SINGAPORE: Instead of promoting reforestation of trees, a man is putting his money on bamboo instead.

John Hardy, a former jewellery designer is investing at least US$1.5 million into an industry which he believes could provide an environmentally friendly alternative to timber.

He founded a company which designed what is believed to be the world’s largest building made almost entirely of bamboo. Located in Bali, the building is 70 metres long and three storeys high.

Hardy was recently in Singapore to speak at a social enterprise event that focused on creating innovative carbon products and designs.

However, Hardy said he was never this environmentally aware, and became green only after watching the critically acclaimed film "The Inconvenient Truth".

He then sold his jewellery business to create a more sustainable business, founding the PT Bambu Bambu & Meranggi Foundation.

Said Hardy: "I have been living in a world that's been free-everything. Free energy. Endless everything. And we are heading into a world now that's going to be much more involved in sustainability, much more involved in conservation.

"Americans think of it as something that grows under the fence and you have to hire a lawyer to protect yourself from the neighbourhood suing you. But Asia, Indonesia, is really the home of bamboo, it's a clumping bamboo.

"It's the future timber because we are running out of wood. Bamboo is an incredibly quick solution, not just to having timber. Not just to make buildings and furniture, but also it's really efficient in sequestering carbon."

Bamboo has been proven to absorb at least 40 per cent of carbon dioxide more than a tree.

Hardy has given over 1,200 farmers in Bali free bamboo seedlings, to be planted in infertile parts of their farmland.

To ward off wood-boring beetles, bamboo can be treated with borax, a natural salt.

"If you plant trees to save the world, in 15 or 20 years, someone cuts down all the trees," explained Hardy. "Once bamboos are established, if there are 100 sticks of bamboo in a clump, every year and you cut 25, and 25 more come up. So there are clumps of bamboo that are over hundreds of years old. And they just keep on (growing)."

Henceforth, in three to four years, the bamboo can be harvested - with each clump of bamboo estimated to fetch some US$100.

And this, John Hardy believes, could possibly ease the bamboo's entry as a popular alternative to wood from the trees.

- CNA/yb