Expecting to meet tough corporate royalty when interviewing environmentalist Ruth Yeoh, Su-Lin Chee found beyond all the green concepts and politics, a genuine nature lover and bold entrepreneur.

 

When I first came onto the team at Malaysian Today, one of the first people I really wanted to put on the cover was Ruth Yeoh, daughter of business magnate Tan Sri Francis Yeoh, the Managing Director at YTL Corporation Berhad.

In case you didn't know, this family-ownd corporation owns Lot 10 and most of the posh part of Bukit Bintang (Starhill, JW Marriott, Ritz Carlton, etc), redeveloped Sentul and set up the KL Performing Arts Centre, as well as a number of luxury resorts like Pangkor Laut and Cameron Highlands Resort. YTL are also into telecommunications (Yes 4G mobile internet) and power generation, with business interests all over Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, as well as rather oddly, a water utility company in the pretty English county of Wessex.

As the eldest child among five siblings, Ruth has had some of the reins of power handed over to her, having held the positions of Finance Director of Yeoh Tiong Lay & Sons Holdings and Director of Investments at the corporate level. Today, she is Executive Director at YTL Singapore, which develops property in this high-value market across the Causeway.

Ruth Yeoh is at 28, young, and attractive to boot.

She is also someone with something to say. Besides her entry into corporate life, we've begun to see more of Ruth as an active environmentalist. In 2007, she and her team started out YTL's annual Climate Change Week in Kuala Lumpur which aims to raise environmental consciousness among Malaysians, in the same year that the book she edited Cut Carbon, Grow Profits was published. Last year, she brought the National Geographic Store into Lot 10, the sales for which are used to fund the body's explorations and programmes.

Ruth is the youngest and only Asian member on the Board of RARE Conservation, an organization based in Washington, United States, where she has been mentored by powerful doyens like Wendy Paulson, wife of former US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson. Ruth is also the youngest person on the board of Reef Check Malaysia, dedicated to protecting reefs and coral life in Malaysia and the Southeast Asian region.

In line with her passion in environmentalism, Ruth at 24, set up a completely new branch of operations for YTL Corporation - YTL-SV Carbon, a carbon credit and Clean Development Mechanism consultancy.

In person, Ruth turns out to be intelligent, eloquent and confident, while sweet and candid.

 

What first turned you on to being green? Was there a particular moment when you thought, this is my future, this is what I'll dedicate my life to?

Since I was very young I've had love for the environment. After all, the environment is in our genes. We are all, in effect, environmentalists, whether we like it or not. My parents have taken me travelling to witness beautifully biodiverse places to expose me to the role of plants and wildlife in the natural environment. They did something right when they did this, as it began to plant an idea that I wanted to do more to protect this beautiful Earth we have all inherited from God. They love it themselves. They have an eye for beauty. Especially my father, he'll take me to his trips overseas. I get to see his love of nature. Pangkor for example is only a third developed, two thirds is left as natural rainforest.

 

Tell us about your work with RARE Conservation.

RARE is amazing because they have field trips out to local communities they have partnerships with. For example, I was just hiking in Yunnan two years ago with my partners in RARE. We were responsible for this green building project in a village called Yong Zhi. It took three days to hike there but it was very rewarding because along the way you get to see the real China. You see deforestation happening along, you see all these lorries passing by these narrow roads, it was a really perilous journey. I rode donkeys and I hiked; it was very cold.

In traditional Tibetan culture, they build homes out of timber. These homes have poor insulation, they're dark, and you have to tear them down every 10 years. We therefore try to help villages reduce deforestation by 20% while improving their standard of living using greener building technology.

Before that, I was in Belize in Central America and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador. You get to swim with sea lions there and it's quite an adventure as you stay on a boat for one week and travel to different islands to witness the biodiversity and conservation efforts the Galapagos is well known for. The giant tortoises, for example, are endemic to the islands and were once almost wiped out but through conservation efforts, humans have managed to revive its population. You can see how Darwin was really inspired as well.

 

Last year, YTL Corp contributed US$2 million to establish a YTL Fellowship for a RARE Planet effort to support RARE Pride programmes in Malaysia and Asia over the next four years. Can you tell me more about this?

It's like a social toolkit that young people bring along with them through their education, to reach out towards their local community at a grassroots level. That's really successful. We found this model replicated by other environmental organizations ... We supported a young lady in Sabah called Suzianna Ramli. We plucked her out from her local community and trained her in conservation, in how she can use best practices to conserve their habitat and the fisheries within Sabah, and planted her back to her community.

 

You are also a Board Member at Reef Check Malaysia.

I love what Reef Check Malaysia are doing as an environmental organisation focused on protecting our seas and oceans. They help with coral protection work in Malaysia and also South East Asia - the coral triangle. Recently at Pangkor Laut, we had a coral transplanting project, which is like a nursery for young corals to grow and thrive; we also had our third reef and beach cleanup. Without your marine life, your coral, there will be no fisheries, no community, no Pangkor Laut Resort. The waters of Pangkor were once so clean that there were dolphins swimming by. I was told that by my father. That was fascinating and made me want to do more and bring more life back to Pangkor.

