An Interview With Sonalie Figueiras

August 2022

By Catherine Saez, WIPO

WIPO: Can you introduce yourself?

I am half-French (Father) and half-Indian (Mother). I grew up in Hong Kong where I first attended the French school here before graduating from the Hong Kong International School. I went on to study in the United States where I double majored in comparative literature and cultural anthropology.

After my studies, I started my career in banking, worked in London for a while, and went into management consulting before coming back to Hong Kong for a real estate investment job.

In 2011, I started a blog, Green Queen, about living a greener, healthier life, which today  has become the leading global alternative protein and Asia-based climate media. I co-founded SourceGreenPackaging in 2021 to offer alternative solutions to plastic packaging.

WIPO: How did you become interested in alternative proteins and eco-packaging?

When I came back to Hong Kong, I had been sick for a long time, experiencing health issues that remained undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, or mishandled. That forced me to take things into my own hands and learn about my symptoms and my health. I came to understand that the food that I was eating had a direct connection to my issues and I became a total food nerd. One thing led to another and I became increasingly interested in environmental issues, and agricultural systems, and how they influence global warming and climate change.

After I discovered the concept of green roofs and how the city of Chicago, was partially or completely covered by vegetation to mitigate Urban Heat Island effect, with all sorts of other benefits., I started a similar project, with my husband, in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, after two years of effort, we had to admit that nobody in Hong Kong was interested at the time.

However, this new awakening about climate change and environmental issues completely changed how I lived my life. I changed my diet, went for organic food, switched to natural cosmetics and cleaning products, and got rid of all the plastic in my life.

WIPO: What was the idea behind the Green Queen Blog?

As my knowledge deepened I realized that I wanted to share all the information that I had collected and promote people I met in Asia and Hong Kong while researching how to live a greener life. I wanted to give a voice to those chefs, entrepreneurs, and NGO leaders and in late 2011, decided to create Green Queen to help people live a healthier, kinder life. I really started Green Queen as a blog with no intention to grow it to what it has become today, but the audience’s interest was immediate, and it just snowballed from there.

By 2015/2016 Green Queen had become the first media in Asia that published information solely on plant-based proteins. One of the reasons we became such a big voice in this space globally is because a lot of literature, in particular from the United Nations had started to come out about the connection between meat and dairy production, livestock rearing, and carbon emissions.

We were the first to talk about Asian companies and give them a voice and a space when most of the stories published in media were focused on the US and Europe, and we became widely known for alternative proteins, which we consider as a solution to the climate crisis and related health concerns.

WIPO: You recently founded SourceGreenPackaging. What are your main objectives?

Two years ago I co-founded SourceGreenPackaging with Luc des Vallières who is also French. The company is headquartered in Hong Kong and we are really just at the beginning of our journey. After a year, we are just about to launch a new website.

Originally, Luc and I felt that there was a blatant lack of solutions for people willing to get rid of plastic use. We want to encourage them to switch to bio-based materials, and packaging that is certified      compostable, non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and made from renewable inputs. The idea was to create a marketplace.

We are trying to challenge messages advertising the wonders and irreplaceability of plastic. Although the functionality and performance of plastic cannot be denied, plastic is toxic, mishandled, and relies on the dirty extraction of fossil fuels. Plastic is going into the environment, into our blood, our bodies, our brains, and our babies. It is a total health crisis.

We created a group of ethics advisers, one of which is a Harvard fertility professor working on the effects of plastic on human fertility. There is a general lack of information and awareness about the adverse effects of plastic in our lives. We are now only starting to get data, research, and studies on microplastic and its health effects. 

We launched the marketplace last year with about 50 suppliers and there is no shortage of innovative plastic-free packaging suppliers, and they need to be promoted. But, we also realized that there was a big problem of disinformation and a lack of understanding of available options, backed up by vigorous greenwashing.

WIPO: I understand you will soon be launching a unique impact calculator, how will it work?

Along with our new website, we will be launching the world’s first impact calculator for packaging in September. Just taking into account carbon emissions in impact measurements has a very limited scope and does not include the actual externalities of using plastic packaging such as health issues, pollution effects, and the cost to society and the environment. We gathered our own data and created our own calculator. If you are using a plastic pouch for your product, you will be able to see the impact of this pouch in terms of landfill, health, and environment, and you will get an idea about how your packaging choices are affecting your consumers or yourself if you are a consumer.

