Healthy Food from Rooftop

Malaysia’s premier purpose-built venue, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (the Centre), in line with its on-going sustainability efforts to reduce carbon footprint and to provide healthy food to meetings and events delegates and guests, celebrate the first harvest of its hydroponic farm on its rooftop. 

The Centre partnered with The Green Attap, an urban farming solutions company based in Kuala Lumpur, to set-up and maintain the farm on its rooftop. Driven by passion for healthy and sustainable living, Green Attap was founded by two single mothers with the aim to provide pesticide-free food for children. “Green Attap is the perfect partner to help us with this initiative as we are aligned in our sustainable goals and vision,” said Alan Pryor, General Manager of the Centre.

“Sustainability is a primary business focus for us. We have a task force that constantly looks for ways to maximise our efforts in reducing our carbon footprint, and addressing the impacts of climate change. As part of that, the farm on our rooftop is our latest roll-out, and we have been looking forward to the first harvest and to bring these fresh, pesticide-free vegetables from our rooftop directly to delegates’ plates,” continued Pryor.

Food security is a growing concern in today’s world as pesticide-reliant contemporary agriculture loses popularity amongst health and environment-conscious modern society. Urban farming is mushrooming in the nooks and corners of cities, with private to commercially-owned buildings being transformed into sustainable agricultural spaces.

“We want to know where our food comes from, how it is grown and cared for, the welfare of the farming community, and the integrity of the entire supply chain. As a leading business events player, we want to provide the thousands of people meeting at our venue daily with healthy food that is free from pesticides. Currently, we are growing a variety of lettuces, lollo bionda, lollo rossa, and butterhead, serving them fresh at small and short lead meetings. Our rainwater harvesting system is channeling water to the farm, making it completely sustainable. We strive to present “Malaysia on a Plate” and it cannot get any more local than serving food that is grown on our rooftop,” explained Chef Hisham Jaafar, Executive Chef of the Centre. 

The Centre’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Taskforce is committed to elevating the venue’s sustainable journey and in that, assisting conference organisers and meeting planners to deliver environmentally-responsible events. For more details on how the venue has been pushing the sustainability envelope in Malaysia’s business events industry, visit the Centre’s sustainability page.