Seeding Sustainability in China
Jason Inch started with a simple, yet profound question: How can we make increasingly dense cities like Shanghai more sustainable?
“In China, there are lots of developments happening simultaneously. You’ll have solar panels being manufactured and people hooking to the grid, right next to coal plants. There’s lots of contradictions going on,” Jason expressed.
Jason is on a mission to create the most sustainable co-working space in Shanghai. Growing up near Vancouver, one of the greenest cities in the world, and inspired by David Suzuki, the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) in Toronto, he would consider himself a business-focused social entrepreneur.
He founded the Loft of Health and Urban Sustainability (LOHAUS), in June 2013 when there were few people in the sustainability and social enterprise space in Shanghai, let alone China. Bringing together the principles of LOHAS andBauhaus birthed the name “LOHAUS”. It occupies a renovated 1930s building that feels like a traditional extended family home, with six levels each decorated stylishly with local art, mahogany floors, comfy meeting rooms and hot desks, and a rooftop patio where the solar panels are attached to the roof. Their intention is to prove how easy, small adjustments to our living and working spaces, such as insulation, triple-pane windows, solar panels, aquaponics and LED lightbulbs can save energy and a make a greater impact on the world.
And they practice what they preach. Even the coffee in their hip coffee bar in the lobby uses Yunan-sourced coffee beans. They just added a 3D printer to the space to demonstrate how new technologies are helping make manufacturing more sustainable. Although it isn’t required to be a social enterprise or a sustainability-focused company, the environment and intentional actions to save energy speaks for itself. They host frequent conversations and workshops around topics of health to sustainable cities to pitching skills.
LOHAUS hopes to push forward a new paradigm of thinking about impact and ROI for individuals and small businesses. Other than profit, Jason sees more and more that we need to apply more holistic views of how we measure impact; from how much energy we save each year to number of jobs added to our community. LOHAUS is the initial prototype to prove that sustainability works, from a business and social standpoint. We believe the potential impact of organizations like LOHAUS and leaders like Jason can not only impact our work and living environments, but also how we design our cities.
