Building the operating system for Zero Waste Tourism and circular resource systems
REED is a Vietnamese social enterprise specialising in Zero Waste Tourism and community-based circular resource systems. Within the Green Youth Collective ecosystem, REED provides the technical, enterprise, implementation and intermediary capacity that turns environmental commitments into practical services, infrastructure, operating roles and accountable partnerships. Its work connects business operations, community services and public systems. Hội An Eco Hub—Community Zero Waste Center is REED’s flagship operating platform and the place where this capability is tested under real conditions.
Policy ambition does not operate itself.
Hội An did not lack environmental ambition. The city had public commitments, active community groups and tourism businesses willing to reduce waste. What remained missing was the local capacity to connect these efforts into services and routines that could work every day.
REED was established in 2020 to help build that connection.
The journey from a hotel kitchen back to the soil
The idea grew from practical work initiated by Green Youth Collective.
Community gardens, ecological farming and land-restoration work around Hội An needed compost and organic matter. At the same time, hotels, restaurants and markets were discarding food scraps and landscape materials every day.
Connecting these two realities revealed the complexity behind an apparently simple solution.
Hotel and restaurant staff had to separate materials correctly. Collection needed a dependable schedule. Processing required space, equipment, suitable technologies, trained operators and quality control. Recovered resources needed safe and useful applications. Businesses, communities and public actors had to agree on responsibilities and costs.
Every step belonged to a different actor. No one held the whole pathway together.
The same pattern appeared with plastic packaging, used hotel soap, discarded linen, spent coffee grounds, used cooking oil and other material flows. Each contained potential value, but each required its own combination of prevention, separation, logistics, infrastructure, markets, operators and partnerships.
A technical solution becomes useful only when the operating pathway around it works.
REED grew from this practical lesson. It provided the professional delivery, enterprise structure and accountable partnerships that GYC’s early community experiments had begun to require.
Hội An made the scale of the challenge visible
An IUCN municipal solid-waste audit found that Hội An’s municipal waste increased by an average of approximately 9% annually between 2015 and 2019.
Households generated around 45% of the audited waste, while business premises accounted for approximately 40%. Organic materials represented 66.77% of the total, and plastic 15.22%.
These figures pointed towards several connected priorities.
Business operations—including the large tourism and hospitality sector—could influence which products and materials entered the local waste system. Organic resources required clean separation and appropriate treatment if they were to return safely to farms and gardens. Disposable products and packaging needed to be addressed before they became waste. Low-value plastics required different pathways from materials with established recycling markets.
Many of the technical options were already known. The harder challenge was developing the local capability to connect them.
Taking responsibility for the space between actors
REED works in the part of environmental transition where many initiatives lose momentum: the space between a commitment and its daily execution.
A hotel may commit to reducing plastic while its purchasing policies, guest services and staff routines still need to change. Source separation only creates value when collection and suitable destinations exist for each material. An organic-resource method depends on clean inputs, skilled operators, viable costs and users for its outputs.
A public source-separation policy also needs more than communication. Households and businesses need practical guidance. Collection teams require appropriate routes and working arrangements. Processing facilities need operators, equipment and quality controls. Costs, responsibilities and accountability must be shared across the system.
REED helps connect these elements.
Its role is not to replace businesses, communities or public authorities. It helps each actor understand and perform the part required for the whole pathway to function.
What REED does
1. Diagnose and design
REED examines how materials enter, move through and leave a business, community or destination system. This may include waste audits, material-flow analysis, operational assessment, stakeholder mapping and action planning.
The purpose is to identify where waste can be prevented, which materials can be recovered locally, what infrastructure and capabilities are missing, and which actors must be involved.
2. Build and operate
REED translates plans into operating processes. Its work includes source-separation systems, collection pathways, decentralised organics management, material recovery, connections with recyclers and productive applications for recovered resources.
Depending on the context, REED may design the pathway, support its establishment, train its operators, provide technical supervision or take responsibility for defined daily services.
3. Coordinate roles, responsibilities and finance
Circular resource systems cross institutional boundaries. REED helps businesses, community practitioners, public actors, farms, collection teams, technical partners and funders clarify who performs each role, who pays, who carries risk and how value is shared.
