Saving the world one cup at a time

Unless I win big in the lotto, or discover that I am the illegitimate son of European royalty, or I am assigned as the CEO of a government corporation, then my dreams of becoming a gajillionaire will remain as elusive as keeping the hair on my scalp.

 Given this, my dad has taught me that one of the ways to become a gajillionaire is to be an entrepreneur (but that it is also one of the surefire ways to lose the hair on your scalp). Following his advice (and his hairline), I left the steady paycheck but ulcer-inducing world of corporate life and launched into several entrepreneurship ventures where the only capital I had to put up was my laway (saliva).

 Several years after abandoning the life of a corporate peon, my laway has not translated into an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or into dividends or even into a value meal. Some businesses have taken flight, like Mercato Centrale, a lovely weekend market at Bonifacio Global City that sells fresh produce and a variety of unique, great-tasting food finds (shameless plug, heh heh heh). Other businesses have been permanently grounded like a television show production outfit (I miss you, Men’s Room). And some businesses have remained laway. Like an Internet commerce website.

 So I am now banking on my Ponzi-inspired “Hair Regrow A Go-Go Solution” (no laway involved in the solution) network marketing scheme for all of my imaginary future gajillion pesos. Unfortunately, this new business venture has been as successful as all attempts to alleviate traffic on EDSA. So far, the only wealth I have accumulated is two inches on my waistline, higher levels of LDC cholesterol and a more prominent forehead.

 Sigh. Apparently, using laway alone to build business may not be enough. It also entails pawis (sweat), pagod (fatigue) and a pair of cojones (um, untranslatable) that have their own gravitational pull.  But, more than that, your cojones must have some brainpower as well. And this is what Czaesar Emil Callo (a University of the Philippines BS business administration cum laude graduate) and Mary Kathleen Chan and Eduard Edwynne Capacio (Ateneo de Manila University with BS management engineering degrees with honorable mentions) have in excess. And just to clarify, Mary Kathleen has metaphorical cojones.

 After an internship stint last year in Singapore with Procter and Gamble (a company where I also spent a lot of fruitful and ulcer-inducing years), the three of them decided to collaborate on a business venture for the local leg of the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards (YEA) that ran from October 2010 to March 2011.

First launched in the Philippines in 2003, the YEA is a business plan writing competition open to local university students to spark their interest (and hopefully not their ulcers) in entrepreneurship and enhance their business acumen. The top awards are given to the team that can come up with the most creative and commercially viable business plans and present them in a convincing and impressive way. Interpretative dance numbers are optional.

So their team members (who lovingly call themselves “Sing Terns”) find their inspiration over a cup of coffee, a food staple for many a college student. But, more particularly, they found it in the cup of coffee. 

Being the opportunity-seeking, entrepreneurial junkies that they were, the Sing Terns were struck by what they called — in business case study parlance — “The (insert popular coffee shop name) Dilemma.”  According to the team, the (insert popular coffee shop name) have publicly stated that they were on the lookout for sustainable yet economical coffee cups since their patrons found that their “cups” were leaving too many carbon footprints and were becoming their number one “environmental liability.”

Thus, the team spent many a sleepless night drinking coffee from their environmental liabilities finding a solution to the coffee shop dilemma until they came across Polylactic Acid (PLA). No, no: PLA is not a substance that will get this team arrested. Rather, PLA is a plastic-like substance that can be used to produce biodegradable and compostable coffee cups and food boxes that can serve as substitutes for Styrofoam and plastic food packaging (Ah, the magic of coffee during sleep-deprived college nights). 

 Apparently, the team related to us that a lot of packaging materials purport to be biodegradable, but they actually biodegrade over a period of 100 years or more. However, biodegradable materials made from PLA work even faster than the Aquino administration: they biodegrade over 100 days!

 Okay, so the team knew they could produce coffee cups that would be biodegradable and environmentally friendly, but the question is would these cups take the gross national product of several Southeast Asian countries to produce? Upon initial research, they discovered that PLA was too expensive to produce from sugarcane because sugarcane was on a sugar high: the price of sugarcane had increased significantly as it was currently being used as biofuel. PLA was also too expensive to produce from corn kernels because corn kernels were being used as a food source (ay, corny). So, several thousand more coffee-fueled, environmentally unfriendly nights later, the team discovered that you could also produce PLA from agricultural waste products like corncob husks. (Hmmm, not so corny after all.)  

