Shanghai was an amazing city with an incredible energy of opportunity. My only wish was to stay a little longer.
I found it difficult to get in touch with a lot of experts in Shanghai. A part of me feels burned that so few bothered to return my numerous calls and emails, but then again I wonder if I myself would bother with a traveling blogger. I did manage to find two people who were kind enough to meet with me. The first was June Chanpy, the organizer of Shanghai’s Critical Mass bike ride. The second was Emma Le Vaillant, an entrepreneur who is looking to start a salad bar cafe that serves local, organic food.
June’s work with Critical Mass was a testament to how hard it is to educate and organize for the environment, especially in China. Without getting permits from the police for the right to assemble, they risked arrest.
June was fortunate to meet the founder of a website called goodtochina.com. The site is a social enterprise that encourages the public to live more sustainably by offering workshops on rooftop gardens, facilitating eco-design fairs and organizing Critical Mass bike rides. June had two months to organize the event. Their was goal was to bring 300 cyclists together and to be seen by the public to encourage the use of cycling.
By contacting three large bicycle groups in Shanghai and using a variety of Chinese social media, the event was a huge success — surpassing their goal of more than 300 riders. They also did not attract any unwanted from the police and most of all they set a precedent for more city wide activities advocating sustainable living.
The next day I met Emma at a house party. I told her of our trip and she was very curious as to what contacts I found in the Shanghai area because she had a desperate need for local, organic food for her salad restaurant. I had done some research about Shanghai’s organic farms and had made some connections with Good to China so I was more than happy to share this information with Emma. She showed me her business plan for her investors. It was a simple but thorough powerpoint that outlined the economic opportunity for this type of salad cafe. The market research they had done showed an emerging demographic of young, affluent Chinese consumers that want and can afford to buy organic meals.
On the road, I meet different people from different places with different thinking. I am not interested in organic food because I think its trendy or that it is a growing market to exploit for business. I am a proponent of locally grown, organic food because I believe the global food system is a wasteful and vulnerable system in peril of collapse. I believe in the value of organic food because pesticides are seriously harming bee populations around the world. I support Critical Mass and Bike Parties not because I need something to do on Saturday (I don’t) or that biking is great (it is) but that I know that in order for future generations to love this planet and prevent civilization’s collapse we need to lower carbon emissions.
I really liked meeting with these women not because we agreed with everything but because we were ideological allies, despite differing interests. It is this diversity in interests, but with a common goal of sustainability, that gives us strength. Diversity gives us strength.