This intermediary function is especially important where public infrastructure, enterprise services and community participation need to work together.
4. Build capability, evidence and learning
REED supports staff training, operator development, monitoring, technical trials and continuous improvement. Operating evidence is used to refine procedures, understand costs, identify unintended consequences and inform the next stage of system design.
This ability to connect strategy, implementation and daily operations defines REED’s role as a Zero Waste Tourism and circular-systems partner.
From business commitments to operational change
Between 2020 and 2022, REED supported programmes that brought tourism businesses, Hội An authorities, the Quảng Nam Tourism Association and environmental partners into a shared waste-reduction framework.
IUCN reported that 36 businesses had made formal commitments by 2021. Programme records documented 58 participating businesses by the end of 2022. Across subsequent REED-supported programmes between 2021 and 2023, more than 100 tourism businesses engaged through awareness workshops, technical guidance, training and site-based learning.
These figures represent different levels of engagement. Participation in training is not the same as a formal commitment or verified operational change.
The work included waste audits, action planning, staff training, monitoring and connections with local solution providers. It also revealed recurring barriers:
- purchasing systems remained dependent on disposable products;
- staff separation practices were inconsistent;
- organic resources lacked suitable destinations;
- local collection and processing services were fragmented;
- businesses lacked practical benchmarks and incentives;
- solution providers needed stronger demand and longer-term operating relationships.
Some participating businesses later demonstrated what deeper operational change could achieve.
Silk Sense Hoi An River Resort developed an extensive plastic-reduction system and received national recognition for its operational approach. The Field Restaurant developed closed-loop applications for food and organic resources and later received Viet Nam’s first Low-Carbon Tourism Standard certification.
These outcomes belong to the businesses. They demonstrate the value of a local support ecosystem that can provide technical guidance, peer learning, practical solutions and continuity during the transition.
Hội An Eco Hub: the system in one working place
REED began developing and operating Hội An Eco Hub in 2021 to provide the infrastructure and operating capability that source separation requires.
The Eco Hub connects several functions:
- waste audits and operational support for tourism businesses;
- source-separation guidance and collection pathways;
- sorting and material recovery;
- decentralised treatment of suitable organic resources;
- reuse and refill development with specialised partners;
- recovery initiatives for hospitality-sector soap, linen, coffee grounds, used cooking oil and other materials;
- trials for difficult or low-value material streams;
- training for businesses, communities and public-sector stakeholders;
- learning experiences for students, practitioners and visitors;
- monitoring, operator learning and continuous improvement.
Its value lies in the relationships between these functions.
Waste audits inform business procedures. Separated materials feed collection and processing services. Operational problems shape new training and technical trials. Reuse and refill partners address waste upstream. Farms and gardens provide potential applications for suitable recovered organic resources. Community and educational activities make the material system visible to residents and visitors.
Different pathways are at different stages. Some services are operating, while particular material streams, technologies or partnership arrangements remain under pilot or development.
The work also takes place under real constraints: contamination, staff turnover, tourism seasonality, floods, collection costs, limited processing space, equipment needs and fluctuating markets for recovered materials.
Running this system has given REED a form of expertise that consultancy alone cannot provide.
Every recommendation must withstand the realities of implementation.
From a community initiative to public infrastructure
A significant transition began in late 2025, when Hội An Ward assigned REED to operate an underused public facility in Cẩm Kim.
In 2026, the expanded Hội An Eco Hub became connected with the area’s source-separation and collection system through cooperation with local government and community collection teams. The municipal plan covers 1,222 households and small businesses.
In July 2026, Hội An Ward’s Vice-Chairman reported that the Eco Hub was supporting approximately 1,200 households and receiving and processing 400–500 kilograms of separated organic resources per day at that time. Recyclable materials were being sorted into 15–16 groups and connected with nearly ten recycling partners. The case was documented by Báo Nông nghiệp và Môi trường.
These figures describe the reported operating scope at a particular stage of the expanded facility. They should not be interpreted as a permanent daily average or as coverage of the whole destination.
The operating knowledge, community relationships and service model had been developed through several years of independent practice. Public infrastructure and a more formal local role followed as that capability became visible.
