Article Archives

8 Weeks  8 Challenges  8 Giveaways  Click here to enter Week 3 and find out more now! How many of you have opened your closet and thought, “I have way too much stuff and no room at all” and still sighed in frustration, “I have nothing to wear”? This week we are partnering with HULA, […]

We all scream for ice cream! Or do we? On a sweltering summer day, nothing beats a heat busting ice cream, but did you know that around 70% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant? In Asia, this jumps to around 90%! Thankfully, brands are starting to catch on by ditching traditional dairy ice creams […]

Cocoparadise was championing healthy desserts before the healthy eating movement took off. Concepts like using natural ingredients and ditching refined sugars and preservatives have been part of the brand’s essence since the beginning, so Cocoparadise founder Valerie Chiu knows a thing or two about how to indulge guilt-free. Valerie shared with us her insights on […]

8 Weeks  8 Challenges  8 Giveaways  Click here to enter week 2 and find out more now! Welcome to our second “challenge” on how you can take small and intentional steps towards a greener future. Enter above to be in with a chance of winning a huge gift box of the best healthy snacks from our […]

🌿 8Shades invites you to… Our first #8ShadesBreakfastClub at @kerryhotelhk Re-energising your mind, body and soul with a yoga class, a specially curated healthy breakfast with 8 dishes that showcases Shangri-La’s Rooted in Nature culinary initiative, and an inspirational talk by our founder @emilylam.ho on her journey to making the world a shade greener. 🌱 Our lovely instructors : @taviajianghui & @karina.yogawellness Time : […]

The new Netflix documentary SEASPIRACY has left viewers shell-shocked (check out our Green Tomato’s review by Patrick Lee). Not only is commercial fishing gear contributing to plastic pollution (46% of ocean plastic consists of fishing nets), but fishing is also devastating marine ecosystems: millions of marine creatures like sharks, whales, dolphins and sea turtles, which […]

Summer has arrived! For those of us who have access to a balcony, rooftop, or garden, it’s time to spruce up our outdoor spaces with eco-friendly furniture. If you’re a morning person, a few staple pieces can transform your outdoor space to a personal sanctuary where you can enjoy your morning (sustainably sourced) coffee, meditate, […]

8Shades invites you to join us… 8 Weeks 8 Challenges 8 Giveaways  Click here to enter week 1 now! Let us inspire you on how you can take small and intentional steps for a greener future. Join us every week for a new challenge, invite your friends and let’s have some fun! We have prizes from our generoussponsors […]

It doesn’t take much to decode what the term 'Greenwashing' means, but just so we're all clear, according to Cambridge Dictionary, Greenwashing is a strategy designed “to make people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is.”

8Shades was lucky enough to be invited to be part of the worldwide launch for OmniFood. After Green Monday successfully launched their OmniPork Series, they are making another huge wave of innovation and yet again, disrupting the plant-based industry with OmniSeafood. We’ve all been anticipating what their next new innovation would be and the wait […]

Dear Shoppers, Please make second-hand your first choice. With gratitude, The Planet (and Your Wallet.) Hongkongers’ shopping habits are among the unhealthiest in the world: our reliance on buying more and buying new takes a huge toll on the environment. Each day, 293 tonnes of textiles end up in our landfills. Insert second-hand shopping: a […]

In this second review of my Green Tomatoes series, we move from the sea with Seaspiracy, to land – with the documentary Kiss the Ground.  Let’s start by analyzing the Rotten Tomatoes score for this film: Kiss the Ground has a Tomatometer score of 88% (8 reviews) and an audience score of 99% (500+ ratings). […]

Alcohol is generally an unsustainable industry; a 750ml bottle of liquor produces, on average, nearly 3kgs of CO2. So which alcoholic drink is the greenest? It’s tough to say, since production methods, distillation techniques and ingredients vary from bottle to bottle of even the same kinds of spirits. Instead, let’s look at each drink individually […]

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH REEFS 1st of June is World Reef Day, and if you think that has zero relevance to us who live in Hong Kong, then maybe it’s time to dig deeper. According to ABC news, a quarter of the world’s coral has disappeared in the last 30 years and all coral reefs […]

Regenerative agriculture is a rehabilitation approach to farming. This might sound very foreign and distant, but modern agriculture is in deep shtook and it’s affecting all of us.  The root of the problem lies in the soil (yes, another pun). About one-third of the world’s topsoil is acutely degraded. According to the United Nations, if […]

To end May on a high, we are celebrating International Menstruation Day today on the 28th May! We are wrapping up our period series this month with our top picks for a plastic period. IF IT’S NOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL HIT, MAKE THE SWITCH When using tampons, look for those with cardboard applicators, which unlike their […]

It’s well-known that Hong Kong is not as good as they could be at being sustainable. If the world lived like Hong Kong, we would need nearly four Earths to sustain us all!  In 2019, 5.67 million tonnes of waste was generated, of which 29% was recycled and the rest went to landfills. Households can […]

GRASS-FED IS HEALTHIER It’s simple, as kids we grew up learning that cows eat grass on the farm. So when did it get so complicated? We never learned that cows actually eat a whole array of unfathomable things like candy and corn. Say what?! The stark reality is that the majority of the beef we […]

School break, icy treats, sunny adventures, breezy outfits… Summer is great in many aspects, but when hot days strike, things can get a bit intolerable. Check out these 8 simple sustainable switches to help you stay cool and green this summer.  1. USE A FAN INSTEAD Here’s an obvious one – don’t abuse your air […]

In 2020, global greenhouse gas emissions totaled 40 gigatonnes, a 7% decrease from 2019 (thanks to COVID-19), but we still have so much work to do to reduce emissions before we experience the worst impacts of climate change. However, in a world where we’re told that nearly everything we do is environmentally unfriendly, knowing the […]