Today’s guest is Bernard Kervyn, founder of the NGO Mekong Plus.

We discussed how the organization’s work has evolved given Vietnam’s rapid economic growth over the last 30 years, shifting their focus to people who live on less than US$1 per day, offering microfinance while avoiding its well-documented risks, the different ways communities support each other in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the broader goal of eliminating - not alleviating - poverty.

You can support Mekong Plus’s work here.

Due to scheduling issues, there isn’t a new guest today, so I’m taking this opportunity to revisit two previous episodes in the context of a pair of recently passed regulations.

The first is the amended Law on Social Insurance, which goes into effect on July 1, 2025. I discussed Vietnam’s social insurance system with Tu Phuong Nguyen, a lecturer of Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne, in February.

Today, I’m sharing the context she provided on previous social insurance reform efforts, options the government was considering earlier this year, and what needs to be done beyond national laws to ensure a sustainable system.

On a different note, last week the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a long-awaited decree on direct power purchase agreements, or DPPA.

In May, Giles Cooper, a Partner at the international law firm Allens based in Hanoi, explained what a DPPA is, the dramatic change it heralds for Vietnam’s energy market, and its potential impact.

That section of today’s episode starts at the 11:06 mark.

The full previous episodes are available here:

Vietnam's Social Insurance Dilemma

Vietnam's Energy Plans & Reality

Today’s guest is Kim Le, founder and CEO of CL2B - short for Closed Loop to Balance - a consulting boutique that facilitates decision-making across sectors and stakeholders to accelerate the circular economy transition in Southeast Asia.

We discussed what ‘circular economy’ means in the Vietnam context, how the informal economy already embraces circular principles like reuse and repair in contrast to developed markets, the need to understand the different circularity contexts between the global north and global south, the opportunities of recycling in both the pre-consumer and post-consumer spaces, Vietnam’s role in the global circular economy as an apparel production hub, and hopes for the near future of the circular economy here.

Related Links:

Vietnam among top 20 waste-producing countries: official (Tuổi Trẻ News)

70,000 tons of garbage form hill on Con Dao Island (VnExpress International)

Ho Chi Minh City canal swamped with garbage (Tuổi Trẻ News)

Garbage 'unavoidable' in world-famous Ha Long Bay: official (VnExpress International)

Hanoi needs urgent, optimal solution for waste treatment capacity (Vietnam Plus)

Today’s guest is Eddy Malesky, a Professor of Political Economy at Duke University who focuses on Vietnam. Eddy is also the primary author and lead researcher of the annual Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI).

He played an instrumental role in the creation of the PCI in 2005 and remains heavily involved, offering great insight and nuance on the relationship between sub-national government actions and local business communities.

We discussed the concept of ‘fencebreaking,’ the PCI’s background and the desire to create a tool that provincial officials can use to benchmark against other locations and identify best practices, the surprising official embrace of the index, the genesis of the newer Provincial Green Index (PGI) as a tool for provinces to measure compliance with environmental and energy regulations, how the index’s results illustrate Vietnam’s economic evolution, and how it reflects the anti-corruption campaign.

Related Links:

2023 PGI-PCI Full Report

Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) for 2023 announced (Vietnam Plus)

Today’s guest is Stuart McDonald, co-founder of Travelfish and author of the excellent Couchfish newsletter. Stuart has been traveling around and writing about Southeast Asia for about three decades and is also working on a Master’s in Responsible Tourism Management. He’s written previously about sustainable tourism in Vietnam as well.

Stuart recently visited Phú Quốc for the first time in a while and I wanted to get his thoughts on the place through a sustainable lens. If you’re expecting a rose-tinted view of the island, this episode is not for you. We cover some positives of Phu Quoc before getting into its severe problems, what could be done to begin addressing them, and whether you should visit.

Related Links:

Vietnam's Sustainable Tourism Challenge

Couchfish: A Journey Along The Camel’s Back. Part 1

Couchfish: A Journey Along The Camel’s Back. Part 2

Couchfish: Sustainable Vietnam Part 1—Plastic, People, Power

Couchfish: Sustainable Vietnam Part 2—Three Kinds Of Gold

Vietnam's biggest island long held onto a seductive image as the country's 'last paradise.' Then came the clubs, a casino, and a safari. (Business Insider)

Phu Quoc stops officials from going abroad (VnExpress International)

Today’s guest is Nuno Ribeiro, Senior Lectu​rer of Tourism and Hospitality Management at RMIT University Vietnam.

