Five Social Enterprises in Singapore That Are Making a Change in Society
We stan homegrown enterprises that not only deliver quality services and products to the public, but also take it upon themselves to contribute to the good of society.
Here are five Singaporean social enterprises that are making lasting effects in communities in the city-state and beyond.
The Fashion Pulpit
Stay stylish and sustainable through the Fashion Pulpit, a social enterprise that promotes environmental education in fashion through clothes swapping. Instead of patronizing fast fashion brands, consider swapping clothes you no longer use for preloved fashion pieces at the Fashion Pulpit.
The process is simple enough: gather clothes, accessories, bags, and shoes you no longer use, sign up for a membership at Fashion Pulpit's studio or through e-mail, and start swapping! You receive a number of points depending on the brand, quality, and style of the clothes and accessories you bring, which serve as your budget for your swapping basket!
TreeDots
Friends Nicholas Lim, Tylor Jong, and Lau Jia Cai conceptualized the first version of the TreeDots application in mid-2019 as an answer to Singapore's food waste. The app acts as a food distribution platform to mitigate food loss by bridging consumers to suppliers, whose perfectly good and consumable products could end up going to waste due to surplus or near expiry. TreeDots charges a marginal platform-fee to have just enough to sustain the app’s operations and keep costs low for Singaporeans.
Ecosoftt Pte Ltd
Ecosoftt, which stands for ECO Solutions for Tomorrow Today, is a Singaporean-based social enterprise that specializes in the decentralised management of water, wastewater, and environmental services, allowing communities to manage water from "source to source, at source." Its award-winning Water WISE Building and Industries platform offers industrial, commercial, and residential facilities sustainable solutions for water audit and efficiency improvement, rainwater harvesting, drinking water treatment, wastewater recycling, and rivers and lakes protection.
Wateroam
David Pong, Lim Chong Tee, and Vincent Loka founded Wateroam in 2014 when they were undergraduate students at a water initiative programme in the National University of Singapore. Together, they built a water filtration system, the Fieldtrate Lite, to help communities in need of safe and clean water. Wateroam has since partnered with more than over 50 non-government organizations and humanitarian groups around the world, deployed in over 38 countries, and impacted over 130,000 lives -- and that's only in a span of about seven years.
Freedom Cups
Last on our list is Freedom Cups, founded by Vanessa Paranjothy, which aims to supply reusable menstrual cups to women across the globe. Like TOMS Shoes, they work on a buy one, give one model where a cup is given to a woman from an underserved community for every cup that is purchased. There are many benefits to using a menstrual cup compared to disposable pads and tampons. Apart from being reusable, menstrual cups are safe to use, as they are usually made from medical grade silicone; they are also more cost-effective, as one can last up to 10 years with proper use. If you want to take the step to minimize your use of non-biodegradable sanitary products, then we urge you to consider Freedom Cups’ menstrual cup.
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