/ Meet Hong Kong activist and heiress Emily Lam-Ho: the founder of green initiatives 8Shades and EcoDrive says ‘having prominent parents is a double-edged sword’
- Emily Lam-Ho may be carving her own way as a green activist, but she’s still bogged down with comparisons to her famous parents, Lai Sun Development chairman Peter Lam and actress Lynn Hsieh
- The Hong Kong heiress married venture capitalist Kent Ho, son of former Sing Tao chairman Charles Ho, and is CEO of Empact28, an investment platform supporting female-led start-ups
“Having prominent parents is a double-edged sword,” says Emily Lam-Ho. “People do constantly compare me, but I think it’s important not to compare myself because they succeeded in their own right, whereas I’m paving my own road.”
Lam-Ho’s parents – and her husband’s parents – are all prominent figures in various key Hong Kong industries. She is the daughter of Lai Sun Development chairman Peter Lam and actress-turned-painter Lynn Hsieh. Her husband Kent Ho – himself the founder of venture capitalist fund S28 Capital – is the son of former Sing Tao chairman and Grand Bauhinia Medal recipient Charles Ho.
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As the founder of green and social empowerment initiatives 8Shades, Empact28 and EcoDrive, Lam-Ho sits between the worlds of sustainability advocacy and Hong Kong’s elite. Yet she still sees herself as a rebel. As a teenager, she took a pivotal volunteer placement in the Gambia – despite her parents’ grief and concerns for her safety.
The six-week trip took her to a plantation where Lam-Ho assisted with building infrastructure. “The innovations to conserve their resources were incredible,” the 38-year-old remembers. “You eat and use only what you need. For them, it’s about survival, and it’s completely different to what we have.”
This perspective informs Lam-Ho’s most recent venture, sustainability content platform 8Shades. The passion project started from Lam-Ho’s regular Instagram posts. “[8Shades is] about letting people know they can integrate sustainability into their lifestyle without making huge sacrifices or changes,” she says. “It’s impossible to be 100 per cent sustainable – you would be living under a rock without electricity – but it’s about being as sustainable as possible.”
From character-forming memories to 8Shades’ style and ethos, Lam-Ho’s need-based perspective on sustainability is pervasive. “My current interest is in regenerative farming,” she explains. “Industrial farming is an easy way out – you’re ploughing and pumping chemicals into the soil, which maximises growth but kills it at the same time.
“I understand that there’s a need to grow food for the population, but we also have huge amounts of food waste. Do we actually need to have that much food to eat or in supermarkets?”
EcoDrive, meanwhile, is fighting to reduce Hong Kong’s dependence on single-use plastics. “Plastics used to be expensive, but because of oil prices and other factors including demand, it was made cheap,” explains the mother-of-two. “Where there’s demand, it becomes cheaper, so we have to use our wallets to vote. When the demand changes, the companies change with it.”
