Why this Landscape exists.

From sustainability to abundance

Our purpose remains consistent with the inaugural 2024 report: to spark meaningful conversations and highlight actionable opportunities for startups, scale-ups, and SMEs to help build Southeast Asia's green economy.

We draw inspiration from the exceptional research produced by many global and regional organisations. These reports articulate the scale of the opportunity, the risks of inaction, and the systemic shifts required to navigate our climate and sustainability challenges. However, the focus of much of this work, understandably, is on the roles of governments, multilateral institutions, and large corporates — actors with the scale and resources to move national systems. The green economy will not be delivered by large organisations alone.

Startups, scale-ups, and SMEs are the engines of experimentation, agility, and practical innovation. They push boundaries, fill gaps in capability, and often commercialise the very solutions that bigger players later adopt and deploy at scale. Our goal is to support these innovators in seeing where they fit — and where they can lead — in Southeast Asia's transition.

We are constantly reminded that the world is running out of time. Our systems — ecological, economic, and social — are under mounting pressure, and the consequences of failing to change how we work, produce, and live grow more visible each year. Yet, the green economy represents something profoundly important: optimism and possibility. It signals a future shaped by new industries, new jobs, and new models of economic development. This is growth that benefits both planet and people.

We have approached our work with a sustainability mindset — reducing emissions, cutting waste, operating within planetary boundaries. That mindset is vital. Lately, though, we have come to realise sustainability alone is not enough. The concept of Abundance, popularised by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, has helped reframe how we think about the green economy.

The sustainability mindset teaches us to respect limits. The abundance mindset invites us to reimagine them. The green economy isn't about cutting back. It's about unlocking access.

It's not enough to innovate. We must build the capacity to scale — better systems and infrastructure, more enabling regulation, and stronger cross-sector partnerships that move solutions from pilot to mainstream. This is where startups, scale-ups, and SMEs are essential: they bring agility, new business models, and practical innovations that unlock entirely new pathways for deployment and impact.