12/01/23 00:16 a.m.
It has been about 1 month since I made my way back from Malaysia. It felt like aeons though. There are a lot of moving parts right now in my life and I am trying to move slowly, but surely. Unfortunately, it is clearly not working, given the pace that I am forcing myself to go on. But, I am in a state in which, I cannot go slow anymore. It is a "go big or go home" situation now and of course, I don't want to go home. If I do, everything I have been planning and learning for would all be futile. The things that are probably keeping me sane are probably the impact that I can create and the learnings that I am getting along the way - and they don't come all at once, they all come in bits and pieces. It is on me to fix all the bits and pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. Work has been a mixture of both fast and slow paces - fast because of the impending decarbonization projects, internal audits, and multiple environmental KPIs to hit, but slow because of the holidays at the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 (with CNY around the corner as well). Expectations are high and I am feeling the pressure from my managers too. I cannot ruin what I have here so I feel that the only way is to succeed because if I were to succeed, my core and only stakeholder would be on the winning side too. With lesser new pallets, more reusing of consumables, and more sustainable and green procurement mean we are decreasing the indirect demand for timber and plywood. With greater awareness comes more conscious actions that would trickle down like a ripple effect. With lesser energy consumed means we are generating lesser emissions daily, monthly, and yearly. Cheers to you, Mother Nature. I will try my best. One day, I will travel around by foot, on foot, to explore the far lands and borderless seas, and I hope to connect my soul and spirit with yours and to feel you, breathe you, and have my heart beating as one with you.
School has started again this week. It always feels good to be back in school for the semester. The feeling strengthened especially so after my first class, which is a smu-x module. We will be looking into the emerging sustainable health supplements industry (i.e., sustainable fishery, aquaculture). Going back to school is a good way for me to take my mind off work and focus on other learning more about other things such as design thinking. I hope to be able to give classes my fullest attention and to really make full use of all of my classes. I hope to be able to take the chance to learn how to change the industry step by step beyond what I already know. I have explored packaging, processes, and waste management, and I am currently exploring energy management, biodiversity, ISO certifications, environmental risk assessments, and audits. Sometimes, it is easy to get sucked into knowing and learning all of these within the bubble, but the best is if I know things outside of the bubble too, so that it will be easier to create synergies and to think creatively & outside of the box. I realize I keep falling into the same pattern of sticking to past practices, perhaps indeed the contexts are similar, but I ought to challenge myself more to do things more efficiently and better than before. Having experience means doing things better, but not just replicating history.
I wanted to do this reflection for the past few days, or the past week or so, but I have never gotten myself to do it, for reasons that I am unsure of too.
I have been researching on and/or wanting to deep dive into the following:
- used cooking oils and biofuels (B20) in the context of Singapore - how we can better this system countrywide
- the usage of microalgae to replace salmon aquaculture for the manufacturing of omega-3 fish oil - sustainable marketing of this B2B2C product
- how sustainability in the sports industry in China looks like - buy/sell side
- wave energy converters (WECs) for the shipping industry - reduce emissions by reducing reliance on ship's engine at idle state