An emerging public–private–community system now brings together:
- Local government, providing public mandate, infrastructure and connections with municipal services;
- REED, contributing technical expertise, enterprise management, operator development and daily operating capacity;
- Green Youth Collective, holding the wider community-led regenerative direction and connecting learning, local capability, farms and other Working Models;
- Refillables Đong Đầy, advancing upstream prevention through reuse and refill systems;
- Community practitioners, including waste workers, farmers, youth and women participating in separation, collection, resource recovery, learning and stewardship;
- Tourism businesses, reducing waste upstream and using defined, fee-based services where available;
- Farms and gardens, such as REwild land restoration farm, testing and using appropriate recovered biological resources;
- Development and technical partners, contributing research, finance, capacity building and specialist knowledge.
The significance lies in the operating relationship between these actors. Public infrastructure alone cannot create a functioning circular system. Enterprise capability alone cannot provide public mandate. Community participation cannot substitute for institutional or business responsibility.
Making tourism part of the solution
Tourism shapes a destination’s material system long before waste reaches a bin.
Purchasing decisions determine which products and packaging enter the destination. Service design influences what guests use and discard. Kitchen routines affect food waste. Staff practices determine whether materials remain clean enough for recovery.
REED therefore works at both ends of the system.
Upstream, it supports waste prevention, purchasing changes, reuse and refill, service redesign and source separation.
Downstream, it helps establish collection, material recovery, organic-resource treatment and appropriate local applications.
The purpose extends beyond waste diversion. Local environmental services can become more dependable. Businesses can reduce operational risks and environmental footprints. Community practitioners can gain skilled and paid roles. Organic resources may contribute to soil and food systems when their pathways are clean and safe. Evidence from implementation can inform public planning.
Tourism can then contribute finance, demand and operating discipline to a wider local transition.
Local expertise with wider relevance
The questions encountered in Hội An are shared by tourism destinations and municipalities across Viet Nam and Southeast Asia:
- How can source separation work when collection and treatment remain fragmented?
- How can hospitality businesses reduce disposable plastic without compromising service quality?
- How can organic resources support agriculture and local livelihoods?
- How should public, private and community actors share responsibilities and costs?
- What roles can environmental enterprises play within municipal systems?
- How can a pilot develop into dependable local capacity?
REED’s institutional capability is strengthened by both organisational delivery and the professional assignments undertaken by its founder and team. Roles differ by programme—including implementation, technical advice, training, facilitation and system design—but together they show how learning from local practice can be adapted to different contexts.
Developing tourism-business and destination systems
Selected experience includes:
- Businesses in Hội An Commit to Reduce Plastic Waste — IUCN, 2020–2021;
- Supporting Business Engagement in Waste Reduction and Waste Recovery towards Hội An—a Green Destination — Pacific Environment, 2021;
- Replication of Zero Waste Approaches and Initiatives in Tourism Sites in Quảng Nam — Pacific Environment, 2023–2024.
These engagements connected business operations with destination planning, local solution providers and wider resource-recovery systems.
Adapting methods to other places
Further experience includes:
- Phú Yên for Zero Waste — Institute for Development, Environment and Energy, 2022–2023;
- Mitigating Marine Plastic Debris in Viet Nam — WWF-Viet Nam, 2023–2024.
For WWF-Viet Nam’s work in Côn Đảo, technical contributions included developing and piloting plastic-reduction guidance for tourism-service businesses and supporting the expansion of organic-resource treatment and circular applications.
Each place has different geography, tourism markets, institutions, communities and material flows. REED transfers methods and learning while adapting the operating arrangements to the local context.
Connecting waste, cities and climate resilience
Selected technical engagements also include:
- Reducing Short-Lived Climate Pollutants through Improved Municipal Solid Waste Practices in Viet Nam— Federation of Canadian Municipalities, 2021;
- Local Solutions for Plastic Pollution — GreenHub, 2021;
- Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building for Sustainable Urban Development in Viet Nam — UN-Habitat, 2024–2025;
- ASEAN Municipal Solid Waste Management Enhancement — GIZ, 2025;
- Viet Nam Climate Resilient Municipalities — Federation of Canadian Municipalities, from 2025.
