Background

Bamboo has been essential material for the lives of Japanese, being used for buildings and crafts. On the other hand, bamboo is facing a decline in demand, and with the aging of its producers, now the bamboo forests are being abandoned. What has this brought? Destruction and disaster to the eco-system. For the Sustainable Development Goals, LIFULL, a leading real estate information company in Japan, brought a solution to this issue.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

“Bamboo Sweets” is the world’s first series of sustainable sweets made of abandoned bamboo. LIFULL collaborated with bamboo producers, researchers and chefs, to develop a sustainable eco-system supporting production of the new idea. LIFULL offered the eating experience at its own restaurant, as well as through online and offline stores.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

The audience for this communication is those who want to incorporate social contributions into their lifestyle. In order to attract their interest, we developed a sophisticated design that makes them want to convey their contribution to others. The strong focus was not only environmental preservation, but also the gastronomic quality which was highly appreciated and gained extensive coverage in lifestyle media. The press event we held in September 2019 attracted a large attendance and marked a great success, earning a lot of coverage in prestigious media from both in and out of Japan which featured the novelty of our sustainable solution addressing abandoned bamboo incidents.

List the results (20% of vote)

・300 thousand of abandoned trees have been consumed as food ingredient ・Over 6000 square meters of the natural environment has been conserved ・Profit earned from the project is returned to the collaborators to fund continued and expanded efforts for this challenge. We are currently working to increase production capacity to fill the back orders and make further significant contribution to solving the bamboo damage issues.