Bamboo

As I've deepened my understanding of bamboo, I've grown even more inspired by the beauty and wisdom of nature.

At my previous beverage company, we named our sugar reduction initiative the "Bamboo" project. The name show appreciation to bamboo's unique qualities: resilience, rapid growth, and its green-driven spirit, such a fitting metaphor for innovation in sustainability.

As a nature lover like myself, this name clicked immediately. From folk tales like Giong to iconic village landscapes, bamboo has been woven into Vietnamese identity. Through a manufacturer's lens, bamboo hold a powerful potential to be used more commonly in our modern lives.

My favorite scene from a Vietnamese TV show called "Haha Farmers" (Gia đình Haha in Vietnamese) showcases how local communities live in harmony with bamboo forests.

They eat bamboo shoots, use bamboo as rice cookers and plates for meals, build homes, and create furniture. They use bamboo into almost every aspect of daily life. However, they also maintain a deep awareness of bamboo's growing seasons, carefully cutting only enough so that young bamboo shoots can continue to grow and the forest can thrive. As one host on the show figured it out that they had intervened in the bamboo's population so they bear the responsibility to be mindful of their impact.

Have you ever wondered why we can't count tree rings on bamboo like we do with other timbers? This is because bamboo doesn't form rings as it grows. Instead, its special structure features a hollow center with vertical carbon fibers. This design makes it flexible and strong, allowing it to bend and stretch under pressure from various directions. Due to those advantages, bamboo was once a cornerstone of Vietnamese culture and history, used in every aspect of daily life, from housing to tools.

But then, the colonial era replaced such a natural gift with compound and artificial materials, like steel, concrete, and plastics. Local communities were convinced that a "higher quality of life" came through adopting Western modernity over conventional practices. As part of industrial revolution, these composite materials were marketed as standardized, durable, and aesthetically superior, in contrast to bamboo, which was seen as cheap, old-fashioned and problematic.

In professional considerations, many corps plant trees for carbon credit. I often view this practice as more political than genuinely impactful. Interestingly, my company took a different approach by focusing on water cultivation through watershed forest plantation. This stems from the understanding that water is the lifeblood of our business. And this give bamboo a chance to attract the attention of corporate sustainability taskforces.

Classroom interiors at Green School on Feb. 27, 2012, in Bali, Indonesia (Shutterstock.com/paul prescott)

Triem Tay Village, approximately two kilometers from the UNESCO-recognized Hoi An Ancient Town shaded by green bamboo trees. (Photo credit: Author not identified. Source: The original link. Credit will be updated upon verification).

Collaborating with local forest farmers, I've witnessed the incredible benefits of bamboo. Its deep root systems prevent land erosion and cultivate underground water flow, complementing other types of trees we planted through Million Green Trees and Revive Water Run plantation programs. Bamboo grows quickly without chemical intervention, absorbs carbon, and helps local communities protect their land, thereby enhancing their livelihood and well-being. Unlike abstract and vague strategy of carbon offsetting, bamboo offers tangible, immediate benefits that align with both short-term and long-term needs from our business and all stakeholders.

As I've deepened my understanding of bamboo, I've grown even more inspired by the beauty and wisdom of nature. I now see nature as the best designer and also the best recycler in this great world.

You could watch this movie trailer and share your experience with bamboo in the comment if any. Let's give bamboo the spotlight it deserves, in our sustainability dialogue.