A SOAPFUL Initiative On Sustainable Development Goals by Sunway Group

Today was a pleasant day as we were graced by the presence of Your Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Selangor, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, together with the children from PKAYDEM at Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, Soapful event.

An event that is truly a blessing to a far greater and prosperous sustainable future for the country and for our younger generations.

The efforts shown in today's event, showcases a very inspiring and heartwarming focused direction for Sunway Group in adopting the goals (particularly SDG 2 and SDG 12) from the United Nations General Assembly 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDG in short.

SDG 2 goals is on Zero Hunger, Sunway Hotels & Resorts' Zero Food Wastage programme is an on-going effort collaborating with Kechara Soup Kitchen Society where surplus from buffet dinners served at their hotels will be given to Kechara to help feed the homeless and urban poor in Malaysia. It is anticipated that the numbers served this year will be close to 18,000 individuals from the B40 groups. In other words, what would otherwise be wasted can mean so much to someone else. Definitely a true spirit of sincere heart that Sunway Group leads to explore into other projects that would benefit the environment and the community.

Today's launch marks their latest sustainable initiative called Soapful. In alignment with SDG 12 on Responsible Consumption and Production, Sunway Group looks into how they can help to reduce the use of resources, degradation and pollution along the whole life cycle, while increasing the quality of life. An initiative that encouraged General Managers of every Sunway Hotel that came together to discuss how they can collectively contribute to this goal and hence the idea of repurposing used soap bars were born. Sunway Group has infact managed to collect over 100kgs of leftover soaps from 3 of their hotels here in Sunway City since July this year and through Kinder Soaps stringent process, they were able to produce 1,000 repurposed soap bars.

The soap bar on the left is from the hotel, and the right is a worldwide known branded soap bar that has been chemically contaminated and left to see the amount of bacteria build-up overtime. However, after washing the layers off, it still looks clean and new inside. But it has to be reprocessed again through stringent methods that adhere's to safety and environmental standards.

These soap bars will then be given to homes, such as today, the first homes identified by SAY, Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak Yatim Darul Ehsan Malaysia (PKAYDEM) was here with us today with a total of 43 children and young adults present here; Sunway Group is delighted to host them and these 1,000 soap bars will be given to them for their personal use and also to be sold as part of SAY's social enterprise programmes such as charity sales, community markets and other social platforms, in hope to cultivate meaningful business skills that will help break the cycle of poverty.

One of the children, checking their hands for bacteria and learning how to properly wash their hands with Ecolab 

Today, the children from PKAYDEM were also taught a simple five step soap repurposing process, which they can perform on their own on the unprocessed soap bars that will be provided by Sunway Group for one year, before they move on to a new beneficiary selected by SAY. I love this initiative as it is indirectly guiding these children to lead a sincere life of repurposing leftover soaps, while enhancing their skillsets and teaching them to be responsible for our environment at the same time. After all, at the end of the day, no matter where ones background is from, the children today, is our future tomorrow.

With the quantity of leftover soaps that is targeted to be collected in 2019 from all Sunway Hotels & Resorts in Klang Valley, Ipoh and Penang, namely Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, Sunway Pyramid Hotel, Sunway Clio Hotel, Sunway Putra Hotel, Sunway Velocity Hotel, Sunway Hotel Georgetown, Sunway Hotel Seberang Jaya and The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat; They are expecting a total of 720kgs of leftover soaps which is equivalent to 7,200 bars of repurposed soap bars that will be produced from their efforts.

This is a true mark of real effort that Sunway Group has made into instilling awareness on these sustainable project so that the children and youth can secure their future as we drive towards a progressive nation that leaves no one behind.

One of the children washing his hands properly at the 1st Station at the event today

It was also thanks to their long term collaborating partner on this project with Sunway Group, SAY (Selangor Youth Community) as they will continue to identify the subsequent beneficiaries of this project based on its capacity and to be included as part of their social enterprise programmes;

Ecolab that will facilitate the collection of used soap bars from the hotels, which will then be delivered to Kinder Soaps' processing lab to be repurposed into new bars of soap following stringent standard operating procedures that adheres to safety and environmental standards, as today they also gave a demonstration on proper hand washing procedures at their 1st station today;

Station 1: Hand Washing Procedure

Your Royal Highness, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, the Crown Prince of Selangor at the Hand-Washing station.

Kinder Soaps method of repurposing soap bars through 5 simple steps shown at 5 stations today :

Station 2 : Grating the used soap bars in smaller & fine pieces

Your Royal Highness, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, the Crown Prince of Selangor at the Leftover Soap Bar Grating Station 2. (His smile is magical, makes you feel happy!)

Station 3 : Grated soap is mixed with water and mashed together to form a thick mass

The children mashing the grated soap mixed with water to form a thick mass for the next station.

Station 4 : Mixture is melted/heated to remove excess water

Your Royal Highness, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, the Crown Prince of Selangor mixing the melted/heated thick mass of the mashed soap to remove excess water

Station 5 : Molding

Your Royal Highness, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, the Crown Prince of Selangor at the Molding station where the melted soap that is cooled down will be added into molds to form a new soap bar in return.

Station 6 : Cutting and Packaging

Your Royal Highness, H.H Tengku Amir Shah Ibni Sultan Sharatuddin Idris Shah Alhaj, the Crown Prince of Selangor at the Cutting and Packaging station, the last station on repurposing these soap bars for a better environment to help those in need through SAYs' socla enterprise programmes Nationwide.

With that, it was truly inspiring and a good initiative by Sunway Group in helping to make this world and our nation a better place, in alignment with the United Nations on Sustainable Development Goals.