Atereano Mateariki RNZ Pacific journalist
A type of
sustainable concrete and grass systems for soil
stabilisation were the big winners of the first Wave Makers
Pacific Innovation Forum for Climate and Environment held in
Vanuatu last week.
The event featured a pitching
competition which saw Pacific entrepreneurs – the top ten
out of 50 nominees – showcasing Pacific-led climate and
environmental solutions.
Competition lead and V-Lab
founder and president Marc Antone Morel said the idea of the
forum was to look at the challenge of climate change and
environmental degradation through a different
lens.
“This forum was really about telling a positive
story, a story of innovation, a story of people coming
together with bold ideas and with a common vision, a common
goal,” Morel said.
Morel said the competition was a
key element of the inaugural forum to highlight innovation
as a cornerstone to any regional development
effort.
“The decision was to engage as much as
possible the private sector and offer the private sector a
space to showcase their solution. This pitching competition
basically brought together businesses, entrepreneurs from
the region, and possibly, ideally, likely helped them to
grow their business,” Morel said.
The competition
offered a cash prize winner of AU$10,000. The winner was
ENVIROMESH representative and Envirocrete Pacific managing
director in Vanuatu Fred Kalkaua, pitching an eco-concrete
from Pacific waste.
“Steel and cement contribute
[around] eight percent of [carbon emissions] into the
atmosphere … so using waste in New Caledonia to do the
GeoMix, which is a geopolymer mix, would replace the cement
and recycle all the plastics, which we use as fiber that
replaces the mesh wire into concrete,” Kalkaua
said.
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Kalkaua said the prizemoney would help expand
Envirocrete Pacific beyond Vanuatu.
“We have some
plans in visiting Pacific [nations], like Tonga, Samoa,
Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands, and also
probably travel to New Caledonia to see how much they would
need, so we could bring in all the products available in
Vanuatu and have it accessible and start to inform the
people of the importance of the use of this product,” he
said.
He said the forum was a great opportunity for
face to face networking for him and his team.
“I
brought in 500 of my business cards there and also with my
two partners. I have only 100 left,” Kalkaua said.
The
winner of People’s Choice award was Robinson Vanoh from
Papua New Guinea-based Eagle Vetiver Systems Ltd
(EVSL).
EVSL use vetiver grass systems for soil
stabilisation and erosion control to safeguard communities
from climate driven disasters such as flooding and
landslides.
“Winning the people’s choice award tells
me that the audience, or the very people living through
these climate challenges, deeply connect with our vision,
and their choice has truly inspired me to explore more ways
to adapt, expand, and deliver this technology across the
region,” Vanoh said.
He said the forum showed him how
the Pacific wants immediate solutions and not
trails.
“Our communities are past the phase of needing
proof-of-concept trials. What we need now is full-scale
solutions deployed right now, and we are looking for
partners who want to help us deliver on that scale,” he
said.
Morel said with the Vanuatu government’s support
to make the forum a biennial event and a showcase at COP30
in Turkey.
“It is our hope that through the forum and
through the movement that was launched with the forum, we
would see a more coordinated and integrated approach for
business support in the region, with additional resources
… to enable us to accompany the wave makers of today and
discover the way makers of
tomorrow.”
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