Stephanie Dickson, the woman behind Singapore’s leading conscious community Green is The New Black, is bringing her festival to Hong Kong this April – just in time for Earth Day weekend.
Founded in Singapore in 2015, Green is the New Black is now recognised as a leading platform connecting sustainable brands and conscious consumers in and around Asia, and this month they’re bringing their message to Hong Kong in their first event at PMQ. Expect agenda setting talks, a marketplace of mindful brands, delicious food and drink and a networking opportunity with other businesses and customers for whom sustainable practices are not an added bonus but a central part of life and commerce. Their ultimate goal is to galvanise people into taking positive action so that we can leave the world in a better place than we found it. As founder and conscious advocate Stephanie Dickson explains, “Ultimately, it’s all about understanding how our choices not only impact us, but also our surroundings and the environment.”
The initial idea behind the Conscious Festival was simple – to empower people with the knowledge and inspiration they needed to take positive action in their life and work. Until 3 years ago, Stephanie spent a happy 4 years working for Fide Business Solutions Pte Ltd, an international events agency with a focus on luxury lifestyle and fashion events in Singapore and Asia. That was until she woke up to the harsh reality of the fashion industry and its negative impact on the environment. She explains, “I could not unlearn that information. One day I woke up, and I was just like, ‘I can’t do this anymore’. So I resigned, and decided to do something meaningful for the planet”. Now Stephanie designs events with the purpose of giving people a similar epiphany to the life-changing one she experienced not so long ago.
Since its inception, the team behind Green is the New Black has harboured hopes of expanding their reach by holding their conscious festival across Asia. Their last event in Singapore attracted 2,300 visitors, and Hong Kong is expected to outdo those numbers. As of last year, they have reached over 50 million people digitally through social media. One of the reasons Hong Kong was chosen as their next location was, Stephanie explains, “because the growing number of vegan restaurants, organic industries and people paying attention to the zero waste movement is tremendously exciting to me. There hasn’t been a festival like this in Hong Kong, so it just made sense to bring it here next.” Expect deliciously healthy food, organic drinks and alcohol served all around the venue and a marketplace featuring over 70 eco brands offering a tantalising array of fashion and beauty products. Matter Prints will be showcase their accessories,KAMBODJA will present leather accessories, you’ll be able to shop bohemian clothing from Aanya Life, handcrafted jewellery from Niin and more.
When asked which part of the event she is most excited about, Stephanie quickly endorses the Unconference Day, a whole day of talks in which 30 groundbreaking speakers will come together to discuss ways in which businesses’ can lessen their collective negative impact on the planet. From a dissection of the Circular Economy to how to make sustainable practices profitable, the importance of conscious business to investors today to how to use technology to help issues around food waste, it will see big issues being addressed by some of the most prevalent conscious change makers and thought leaders in Asia and beyond. Amongst those speaking include food waste warrior and serial social entrepreneur Maxime Pourrat and globally-respected business thought leader David Goldsmith, whose company Project Moon Hut is currently working in conjunction with NASA to achieve sustainable life on the moon through the accelerated development of a space based economy.
Stephanie hopes that, in the future, the Conscious Festival will take place in Singapore and Hong Kong on an annual basis. With a crowd of more than 3000 expected to visit the event during the course of the weekend, it looks like Green is the New Black is well on its way to achieving its goal of making conscious living the new norm.
Members of the public are free to enter the festival, while talks, screenings and Unconference require tickets for entry. For more on the speakers and the festival’s agenda, check out The Conscious Festival website.
Address: PMQ, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central, Hong Kong
Date: 20 – 22 April
greenisthenewblack.asia/festival
