Six years ago, Enviu launched Zero Waste Living Lab, now known as Enviu Zero Waste, with a simple yet ambitious goal: to showcase solutions for a zero-waste lifestyle that are both accessible and scalable. What began as a handful of pilots and experiments has since evolved into a movement; one that influences city policy, inspires businesses, and engages communities across Indonesia.
For Program Lead Darina Maulana, this journey has been both personal and professional. Early experiences studying waste systems in schools and working in plastic recycling showed her how well-intentioned systems often fail, and why recycling alone cannot solve Indonesia’s plastic crisis. In fact, that insight inspired her to join Enviu, where she has spent nearly six years helping to turn bold ideas into real, systemic solutions.
This is the story of both Darina’s journey and Enviu Zero Waste’s journey: how small-scale innovation became systemic transformation, and how collaboration, persistence, and a shared vision turned early prototypes into a living ecosystem.
The venture building years: learning through doing
In its early years, Enviu Zero Waste consisted solely of venture builders, focused on creating tangible, circular solutions that made sustainable living convenient, affordable, and inspiring.
One of our first ventures, QYOS, introduced Indonesia to the idea of automated refilling for home-care products. The refill machine quickly captured public imagination and went viral, putting the concept of reuse in front of thousands. Over three years of experimentation, QYOS revealed critical insights about consumer behavior, operational challenges, and the limits of technology-driven solutions. It demonstrated that while innovation can spark attention, it cannot scale without enabling ecosystems, clear regulations, supporting infrastructure, and widespread public awareness.
Following QYOS, Enviu developed and supported several other pioneering ventures, including Alner, a reusable packaging platform for fast-moving consumer goods, and ALLAS, a circular food packaging service for restaurants. Additional pilots, such as reusable coffee cup systems in traditional markets, explored different reuse models.
Alner: a self-sustaining engine of change
Darina highlights her work with Alner (supporting the Co-Founder and CEO Bintang Ekananda) as a key moment in the journey: by connecting them with the Jakarta Provincial Government and the Waste Bank Program, waste banks were able to expand from recycling points into reuse hubs where communities could return and purchase reusable packaging. Over time, Alner grew to more than seven hundred waste banks, showing how small, steady steps in ecosystem building can create long-term impact.
However, throughout all of these experiments, one pattern became clear: ventures alone could prove what’s possible, but true transformation also required building the environment in which these solutions could thrive together.
Darina shares:
“Over the past six years, I’ve learned that meaningful change needs both innovation and an ecosystem. Innovation allows us to experiment, to prove what’s possible on the ground. Ecosystem building ensures those solutions can take root and grow within the wider system.”
This realization marked the moment we added ecosystem building to our venture building approach and set the stage for the next chapter of Enviu’s work.
Building the (eco)system
In 2022, Enviu Zero Waste took its next step forward by launching Reuse in Jakarta, a city-level initiative designed to ignite Indonesia’s reuse ecosystem. Developed with Dietplastik Indonesia and supported by the Plastic Solutions Fund (PSF), the program became the backbone of Enviu’s ecosystem-building efforts.
Reuse in Jakarta connected government agencies, producers, retailers, small businesses, community groups, and the media around a single vision: making reuse a normal and viable part of daily life.
The initiative worked across four dimensions: policy and governance, pilots and operations, community capacity, and financing for shared systems.
On the policy front, Enviu collaborated with the Jakarta Environmental Agency, Ministry of Environment, BPOM, and Bappenas to bridge practice and regulation. Enviu (together with the Reuse Association of Indonesia, AGUNI and Dietplastik Indonesia contributed insights in forum group discussions as well as advocated reuse and refill to the government. In turn, these efforts helped BPOM draft Indonesia’s first refill policy in 2023, while Bappenas featured Alner as a case study in the 2024 Circular Economy Roadmap; a milestone showing how local innovation can inform national direction.
Operationally, Enviu and partners piloted packaging-return and washing systems in both traditional and modern markets, demonstrating that reuse can integrate into existing retail and logistics systems. The goal was not one perfect model, but replicable patterns that other cities could adopt.
Community engagement was key. Together with the Jakarta Environmental Agency, Enviu trained waste banks and community groups to become reuse hubs – places to return containers, refill household products, and learn about sustainable consumption. More than 900 communities were reached, proving that behaviour change works best when rooted in local action.
To support long-term sustainability, Enviu also strengthened the financing narrative for reuse, advocating for blended facilities and shared infrastructure. As funders grew more aware of the real cost curve of reuse, new opportunities for financial support emerged.
Throughout this journey, Enviu co-initiated AGUNI, the Reuse Association of Indonesia, giving innovators, producers, and regulators a collective voice. Representation at global forums such as the UN Environment Assembly positioned Jakarta as a living laboratory for system change.
Darina at the UN Environment Assembly
Darina continues:
“Real transformation happens when both bottom-up innovation and top-down systems move together, shaping change that is collective, continuous, and lasting.”
The Reuse in Jakarta program proved that transformation requires time, trust, and collaboration, and that when governments, communities, and businesses work together, systems begin to shift under their own momentum.
Bridging knowledge, policy, and investment
Ecosystem building also meant connecting dots across research and finance. To support national and global learning, Enviu contributed insights to the TRANSFORM Refill Playbook for the Global South (with Bopinc and Brunel University), offering practical evidence for what scalable reuse looks like in emerging markets.
In parallel, Enviu developed the Reuse Financing Narrative, helping investors understand the market potential and long-term sustainability of shared reuse infrastructure. By combining learning from ventures, policy engagement, and financial analysis, Enviu solidified its role as both a venture builder and an ecosystem architect, bridging bottom-up innovation with the top-down systems needed for change at scale.
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Seeing the vision take root
Today, the results of these collective efforts are visible across Jakarta. Reuse is no longer a niche concept. In fact, it is becoming a citywide movement embedded in policy, community practices, and business operations.
Ventures like Alner, ALLAS, and the emerging hospitality reuse initiative (KemBali and Destination Zero Waste Bali) continue to grow and scale, while city agencies actively explore shared washing and logistics nodes as part of waste prevention strategies. Additionally, the Circular Economy Roadmap 2024 now includes reuse as a key pillar, and collaborations between government and private sector actors are increasingly the norm.
What began as sketches on a whiteboard has become a network of living examples, supportive policies, and collective ownership.
The way forward
As Indonesia’s reuse ecosystem matures, the next phase will focus on scaling shared infrastructure, strengthening financing models, and deepening public–private collaboration. The foundation laid in Jakarta provides a blueprint for other cities and even countries to follow!
Our experience proves that ecosystem building, by nature, is not the work of one organization. It is a relay built on trust, continuity, and shared purpose.
Enviu is proud to have played a catalytic role in Indonesia’s transition from waste management to waste prevention, and from single-use systems to reuse systems that truly last.
The movement has only just begun, and Enviu remains committed to ensuring reuse becomes the new normal in Indonesia and ultimately on a global scale.
A parting note from Darina
“As I prepare to close my Enviu chapter, I do so with deep gratitude. Ecosystem building is never about one person. It’s about trust, collaboration, and persistence. The foundation is set. Now it’s time to scale across cities, across sectors and across Indonesia. With the right partnerships, Indonesia can lead the world in shifting from waste management to waste prevention, from single-use to systems that truly last.
To everyone who’s been part of this journey, thank you for believing that a circular economy can become the new normal!”
