Promoting SCP in ASEAN countries
Ecothon 2022 in the Philippines: Impact Startup and Idea Competition for Sustainable Consumption and Production

International mentors, coaches, judges and winners of the ECOTHON in the Philippines 2022

HSF

The third competition of the ECOTHON 2022 series – hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups of the Republic of Korea, the ASEM SMEs Eco-Innovation Center (ASEIC) and Hanns Seidel Foundation Vietnam (HSF) – was succesfully organised in the Philippines with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines (DTI), and the PhilDev Foundation. As the pandemic has been well controlled in the Philippines, this year, the demo day of the competition was held offline in Manila with the participation of international experts and competing teams from all parts of the Philippines.

During four days of the competition, 10 finalist teams attended in intensive training and coaching sessions provided by experienced local and international experts and local coach before entering the Demoday to pitch their business ideas to the panel of judges.

Q&A session after final pitch

HSF

Their amazing business ideas strive for the goal of addressing challenges facing the environment and society today by encouraging the application of technology in closed-loop processes at different levels in several sectors such as agriculture, transport, waste management, and FMCG. Moreover, during the Q&A session after the final pitch of each team, jury members did not only guide the team to further explain important aspects of their business model, but also shared international experiences that could be applied in some individual cases in the Philippines.

Team Salin Swap by Salin PH convincingly won first prize of the ECOTHON 2022 in the Philippines with the business model of providing FMCG products and offering customers the option to return empty containers in exchange for rewards and discounts. Second and third prize went to teams TENSIL Abaca Fiber Tiles and BSF ECOways Small Solution, respectively. Team TENSIL Abaca Fiber Tiles is an early-stage start-up who produces environmentally friendly soundproof fiber tiles from abaca fiber wastes called tow and tuxy. Meanwhile, team BSF ECOways Small Solution brought the idea of producing organic compost using black soldier fly larvae.