIM
IN keeping with Olivia Choong's rekindled zeal as an ecologically conscious consumer, some of her closest friends will be receiving Ecover laundry detergent or boxes of Seventh Generation tissue paper from her for Christmas.
The 28-year-old's first brush with concepts like recycling and ecologically-friendly products was in Perth, where she studied. When she first returned to Singapore over three years ago, what struck her was the almost complete lack of eco-consciousness here.
But recently, as concerns about the environment started gaining ground, her interest in things ecological was re-kindled. Ms Choong subsequently started the Singapore chapter of Green Drinks, a UK-initiated environmental concern group that is active in some 300 cities worldwide, on Facebook. This year would be the first time she is giving eco-friendly Christmas presents, though.
'I already use them at home and I feel really good about making a difference,' says the freelance copywriter. The Ecover laundry detergent she gets from Brown Rice Paradise is effective, she says, has minimum impact on aquatic life, biodegrades quickly, doesn't contain optical brighteners, and its ingredients don't have genetically modified organisms either. 'Optical brighteners are used in many conventional laundry detergents but they can also cause an allergic reaction, creating an irreversible chemical bond with our skin.
'As for tissue paper, I like it because it is hypo-allergenic and it hasn't been whitened by chlorine bleach. It is also 100 per cent recycled paper and saves trees!' she declares.
The fact is, with the sudden explosion of interest in organic food and green issues - fuelled no less by the high price of oil - in Singapore just the last couple of years, it's become easier now for people like Ms Choong to find green gifts for friends and family this Christmas.
Clothes made from organic cotton and bamboo fibre, shoes made from seatbelts and recycled tyres, tarpaulin or PVC bags made from leftover event banners and soft toys made from excess fabric, including recycled teakwood furniture and handmade soy candles - all these can be found in stores here now, when they were practically unheard of just two or three years ago. Storeowners like Amanda Tan (www.epitome.sg) and Damien Mah (www.thelawn.com.sg) point out frankly that although designers are pushing the green envelope, as retailers, they're stocking products for their unique designs rather than the green message.
Niche luxury appeal
Ms Tan selected brands like Kultbags, Bird and Harvey Seatbelt Bags for her store in Upper Serangoon, because of their unusual use of material. 'To be honest, it wasn't because these were green products. I got them because they were different and used unique materials,' she says.
About half of the brands retailed at the one-year-old store is now eco-branded. Germany's Kultbag uses recycled materials, while Australia's Bird fashion range falls into the 'eco-luxury' range, with clothes priced from $200 upwards, as prints are dyed with water-based dyes, and all the manufacturing is done with solar power. And then there's the Terra Plana range of shoes which use chrome free leathers, vegetable tanned leathers, recycled materials, pure latex soling materials, recycled rubber soles and recycled foam foot beds.
'I don't necessarily promote a brand because it's environmentally-conscious,' agrees Mr Mah, whose store stocks Spanish Demano bags made from event banners and Japanese-made Kato jeans, for its organic cotton and natural indigo dyes.
'It's hip now to have clothing and accessories which are handmade,' he points out as he sees Singaporeans buying for design rather than environmental reasons.
But this is a tide that can't be turned, he believes, as more manufacturers start to follow ecologically-friendly principles, due to pressure from the global consumer. 'Singapore consumers - who are well-read and sophisticated - will be more ready to embrace green products as the trend takes off,' he believes.
Already, high street fashion lables like Topshop and Topman carry a small range of Basic Tees under the Fair Trade label; Dorothy Perkins has a capsule collection of organic cotton fashion; and Max Studio uses eco-fibres such as bamboo, hemp and soy.
If the patriot in you is decrying the fact that these are foreign brands brought into Singapore, then rest assured that a growing number of designers and manufacturers here are making products that fit the ecological bill.
Retailers like Isan Gallery and Em Gallery, and even hotel chain Banyan Tree, have long been champions of indigenous craft and cottage industries in countries like Thailand and Cambodia, for example.
While the older environmentalist here might have championed traditional craft in Singapore's neighbouring countries, the contemporary one is now leveraging on Singapore's location and growing ecologically-conscious consumer market.