These programmes connect solid-waste management with climate mitigation, urban governance, service delivery and the roles of community organisations and mission-led enterprises.
Contributing to national and regional collaboration
Experience from Hội An also contributes to wider professional networks and sector discussions.
REED and Hanh Vu provided technical and convening support to the 2024 Viet Nam Reuse Tour and Conference, which contributed to the establishment of the Viet Nam Reuse Hub.
In 2025, they contributed technical expertise and operating examples to the launch of the Viet Nam Zero Waste Tourism Network, led by Pacific Environment and the Da Nang Tourism Association.
These platforms allow lessons from local practice to enter wider conversations about reuse, circularity and the future of tourism.
Leadership built from grassroots practice
REED was founded by Hanh Vu, a Vietnamese sustainability practitioner whose experience spans climate resilience, waste management, circular economy, community development and sustainable tourism for almost 20 years.
Her work connects three areas that are often separated:
- Community practice — understanding how people use services, build trust, create livelihoods and respond to change;
- Institutional partnership — working with authorities, development organisations and tourism associations to develop programmes and coordination mechanisms;
- Enterprise operation — building teams, infrastructure, services and financial relationships for consistent delivery.
Her professional development includes Systems Thinking for International Development, CIRCO’s Creating Business through Circular Design programme and the GAIA–Mother Earth Foundation Zero Waste Academy, where she graduated as valedictorian of the 2023 global cohort.
A 2025 Adventure.com feature situated REED and Hội An Eco Hub within a wider network of businesses and environmental practitioners changing how tourism operates in Hội An. This external coverage also reinforced a central lesson from the work: destination-level change depends on different organisations carrying distinct but connected responsibilities.
REED within the Green Youth Collective ecosystem
Green Youth Collective holds the wider vision for community-led regenerative systems. It initiates Working Models, develops long-term community relationships and keeps the work connected to the health and adaptive capacity of local places.
REED provides the professional implementation layer. It translates relevant models into technical services, operating infrastructure, enterprise relationships and public–private–community partnerships. Hội An Eco Hub is the principal place where this capability is practised, tested and made visible.
Other organisations and working places extend the system in complementary directions. Refillables Đong Đầy develops reuse and refill solutions upstream. REwild Vietnam connects working places with educational travel, hospitality and Travel with Purpose. Farms and community gardens provide places where suitable organic resources, local knowledge and stewardship can return to the land.
Together, these roles connect waste prevention, resource recovery, tourism operations, livelihoods, learning and local regeneration without assigning every responsibility to a single organisation.
A destination changes through what it can operate
Zero Waste Tourism gains credibility through the local capability that sustains it: people who understand material flows, services that businesses and communities can use, infrastructure that connects separated resources with appropriate destinations, and partnerships that continue beyond individual projects.
Hội An Eco Hub represents that capability taking shape.
It began as a community-rooted initiative, developed into a social-enterprise-operated system and is now working through a formal relationship with public infrastructure and local services.
The system continues to evolve. Its journey already demonstrates that a locally rooted environmental enterprise can connect community practice, tourism operations and public systems—and gradually build infrastructure that a place can rely on.
This is REED’s contribution: building the local capacity that allows environmental commitments to operate, learn and grow from within the place.
Work with REED
For tourism and hospitality businesses
REED supports waste audits, operational redesign, source separation, staff capability, material-recovery pathways, organics management and connections with local solution providers.
Start a conversation about improving your business operations or joining an existing service pathway.
For local governments and destination organisations
REED contributes to circular-system design, pilot development, operator arrangements, public–private–community coordination, infrastructure use and locally grounded implementation.
Discuss a local pilot or operating partnership.
For development partners
REED offers field-based implementation, technical adaptation, capacity building, stakeholder coordination and evidence from operating systems.
Explore REED as a local technical, enterprise or implementation partner.
For researchers, universities and technical organisations
Hội An Eco Hub provides a working environment for field research, technical trials, practitioner learning and the adaptation of methods to real operating conditions.
Discuss a research, learning or technical collaboration.
Discuss an implementation or technical partnership with REED