 Lastly, and most importantly, as Iskolars ng Bayan and Men and Women for Others, would their product be socially relevant? Since their PLA product was extracted from agricultural wastes, they would be helping small-scale farmers who would be making additional income from the sale of their waste products (which gives new meaning to the phrase “Waste not, want not”).

 So, environmentally friendly? Check! Economically viable? Check! Socially relevant? Check! Give these kids another cuppa joe! Or, in their case, an “ECOntainer” of joe.

 Armed with corncobs, cups of coffee and cojones, team Sing Terns presented their concept during the YEA Philippine Grand Finals at the Peninsula Manila last March 2011 in front of a panel composed of Dr. Jamie Alip, founder and managing director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), Junie Veloso, senior vice president and head of corporate financing, HSBC and Annette Tirol, senior vice president and head of personal financial services. And in a seemingly alchemical process, Team Sing Terns turned their agricultural waste product into a gold medal!

 Then, after downing a bit more coffee (in cups without the carbon footprint), and fine-tuning their business plan with the help of their mentor and veteran coffee drinker Dean Rudy Ang of Ateneo’s John Gokongwei School of Management, the Sing Terns made their way to the HSBC Mothership in Hong Kong for the YEA Regional Finals where they competed with six other gold-studded student teams from Bangladesh, Brunei, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Shanghai, China and Thailand. 

 Along with several other local journalists, we had the opportunity to watch the final business plan presentations. And much as I wanted to exhibit my full support behind Team Sing Terns, I was asked not to expose my full-body painting of the Philippine flag just in case any diplomatic incidents, credit downgrades or permanent bodily harm (mostly to my own body) ensued. 

 As I wrapped myself in a cheongsam, each student team showed off what they could produce if they had a bajillion gajillion dollars in their imaginary bank accounts (it is the same bank account that I use).

 The Brunei team revealed that since their countrymen had ravenous appetites that left behind a lot of food scraps, they developed Green Gems, a government-subsidized modern-day recycling plant that would turn food waste into compost. The Hong Kong team wanted to commercialize the development of genetically modified plants that could photosynthesize 20 times faster than your average plant (I had recurring images of the Incredible Hulk as a plant playing through my head during their presentation). The Shanghai team proposed the development of a co-generation of biodiesel and propanediol via a bio-enzymatic method, which I wanted to discuss at length but my brain shut off completely when they said “propanediol.” And the Malaysian team wanted to revolutionize land-based crab farming by developing condos for crabs. Complete with a Jacuzzi. Really.

 Aside from the Philippine team’s presentation, the two more intriguing business plans in which I would likely invest my imaginary bajillion gajillion dollars would be the Bangladesh team’s CocoCrete product, a high-strength ready-mix concrete that uses coconut fibers from discarded coconut husks as reinforcement in the construction of high-rise buildings; and the Thai team’s “Heart and Sole,” a boutique brand of high-heel shoes that can be adjusted from a height of one to three inches (many rocket scientists and mechanical engineers and fashion stylists were sacrificed to create the adjustable shoes). And you know what? If I did invest my bajillion gajillion dollars in these business plans on the spot, I would have made an imaginary killing: both student teams won second and third place respectively. 

 After several months of preparation, two hours’ worth of presentation and about 30 minutes worth of nail-biting among the students, the judging panel — composed of Teresa Au, head of Corporate Sustainability in Asia Pacific HSBC, Andrew Seaton, British Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau, and Eric Bohm, CEO of World Wildlife Fund-Hong Kong — declared the overall winner of the 2011 HSBC YEA Regional Finals.

 And it was one biodegradable and compostable paper cup to rule them all.

 (Awww… They didn’t need my full-body Philippine flag painting to support their winning presentation after all). And if you really think about it, this business plan started off with a lot of laway. But now, these young entrepreneurs have a little more than that. They also have a whopping P300,000 after winning gold in the local competition and HK$100,000 from winning the regional competition to jumpstart their coffee cups.

 Hmmm… perhaps I can interest these newly-minted graduates in my “Hair Regrow A Go-Go Solution” network marketing plan…