We discussed the importance of sustainable tourism development, the need for a qualified tourism workforce and Vietnam’s shortage in this area, frequent comparisons to Thailand from domestic media, factors driving the country’s dismal visitor return rate, and the understated economic impact of tourism.

Related Links:

Phú Quốc's Rapid Decline (Vietnam Weekly)

Vietnam posts nearly 11 billion USD in tourism revenue (Vietnam+)

Tens of thousands protest against Canary Islands’ ‘unsustainable’ tourism model (The Guardian)

Thailand attracts twice the number of tourists as Vietnam (VnExpress International)

Today’s guest is Giles Cooper, a Partner at the international law firm Allens based in Hanoi who specializes in issues around energy policies and regulations.

We discussed the pending decree on direct power purchase agreements and how this will impact major manufacturers, the dramatic change this will bring to Vietnam’s electricity market, Power Development Plan 8’s LNG and offshore wind targets, and where all of these issues may go over the next few years.

Related Links:

Draft decree on DPPA completed and under review (Viet Nam News)

Exclusive: Apple supplier Foxconn among firms asked to cut power use in Vietnam (Reuters)

Vietnam Electricity denies telling foreign companies to cut power use by 30% (VnExpress International)

New draft regulations on electricity generation tariffs and model power purchase agreements for power plants in Vietnam (Allens)

Despite promise, natural gas faces a difficult road to power in Vietnam (Southeast Asia Globe - from 2021)

Today’s guest is Timen Swijtink, founder of both CoffeeTrace and Lacàph Coffees of Việt Nam. 

The first half of our conversation covers CoffeeTrace, a new project aimed at providing a coffee farmer-centric EUDR data collection and traceability solution to both farmers and traders. We discuss the challenges farmers in Vietnam and other countries that export agricultural goods to the EU face in meeting new rules and what can be done to help, as well as the current turmoil in the international coffee bean market.

Then, we talk about Lacàph’s approach to working with coffee farmers, the increasingly high quality of Vietnamese coffee; misconceptions around robusta, the dominant coffee variety in Vietnam; and how the country may be well-placed for a future in which climate change increasingly impacts global coffee production.

Related Links:

Pricey Coffee Is Here to Stay as Hoarding, Heat Hit Vietnam Supply (Bloomberg)

Measures sought for coffee firms to adapt to EU Deforestation Regulations (Vietnam+)

Severe drought scorches coffee plantations in Vietnam’s Central Highlands (Tuổi Trẻ News)

Today’s guest is Sarah Goring, Country Director for the Mines Advisory Group, or MAG. The organization is marking 25 years of operations in Vietnam, entirely in Quảng Bình and Quảng Trị.

They have disposed of over 390,000 explosive items since 1999, ranging from small cluster bomblets to huge 500-pound bombs like one that was cleared in Đồng Hới in early April.

We talked about the evolution of MAG’s work in Vietnam over time; the importance of risk education; the cross-cutting impacts of UXO across agriculture, education, healthcare, and other sectors; how UXO is disposed of after being found; and ongoing efforts to survey and map UXO contamination.

Get in touch with Sarah at [email protected].

Related links:

MAG safely removes a MK-82 500LB bomb in Dong Hoi City, Vietnam

Unexploded 200kg bomb discovered in downtown in north-central Vietnam (Tuoi Tre News)

Today’s guest is Bicky Nguyen, co-founder and business development director of Cricket One, a startup aiming to create sustainable, healthy food products sourced from crickets.

We discussed the company’s background and why Vietnam is the perfect base for farming insects on a large scale, the European Union’s approval of Cricket One’s products as a Novel Food and the bizarre backlash this generated, their ongoing push into Singapore, and where Bicky sees the business going as we face the need to shift our diets in response to climate change and growing populations.

Related Links:

From Insect Farm To Table (Atmos)

Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security (Food and Agriculture Organization)

Anyone for crickets? Vietnam company aims to serve up insects in Singapore (Nikkei Asia)

Approval of fourth insect as a Novel Food (European Commission)

Sustainability startups Cricket One and GAFT win S$1 million prize each at The Liveability Challenge 2024 (Eco-Business)