BUILDING BLOCKS

Armed with a relentless fighting spirit, Farizan d'Avezac De Moran has changed Singapore's landscape by being an early advocate of green buildings. Today, the founder of GreenA Consultants has become a powerhouse sustainability consultant in both Asia and Africa, but it's a journey that's come with its fair share of challenges.

- KARISHMA TULSIDAS

Sustainability might be a trendy buzzword today, but this was not the case a decade ago when Farizan d'Avezac De Moran set up GreenA Consultants, a consultancy that advises companies on how to meet their sustainability goals.

In the early 2000s, the trained engineer had been working at a specialist engineering company in Singapore, where she was the only female partner among the other four partners, who were men. She refuses to reveal the name of the company, but notes that she faced discrimination because of her gender. Despite working just as hard, she was paid less than her male counterparts because they had the perception that she had financial security as she was married to an expat.

While Farizan did marry into money, (her husband is a French aristocrat from Bordeaux), she has always been driven to succeed on her own terms.

"They have a family emblem and all, and my mother-in-law thought I was marrying for money. She later realised that I didn't care [about money]," she explains. Together, Farizan and her husband share two sons and a daughter, all in their teens.

Farizan eventually left the company as she wanted to focus on sustainability, and also make her mark on the African subcontinent.

"[The focus on] Singapore green building started in early 2005, but it was still in its infancy. The more it evolved, the more it became meaningful to me, and I started thinking more about how I could influence the built environment to be more sustainable in the future. I always had this thought that there's so much to do, so much potential, and wondered how I could impact change," she says.