Britons Dean O'Sullivan and Issy Richardson came here specifically to start up their Belle & Dean brand of baby and adultwear using organic cotton just two years ago. Why base the business in Singapore? 'We wanted to bring organic clothing to new markets,' says Ms Richardson, adding that the organic scene is very well-established and popular in the UK. 'Part of what we want to do is to spread awareness about organic cotton clothing,' she says.
Local demand makes up half of their business, and they're happy with how the business is growing here. Belle & Dean's babywear retails online (www.belleanddean.com), and its adult's range is also stocked at Swirl boutique at Stamford House.
CooshBaby (www.cooshlife.com) is another made-in-Singapore ecologically-minded label of children's clothes. 'There is a growing group of consumers who are aware of organic cotton products and many of them are willing to pay a premium for organic product for their children, or their friends' children,' says Joanna Soh, the founder.
There's certainly no shortage of babywear labels which use organic cotton here, with Cut4Cloth, Sckoon and Under the Nile labels imported by Adin M Slette, who started By The Sea Organic (www.bythesea-organic.com) here and stocks these labels at stores like L'Organic and Raffles Hospital.
Even something as perishable as a candle benefits from environmentally-friendly ingredients, and St Michael Gifts Shop (www.stmichaelgifts.com.sg) sells palm wax candles that burn completely with virtually no soot.
'I started making palm wax candles in 2002 and sales for these candles have been good,' shop owner Helen Cheng says. Although she's been making candles for the past 15 years, Ms Cheng only moved it from a home-based business to a commercial retail space in 2005.
Ms Cheng stresses that customer education is key to selling her product, which means the palm wax candles she does sell depend not on a fad, but actual environmental awareness.
'When most customers hear that it's an environmentally friendly wax candle, they are really proud to be included among those who care about what they use, and to contribute in little ways to avoid destroying the environment further,' Ms Cheng says.
Quality matters
For locally-grown brand MakiSquarePatch (www.makisquarepatch.com), sisters Weng Enqi and Pixin started their business making soft toys and bags and other lifestyle accessories from excess fabric donated to them by fashion designers or clothing manufacturers. 'We were thinking about what we could do for the environment,' explains Enqi, about how they started the label a little over a year ago.
Not only do they use excess fabric which would otherwise have been thrown away, they've also trained a group of women in a community home to do the sewing.
While Singapore has a small market of eco-conscious buyers, retailers believe that as social and environmental awareness grows, 'so does the willingness to pay the premium,' says Ms Slette.
'Oh yes, people would be willing to pay a little bit more when they hear its recycled wood ... but then we're not asking them to compromise on aesthetics either,' chips in John Erdos of John Erdos Gallery, who actively seeks out recycled wood when he can. This Christmas, he's fashioned about 15 two-metre and three-metre tall Christmas trees made from leftover wood from his workshops, retailing close to $1,000 each, but which the customer can return in exchange for gift vouchers after Christmas.
That same kind of 'niche luxury' theory could well apply to products like guitars as well, with Gibson's famous Les Paul electric guitar which uses unusual woods (think muirapiranga, muiracatiara and preciosa wood) harvested from sustainable forests.
Local Gibson dealer Swee Lee says that demand for the Les Paul SmartWood Studio (priced at $2,850) has been good, and that each shipment of the special Les Paul model has sold out.
'Some don't mind paying a premium if they know what it's about,' says epitome's Ms Tan, because when she tells them that a Bird tube dress is made in an environmentally-friendly way, they buy it although there are (much) cheaper tube dresses out there.
Of course, the hardcore environmentalist has called for Christmas to be designated a 'Buy Nothing Season'; frowning especially on gift exchange parties. Ms Slette's advice is that if you have to keep up with the season and the tradition, buy less, but go for quality.
And don't wrap it up, unless you use newspapers, adds Green Drinks' Ms Choong.
So, it looks like being green doesn't mean being a Grinch this Christmas. Better still, with the wide variety of quality yet eco-friendly merchandise out there, the giving can continue all year round.
