25 Green Queens Fighting For A Better Hong Kong & A Better World

The kickstarter of the city’s zero waste retail revolution, the quiet & humble Live Zero founder is a low-waste force of nature that defies her age. Her passion for #reducing & #reusing knows no bounds, from only sourcing brands that can ship with as little packaging as possible to fitting out her shop with upcycled materials, she walks the talk like no other.

Where would Hong Kong’s vegetarian scene be without plant visionary Peggy Chan? One shudders to think. She single-handedly created the demand for upscale vegan and vegetarian food, showed Hong Kong a mission-driven restaurant could be trendy AND successful and proved zero waste dining is more than possible.

Busy mum and glamazon about town Emily Lam Ho is never too busy for her favourite cause: working to reduce single-use plastica via her platform as CEO at Eco-Drive Hong Kong, the NGO she co-founded with 12 other anti-plastic moms to raise awareness amongst corporates, schools & industry about why Hong Kong needs to change how it thinks about plastic.

Martina Bin has been delivering organic produce and supporting local/regional farmers since 2013, ensuring that worried mums across Hong Kong could feed their bubs the cleanest, safest fruits & veggies before any supermarket had even heard of the term. Today thanks to her, chefs & restaurants now showcase our local bounty at its freshest on their menus!

While you may be more familiar with Green Monday’s engaging founder David Yeung, Jenny Ng is the Robin to his Batman, quietly fighting hard to expand the foundation’s mission to reduce meat consumption, launch the revolutionary meat alternative Omnipork and help #makegreencommon across Asia and beyond.

You only need to know Stephanie Dickson for about five minutes to feel her authentic passion for making sustainability sexy with #LittleGreenSteps. The mastermind behind the Conscious Festival (Hong Kong AND Singapore), she uses her Green Is The New Black platform to showcase Asia’s most conscious brands & humans.

Toni Ovendon opened her eco chic salon Love Hair back in 2016 after suffering health issues with a mission to offer busy ladies clean, safe & toxin-free haircare in a pure environment and she’s basically been fully booked ever since. Not only does she keep upping her eco offerings, she also knows how to make you feel like a million bucks every time you pop in.

You already love her Hong Kong-themed Lion Rock Press designs and you probably already have a No Plastic MM Goibottle/cup in your bag but it’s worth reiterating just how passionate Claire Yates is about getting rid of plastic in Hong Kong. She was also the driving force behind last year’s Smart Small docu short about our city’s plastic problem.

When she is not diving into trash bins for photoshoots, creative visionary Paula Miquelis is the force behind GITNB’s inspiring videos of eco changemakers, cross-industry partnerships & thought-provoking event series, always with the goal of getting Asia to #LiveMoreConsciously.

Hong Kong’s first public #ZeroWaster, Hannah Chung has been documenting her low-waste life and sharing tips on her IG page for years now, making her a trusted & respected expert. She is now fighting single-use plastics at revolv, a network of reusable cups, bottles, and containers for the F&B industry.

Almost six million plastic bottles end up in our landfills every day and Ada Yip is on a mission to change that with her clever, design-froward clean water kiosks that are appearing at events and buildings all around the city allowing citizens to refill their #reusable bottles to their heart’s content. Simple AND oh so smart!

Tanja Wessels lives and breathes the circular economy. From challenging herself to a year of no new clothes, to dragging a giant ball of plastic around to illustrate how much of it we use, she uses her All In – Asia platform to inspire others to reduce, reuse & rethink and to generously champion eco leaders in our local community.

In a city where 95% of our food is imported, it’s HARD to convince people that growing your own is worth it. That doesn’t stop devoted urban farmer Michelle Hong, who spends her days visiting schools, universities & corporates to preach about the importance of food security, freshly grown produce and why DIY farming is fun & necessary!

Devoted vegan yogi Adeline Chan is the gentle voice of reason for Hong Kong’s online vegan community, offering supportive comments and friendly moderation. In her day job, she is busy working hard to bring VeggieWorld to Asia for the first time, creating a supportive platform for herbivores whilst empowering omnis to explore the vegan world.

Long-time environmentalist and non-profit native, Anneleise Smillie spent almost a decade at Animals Asia advocating for moon bears and creating educational programs like Professor Paws before joining Redress to lead the team in their mission to reduce textile waste and promote environmental sustainability in the fashion industry.

Is anyone in Hong Kong more passionate about the power of #audio than Regina Larko? Her mission-led podcast #impact (now on Season 4!) is all about giving a voice to people (oftentimes women) making the world a safer, kinder, better place. Thanks to her contagious positivity, her episodes are shared far & wide, inspiring listeners to act with immediacy.

Eco entrepreneur and busy mom Sarah Garner pioneered the sharing economy concept for kids with Retykle, Asia’s first pre-loved childrenswear platform. With her trademark style, she also proved that second hand shopping can be luxe, trendy, easy & convenient. Another win? She goes out of her way to hire moms on her team and offer them flexi-hours! #YAS

Pint-sized powerhouse Elaine Siu is a major voice of vegan in Asia. As head of the advocacy NGO Good Food Institute, she fervently campaigns for the importance of animal rights and a climate-friendly diet in the planet’s most populous region by promoting plant-based meat, dairy, and egg alternative on panels, stages & media pages.

No doubt journalists are a powerful bunch, and LiYing Lim is no different, though we would argue her power is all heart. A passionate vegan for many years, since arriving in the city in 2016, she has made the outspoken choice to cover Hong Kong’s vegan scene and plant-based with gusto in her role at the usually traditional SCMP.

From the first time she laid eyes on a caged moon bear twenty years ago, Jill Robinson was a goner for these intelligent, kind creatures. Today Robinson is inarguably THE voice of animal rights in Asia and thanks to her hundreds of bears & dogs have been rescued and freed, and given love and care at the sanctuary she and her team work to support in China and Vietnam.

Daisy Tam Diers has made it her life’s mission to divert food waste from our overflowing landfills (almost 100% of food waste currently ends up there) and last year was awarded the uber-prestigious Fulbright Research scholarship to develop her visionary food waste & hunger alleviation platform at MIT.

Before anyone cared about #Plastic, there was Dana (and her partner Tracey) on the frontlines of our beaches and seas of oil spills, micro-pellet emergencies and fishing net crises. She is a tireless & (incredibly humble) advocate of our oceans, educating kids, raising awareness on all fronts and working with LegCo to effect change.

The visual power of documentaries cannot be underestimated, which is why animal rights activist Rebecca Cappelli knew she had to use film to tell the story of her vegan awakening, a journey she was sure would resonate with audiences everywhere. Five awards & hundreds of thousands of views later, turns out she was right.

Inspired by Zero Waste Home’s Bea Johnson’s seminal book, Fanny Moritz became fascinated by her trash and how to reduce it. As well as founding plastic-free e-store NOW!NoWaste, of late she has become a passionate Zero Waste speaker at offices in Hong Kong and Europe, eager to inspire others to begin their trash-less journey.

Our founder Sonalie Figueiras has been relentlessly empowering Hong Kongers to live a kinder, greener & healthier life since she launched this site as her personal blog back in 2011. Hong Kong’s OG Green Queen and organic advocate, she uses her voice and platform to shine a light on those doing good in the city and beyond.