2022 - Thailand

Orange Green Days 2022

Welcome to the Orange Green Days 2022, an exciting initiative co-created by the Netherlands Embassy in Thailand to foster sustainable urban development and resilient cities.

In light of our ambition to build more resilient cities together and the connection with the World Cleanup Day, the Embassy will organize the Orange Green Days from 7-17 September 2022, bringing together diverse activities to raise awareness, facilitate learning, and inspire action on green urban development and circularity.

Our series of activities of Orange Green Days in 2022 are:

Green Minds Walk the Talk

To kickstart the Orange Green Days, we organized the "Green Minds Walk the Talk" event on 7 September 2022. This activity focused on highlighting the positive impact of greener cities on climate change mitigation, physical and mental health, and biodiversity. Participants embarked on a walk through the central business district of Bangkok, starting from Benjakitti Park, crossing the Green Bridge, and concluding at Lumphini Park. Along the way, designers shared their insights on planning and managing resilient cities.

The walk culminated in a stimulating roundtable talk titled "Green Cities: Where Water Solutions and Landscape Architecture Meet." Attended by landscape/urban designers, real-estate developers, and media representatives, the discussion revolved around using smart urban planning to create future-proof cities. Many experiences and best practices were shared, igniting a collective commitment to sustainable urban design.

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Circular Shift through Design

Cities are facing complex social and environmental challenges. The recent warnings about waste pollution and the limits of natural resources encourage the development of a circular economy whose objective is to produce goods and services in a sustainable way, by limiting the consumption and waste of resources as well as the production of waste.

A transition to the circular economy requires collaboration and systemic change, starting from taking a different view of how we design, market and produce, while together shouldering responsibility for the entire lifecycle of products.

Circular design goes hand in hand with the circular principles as good design is long-lasting, useful, innovative and environmentally friendly. It offers a direction of travel towards a regenerative and resilient future. A future where we design products, services and systems with the bigger picture in mind. A future that unlocks a new frontier of creativity to address global challenges at their root.

The Embassy has introduced CIRCO, a program that inspires and facilitates business to ‘Go Circular’ by using a circular design approach to Thai counterparts, and supported the establishment of CIRCO Hub Thailand, currently run by the Global Compact Network Thailand (GCNT). The Hub has successfully trained the local trainers and shared CIRCO methodology over 80 companies in Thailand (as of July 2022).

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To expand our impact, we organized a dynamic half-day demo workshop, enabling participants to exchange ideas and learn from each other's successes and challenges while applying CIRCO Business Design methodologies.

TH – NL Water Dialogue: The Role of Water Systems in Urban Resilient City Planning

Bangkok metropolis has rapidly developed over the past 50 years and now faces critical issues in urban resilience. The city is frequently inundated during the rainy season, and faces seawater intrusion from extreme drought and coastal erosion. Many canal networks are filled up for new developments, replaced by roads and have the risk of becoming stagnant and non-navigable. As urbanization increases, Bangkok’s communities are exploring to improve their abilities to adapt.

In recent years, Bangkok experienced increased flooding, rising temperatures, and struggles with water management. The existing canal systems are clogged and polluted, the rain water and wastewater drainage systems are combined causing inefficient wastewater treatment, and poor water runoff.

Photo Exhibition “Wasteland” and workshop by photographer Kadir van Lohuizen

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Renowned Dutch photojournalist, Kadir van Lohuizen, travelled to six megacities to document their waste (mis)management. As part of the Orange Green Days, we proudly collaborated with the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) to host the "Wasteland" exhibition at Lumphini Park for six weeks in fall 2022. The exhibition shed light on the pressing issue of waste mismanagement and its impact on the environment.

In addition to the exhibition, Kadir van Lohuizen and Thai guest speaker Sirachai (Shin) Arunrugstichai delivered a lecture to photojournalists and photography students at the Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC) on 13 September. The lecture aimed to build capacity in developing climate and environment-related visual stories, inspiring a new wave of impactful storytelling.

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Greening the future - Educating and Engaging Youth

Young citizens hold the key to a sustainable future. As part of the Orange Green Days, we organized a special "Kid’s Day" to provide hands-on, experiential learning for children. Through interactive activities, we educated young minds about waste problems and the importance of responsible waste treatment. By engaging youth in environmental protection, we aim to foster positive behaviour and attitudes that will shape a greener future.

Orange Clean-up

The Orange Green Days came to an end with World Cleanup Day on 17 September. The Netherlands Embassy team joined forces with the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) in a cleanup activity along the Chao Phraya River. This iconic river flows through the heart of Bangkok but faces significant pollution challenges. The cleanup activity aimed to raise awareness about river conservation and the importance of responsible waste management.

Together, we rolled up our sleeves, gathered on boats, and collected waste from the river to be sorted and recycled, leaving a positive impact on the environment.