The idea is really to create more education and more engagement around the issue of plastic. Many regulations are appearing on how to reduce or recycle plastic, but they aren’t as effective as they should be. With recycling, it has been 60 years since the first regulations appeared and we are still only achieving a 10/15 % recycling success rate on average for plastics.

WIPO: Can you explain what Source Green Packaging does? Which kind of services/products does it provide?

We created a marketplace where people can discover non-toxic renewable, plastic, and tree-free packaging alternatives. If you are a company trying to switch to eco packaging, you turn to us to find suppliers and solutions. We connect you with the best suppliers and manufacturers. All professionals on our marketplace have been researched and vetted by us. We guarantee that our customers are not being greenwashed.

WIPO: Who are your customers?

We have all kinds of customers but mainly medium to large brands, including restaurant chains. Some customers come to us when they are just creating their products and want to start on the right foot. They are looking for customized products and require a more serviced approach, others know exactly what products they are looking for.

WIPO: What is your business model for SourceGreenPackaging?

We take a percentage of sales but we are also working on a subscriber model where customers will be able to subscribe to our platform and access a complete audit of their packaging, the impact of their current packaging, and available greener solutions.

WIPO: What would you say were and still are the biggest challenges in establishing and growing the company?

The biggest challenge we met is the greenwashing that is perpetuated and funded by the fossil fuel industry. We are a tiny company fighting against billion dollars of profit and lobby money. Lobbying     creates misinformation and miseducation. We have to convince people that much of what they think they know is not true.

Eco packaging is still more expensive because of issues of scales and the true cost of packaging. However, I feel people are ready; otherwise, we would not have a business. People genuinely want change. Entrepreneurs want to be part of the solution, not the problem. They want options and we have to provide them with options that they can understand and make it easy for them to switch.

It is also a marketing advantage for companies. They are ready to pay more for eco-packaging as an increasing number of consumers are willing to go for products that are more respectful of the environment. We find that contrary to millennials, younger generations in Asia are more likely to be educated and to care than their elders, which is a message of hope.

WIPO: Would you say there is a relationship between the circular economy and alternative proteins?

The main aim of the circular economy is to stop being extractive and to create a circular vision and version. Alternative proteins offer people who love animal proteins and animal-derived food attractive options so they reduce or stop consuming meat products, and contribute to lessening the amount of land used for grazing or for growing animal feed which leads to loss of biodiversity, deforestation, species extinction, water scarcity, antibiotic resistance, and air and soil pollution. By cutting down their meat consumption, they also contribute to lower adverse health effects caused by excessive use of growth hormones in animals, and an increasing content of omega 6 in the meat of grain-fed animals, leading to health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer.

Alternative proteins align with the goals of a circular economy mindset.

WIPO: How important IP has been in all your endeavors? What IP assets do you have?

When I started with Green Queen, I did not understand how important is it to protect the rights of media creators. Unfortunately, I deal with people stealing our work constantly and I feel I have little recourse as a publisher. In the packaging world, designs are regularly infringed, but material innovation benefits from stronger IP protection. If you develop a special formula to create a plant-based plastic-free bio-material that can be used to make pouches, for example, IP is very important. All the start-ups we talk to in the bio-material sector are very keen to protect their IP.

We are currently protecting our brand but we are working with an IP lawyer to define the best IP protection for our newly developed impact calculator.

WIPO: Would you advise young entrepreneurs to protect their businesses/ideas/inventions with IP?

I would certainly encourage young entrepreneurs to protect their formulas, algorithms, recipes, and inventions. It is important to protect your work. You need to create a protective bubble around your work so you can fully develop your work or invention.

WIPO: What is in the next five years for SourceGreenPackaging?

In the next five years I hope every small, medium and large brand is asking us to evaluate their packaging footprint and is using our technology and our platform to create a conversion plan to get them away from plastic and toxic material. We are also thinking about opening an office in Singapore next year, and in the future in Europe and the U.S.