Startups have many great ideas — but what happens next? Every entrepreneur in the sustainability space dreams of seeing their startup grow to great heights and deliver the impact they had envisioned, but that’s often hard to do without investment support. Join us as we learn more about what corporate investors look for in a startup and what that decision-making process is like.

For episode 5, Changing Tides with The Incubation Network speaks to Dr Vasimon Ruanglek, Senior Alliances Manager for Climate Impact & Circularity at SCG, a leading Asian industrial conglomerate and one of Thailand’s biggest companies. It invests heavily in research and development, which makes it a key player for startups looking for financing.

“Different ventures have different gaps, but if company leaders have a good vision and mentality, we will be more interested to help. I advise all entrepreneurs to put away their ego and passion, and seek help.” — Dr Vasimon Ruanglek

On this episode we discuss:

• How are corporations fulfilling ESG commitments?
  How are big companies working with startups?
• What can startups do to attract more funding from large corporations?
• What are the common pitfalls for startups when they try to look for support?

We rely on 20 million waste workers worldwide who pick and sort 50-100% of our waste across cities every day. Yet, these informal waste workers are often overlooked or working in unsafe conditions. Join us as we explore why and how the informal sector matters, and what more can be done to ensure their livelihoods, while improving our waste management systems.

For episode 4, Changing Tides with The Incubation Network speaks to Nalini Shekar, co-founder and executive director of Hasiru Dala, a social impact organization that works with informal waste workers across more than 27,000 families in Karnataka and Andrah Pradesh, India.

“You have to look at the community as your partners to co-create strategies. We both learn from each other. I have learned to be stronger, looking at these women going out on the street and being on their own at 4:30am I get energy and fearlessness from them.” — Nalini Shekar

On this episode we discuss:

• Why is the informal sector so important?
• What happened to our waste during the pandemic?
• What kind of challenges do informal waste workers, especially women, face?

Encouraging people to collect, sort and deposit their waste properly is key to ensuring quality feedstock for the recycling industries — and important for the revenue and scaling up of environmental startups working in this space. For Trash Lucky, this requires an incisive insight into local culture and attitudes. Join us as we understand more about changing people’s behaviours to encourage recycling and what kind of opportunities and challenges startups face to improve this issue.

For episode 3, Changing Tides with The Incubation Network speaks to Nattapak (Nat) Atichartakarn, founder and CEO of Trash Lucky, a Thailand-based startup that works with communities to plan and design recycling programs that teach people how to properly collect and sort their plastic waste, which is picked up and sent to recycling centers.

“We try not to get people to worry too much about sorting 10 different things — just identify the one easy thing first and start with that. What we’ve noticed is that people often come back to us and say, ‘hey I noticed that this plastic doesn’t have the same recycling code, what is it?’ So it gets them curious and they start to wonder how they can sort more difficult-to-recycle materials such as UHT cartons and septic packaging.” — Nattapak Atichartakarn

On this episode we discuss

• How do we get people to care about recycling to change their behavior?
• How does local culture play a role?
• How can changing people’s behavior lead to success for environmental startups?
• What are the top challenges for an environmental startup?