This year, our church theme will focus on Discipleship in Society. Wesley TIDINGS is delighted to introduce “Faith@Community”, a new monthly series for 2025 that explores the concept of “Everyday Christianity”. Everyday Christianity is about recognising that faith is not confined to the walls of our church. It is about living out our Christian values in every aspect of our daily lives – in our homes, workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods and communities.
Throughout the year, “Faith@Community” will share the stories of 12 inspiring individuals who are actively living out their faith through compassionate service, advocating for the marginalised and extending a helping hand to those in need. We hope their stories will challenge and inspire us to deepen our own discipleship and find ways to express our faith in practical, everyday actions.
Whether it is through acts of kindness, advocacy for justice or simply shining the light of Christ in your daily interactions, your story matters. Do you know someone quietly making a difference in their community? We want to hear their stories! If you have someone in mind (maybe even yourself!), please encourage them to reach out to us at tidings@wesleymc.org.
Wesley TIDINGS Team
For more information on the church theme this year, please go to:
https://wesleymc.org/dir2025
This month, Everyday Christianity: Faith@Community shines the spotlight on Joline Tang, 30, who has been passionate about sustainability and the conservation of the environment since 2011. Her passion inspired her to create a blog, The Sustainability Project, to share tips related to sustainable living. It later developed into a business, which focuses on selling a range of zero waste products to promote the vision of “Sustainable Living Made Easy” in Singapore. Today, Joline continues to grow her passion towards the environment and strives to inspire those around her to take a step towards sustainable living. With climate change and global warming posing one of the most significant threats to our world today, Joline’s work is more crucial than ever. Joline hopes to empower individuals and businesses to embrace sustainability and raise awareness about critical environmental issues.
Joline, you were very young when you bravely started being an advocate for sustainability and eventually started The Sustainability Project (TSP) as a business. Tell us about your advocacy work. What inspired you to get involved in this area?
My journey began in a rather ordinary way. There was no eureka moment. Instead, it started when I was studying accountancy in a local polytechnic back in 2014. As accountants, we use quite a lot of paper to write down journal entries to complete financial statements. I started to realise that my friends were using one side of the paper and throwing them away after that. At that point in time, I was quite conscious of the amount of wastepaper we were all producing. So, I arranged for my friends to give me their scrap paper so the other side could be used. This simple action sparked a change in my life. This started me on a recycling phase, and I started recycling things that my family wanted to discard such as plastic bags, carton boxes, or metal cans. It was then that I realised I am passionate about the environment.
When did you launch The Sustainability Project (TSP)?
I launched the TSP retail website on 4 January 2018 and have been running it until today. From the start until today, I am still very thankful for each and every order that comes to us. Also, I am grateful for all the support, partners and interns that I have worked with since the start until now. The aim of TSP has been the same since day one – Sustainable Living Made Easy. Everything I do and all the decisions made are for the environment. I will continue to work on this vision until one day I feel that TSP is no longer needed. That will be the day when sustainability is mainstream, and I have made a substantial impact in Singapore.
Please share why creation care and sharing resources is so important.
I believe every resource is precious. All resources are given to us by God, and we are to steward them for the collective good of this world. We are not to over-use or deprive others of the resources that the Lord has given us. Global inequalities in resource consumption contribute significantly to environmental problems. Anything that can be recycled, will be, by me. To this day, my dad still calls me a garang guni (someone who collects unwanted items to be sold or reused).
What happened after you graduated from polytechnic?
After graduating from polytechnic, I wanted to pursue Environmental Science in NUS (National University of Singapore). Unfortunately, due to some personal reasons, I was unable to do so. Instead, I went ahead to studying accounting in SMU (Singapore Management University). At SMU, I wanted to do something related to the environment and thankfully, I was given the opportunity to do so. Attending SMU proved to be a blessing, as I was able to participate in various environmental activities during my four years there.
What environmental activities were you involved in on campus?