People sometimes ask why I would want to protect the West Coast of Malaysia, particularly because it is so polluted and being the busy Straits of Malacca laden with shipping traffic. I believe there is more reason to do so! I know a lot of marine and coral protection work is going on in the East Coast of Malaysia but the West Coast seems neglected... You see fantastic results when various species including the giant sea otter become more regular sights on and around the island. Having said that, we are also carrying our marine conservation and beach and reef clean-up programmes in coastal areas on the East Coast of Malaysia, where our other resort, Tanjong Jara Resort, is located.

 

Tell us about your carbon credit consultancy.

Not only does our in-house carbon credit consulancy, YTL-SV Carbon help our businesses become clean and green but also gives confidence to other companies, like palm oil companies, to go clean and green too. It inspires them in a way. Because the companies outside will look at us and go oh, if YTL can get their house in order, then I'm sure they can also help ours. And we have tried and tested methods of doing this. So the trust is definitely there, and also with the YTL backing as well. It helps a lot....

 

How do you define clean and green?

Clean and green should be a culture. I know people are criticizing it as greenwashing. But I believe that people are more sophisticated. They know how to filter down who are the real serious players as opposed to those who just want to be seen to be green.

 

How do you think environmental conservation and corporate social responsibility can sit comfortably with profitable and competitive development?

I talked to a professor about this once in KL. He gave a lecture on how, we can't think that we will all go back to the trees and live on them. At the end of the day you're going to need water, houses, a car to get to work. These things are going to go on. But how these things are done responsibly is what will count in this generation and this century.

At the same time, being sustainable makes good business sense. At the end of the day good business is responsible business. You see Walmart in the US is doing it and HSBC will not endorse a fund or back a company unless they have green credentials. This is slowly on the rise and we see that already. Climate change mitigation is in the public's consciousness and that's what counts.

What do you say to people who think that all this environmental stuff is just hogwash?

We're all born into this earth that we inherit. The beauty about me growing up and having a father like mine is that he had the time to educate us on the environment. People often ask, "If the world is going to end, what's the point of protecting it?" Let's look at it this way. If you had people whom you love and knew they were going to perish one day, does that mean you do not love them and take them for granted today? With the Earth as well, we should try to respect what we have now before it's gone or before it's too late.

I have to admit climate change is a notoriously murky area especially when it comes to the politics as well. I think people don't fully quite understand it because it's not something that you can immediately see like a war, in front of your eyes... One of the writers has mentioned that climate change is like sleeping in a burning bed, because you know that it's happening around you but you don't immediately react to it.

It's the conscience as well that counts. You have a choice. And what you want to do with your life and how you carry out your work philosophy would be based on the amount of consciousness for the planet. I believe that "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it," as quoted in Biblical Scripture (Psalm 24:1, NIV). It alludes to how God ultimately created the earth and how we are all stewards of the good earth that we've inherited as children of God.

 

What about the lack of progress at the recent Copenhagen and Cancun conferences?

I'm usually an optimist when it comes to this, although the discussions were criticized as being kept very general and there weren't any commitments. I like the fact that they put on the agenda for smaller islands like the Maldives to be protected.

 

You graduated with a degree in architecture. Do you still get to do some architectural work, or are you mainly occupied with corporate and environmental work?

Now that I'm in Singapore we have a lot of property development that will be launched. I try to integrate sustainability holistically. When I did my architecture course my focus was on organic and sustainable architecture. I would like to share on how, you know how cars and computers are always evolving, architecture will evolve too. The earlier prototypes of green buildings can be viewed as uglier versions in terms of design, with huge wind turbines planted on top, for example. But there are sleeker buildings that are coming up these days because homeowners demand sustainable features to be integrated in their homes.

 

If you could wish one thing for Malaysia today, what would it be?

I think Malaysians are generally a very caring bunch. My ultimate wish is to bring up our next generation of young leaders and educate them on the facts of sustainability... I feel this is valid to me especially because being newly married, I have to keep in mind that I may possibly raise a family of my own one day. We need leaders who understand the facts about sustainability, and how we can champion the cause and really take care of our earth.

 

YTL has a great reputation for quality and integrity. What's your secret?

I like working for YTL because it's a very values-based company. Being a Christian, I hold true to values, as well as faithfulness and humility towards the Good Earth we have inherited from Our Lord. I bring this in my personal capacity into my work. I've seen a lot in my lifetime and I've been blessed by results from my work. Ultimately I thank my good Lord, I love God and he's always given me vision and direction. After all, I believe all good ideas come from God and Jesus, who blesses us to make the right decisions - and protecting the Earth, our Inheritance, is one of them.

Indeed, instead of hectoring doom and gloom as you'd expect from an environmentalist, Ruth strikes me as someone of hope. Beyond that however, one gets to realize no small measure of astuteness in Ruth setting up an environmental consultancy. As far as bets go, the fact that we are increasingly having to look at and pay for environmental concerns is a pretty good one. Although it is a highly intellectual and complex field, you wouldn't think it from witnessing her bold leap into it.

 

"Good business is responsible business," says Ruth in the interview. Certainly, she's doing an interesting job combining public benefit and private profit, and we look forward to seeing more of her work to come.