[K-Women Talk] Hoping for a Spring That Can Rival Convenience

[Asia Economy] When my son, who has been discharged from the Marine Corps, comes back from the gym, he grumbles. Although the washing machine does the laundry for his jiu-jitsu gi, there is no dryer, so he has to hang it on the laundry rack to dry. Before enlisting, he accepted this, but after getting used to military life, he questions why there is no dryer at home when there is one in the barracks. We argue from when we started drying laundry with machines, where electricity comes from, to climate change, but convenience is unbeatable.

The book If We Had Ordinary Courage, compiled by marketing guru Seth Godin, is like a “Complete Guide to Climate Change.” It organizes the basics of climate change, its diverse impacts on us, and solutions in a marketer’s style using graphics, data, and comics to make it easy to understand. The beginning of this book also starts from the reality of a civilized society where “convenience determines everything.”

Seth Godin summarizes, “Convenience is the most underrated motivation in today’s world, and at the same time, the understanding of its influence is the most lacking.” Although convenience is a decisive attribute that drives our actions, it tends to be overlooked because it feels so familiar and natural. Also, once we experience a certain convenience, it has a magical power that makes other choices impossible. Having experienced a washing machine, how could one go back to hand washing!

Convenience is not always good. Industrial development has freed us from excessive labor and saved time to create leisure. On the other hand, the strange and unpredictable climate disasters we face today are side effects derived from the overuse of resources and industrialization for convenience. Now that everyone has become a slave to convenience, who would step up to endure inconvenience to stop climate change? There is someone. That person is Jeong Da-woon, CEO of Bottle Factory in Yeonhui-dong.

A designer who was thriving in the design department of a large company on Teheran-ro pondered the reality of disposable cups covering trash bins. After quitting the company and starting a design lab, he even tracked garbage trucks and witnessed the reality of non-recyclable waste. Is zero waste really impossible? Is a cafe without disposable items really unfeasible? Is a transaction without plastic packaging impossible? In 2018, he opened Bottle Factory in Yeonhui-dong and began nurturing the seed of thought. Collecting unused tumblers reached about 600, and the “Chaeujang” market, where customers bring their own containers to buy, grew by word of mouth. Neighborhood cafes united to create returnable cups that could be shared, and rice cake and sesame oil shops participated to show that buying and selling without disposables is possible. Recently, they even developed an application (app) that shows No Waste rankings not only in Yeonhui-dong but nationwide, making recycling activities enjoyable like a game.

Now it is time for the majority to respond to the seeds sown by this thoughtful young man. There is much concern about how employees can participate in corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management activities. Even stopping the habit of carrying coffee cups with straws during commute or after lunch would have a big effect. For example, coffee shops on the first floor of large buildings could use the “Return Cup” made by CEO Jeong Da-woon instead of disposable cups or cup holders and straws, and establish return agreements with the shops to measure return rates via the app. The satisfaction of doing slow and difficult but meaningful work cannot be replaced by any convenience. I hope the zero waste wave, which had slowed due to COVID-19, will bloom again with spring in every company and building.

Lee Mi-kyung, CEO of the Environmental Foundation

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.