I was given the opportunity to be the vice president of the environmental club and could run a few initiatives while there. I also did a couple of environment related internships. It was during my second internship in 2017 that I started The Sustainability Project as a blog. I wrote articles that I wanted to share with people more about sustainability and spread awareness through my own experiences. I am thankful to God that there were people who read my blogs. In August 2017, I also went over to Norway for my university exchange programme. While there, I had some free time and so I started the retail arm of TSP. By then, the zero-waste movement had already started in many parts of the western world, and I wanted to start something similar in Singapore. So I took a leap of faith, incorporated TSP, set up my website, and purchased some essential zero waste products to start off the business side of things. In January 2018, TSP was officially launched as a sustainability movement and business. From the start until today, I am still very thankful for each order that comes to us. Also, I am grateful for all the support, partners and interns that I have worked with since the start until now. I look forward to the day sustainability is mainstream here.
How has your faith helped you in founding The Sustainability Project (TSP)?
I have seen how God has made all the work I do possible. It is only by His hands alone that I can do all I do. Many people ask how I manage to accomplish so much as a solo entrepreneur, so throughout the years, I have made it a point to document the moments where I see God working in my life because I have identified my life theme to be providence, after seeing how God has blessed me.
Where have you seen God’s hands in the TSP journey?
By His divine appointment, God has placed the right people in my business to help me at different stages. At least two of my friends and three family members have been part of my TSP journey. The Lord has also sent very good clients to me – 99 percent of my clients have been so kind and nice to me that sometimes even I find it hard to believe. Another recent example is once, I had casually told my friend that if I could conduct 100 workshops this year, it would be a gift from God. Initially it was 101 workshops but one of my clients cancelled one session, and it really became 100. Right on the dot. God works in wonderful and precise ways. This year, God’s timing was also perfect when I was able to have part-timers to help my event so that I could be at the Food Fair in 2024 and representing the Creation Care Ministry.
What are some of the challenges you face in your work, and how do you overcome them?
Sometimes, when things don’t go so well, I am reminded of who I should turn to for direction in the first place. Some of the challenges I face include having difficulties explaining to those who do not care about the environment and do not get what we are doing in creation care, or who are mocking me in my face or judging me silently when I recycle the items they no longer need or want. I had also experienced some burnout moments, and I stopped feeling the joy while doing God’s work. When these moments happen, I just continue doing what I believed God has placed in my heart. In my first few years of launching TSP movement, I had to sacrifice the time of meeting up with friends. In the past, I had to run events over the weekends and that means not being able to attend church. Now, I even made a promise to the Lord I would no longer work on Sunday, which is a big step for me because weekends were the best days for me.
Who are some of your role models or inspirations, either within the Christian faith or in the broader world, who have influenced your commitment to service?
I don’t have a particular role model, but it is the people around me who inspire me through their actions, posture and behaviour. Some of them are my DISCIPLE or Companions In Christ friends who encouraged me through their sharing. My friend and prayer warrior, for holding me such powerful prayers in time of need or when I share with her my circumstances. My aunties and uncles who will always thank God when a business opportunity comes in or when they see God’s hand in TSP. They are always the ones who give praise without hesitation and pray when there are some bumps along the way.
How do you maintain your own spiritual well-being while engaging in emotionally or physically demanding work?
Community, prayers, courses and podcasts. Being in the creation care community makes me really happy to see how to can encourage more people to be disciples through God’s creation. I also keep a daily prayer journal, and I love going for courses where I can learn new insights from others and also get inspired and blessed by how God has worked in their lives. When I am busy, I put on a Christian podcast as I go about doing my chores or commuting. Through all the small ways, I am reminded that God is there for me.
Thank you, Joline, for giving us such insights into creation care. What are your hopes and dreams for the future of your work and its impact on the community?
To continue to show God’s love to creation, people and to encourage the community to take steps and help others to treasure this beautiful earth that was created by God for us.
Photos courtesy of Joline Tang
You may find out more about Joline’s work here: https://www.instagram.com/thesustainabilityproject_/
