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.”

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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.”

Lam-Ho has walked the walk too: 8Shades’ recent collaborative event with Chaumet to commemorate the Bee My Love collection is an example of how high-end brands can raise awareness for issues such as preventing the extinction of bees.

“I love my designer brands – what girl doesn’t? But it’s about finding a balance and I hope to pull the two worlds together,” she says.

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Her positioning is not without precedent. “Ever since she cast Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss in her student fashion show, I looked up to Stella McCartney because she’s also the daughter of someone very prominent, but she’s succeeded on her own merits. When she first started championing sustainability and veganism, people were sceptical, but she stood her ground and made it her own.”

Like McCartney, Lam-Ho finds that her own sceptics, which include even close friends, are turning the corner. “Seven or eight years ago, friends were asking me what I was doing when I started my sustainability efforts. But these same friends are now asking for advice on how their businesses can up their ESG game,” she says. “The hardest thing can be to influence the people around you first.”

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XXIV hours in Emily Lam-Ho’s day

Morning

“I get up at 6am or 7am, the kids wake up slightly before. I always have breakfast with my kids, and depending on the day I’ll drop them off at school. I usually like to do all my meetings and calls in the morning.”

Afternoon

“I like to meet up with my girlfriends for lunch, and I like to eat out for lunch – dinner, not so much. Most of the time I opt for sushi, not every day though. I run errands in the afternoon. I may be going to the bank too often to deposit money. I order some groceries online from farms I support, but I like to get some things fresh.”

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Evening

“I get home around 5pm to see my kids – they have an early dinner and I like to eat with them. Even if I occasionally have to go out for dinner, I always want to see my kids.”

Night

“I love my Netflix and am currently watching The Watcher. I like suspense and I like to see how things unfold. It’s my guilty pleasure. I also like shows with witches and I like Twilight, things that are kind of supernatural, or extra-natural. We watch until we fall asleep, but occasionally I’ll have calls with the US at around 9pm or 10pm.”