Interview with crQlr Awards Winner, Zen Zhou Social Enterprise about the simple yet effective Water-Storing Seedling Pot

The crQlr Awards team held an exclusive interview with Zen Zhou Social Enterprise, a crQlr 2025 Exhibitor and crQlr 2021 Award Winner, to explore the development process and environmental impact of the Water-Storing Seedling Pot

Key image: Water-Storing Seedling Pot (Photo credit: Lasse Kusk)

In 2021, Taiwan’s Zen Zhou Social Enterprise (“Zen Zhou”) was among the first recipients of the crQlr Award, recognized for its Water-Storing Seedling Pot. Four years later, the crQlr 2025 exhibition took place at FabCafe Tokyo, where Zen Zhou showcased its innovative seedling pot once again. In this interview, we delve into the company’s mission, its development journey, and its vision for the future.

Zen Zhou Social Enterprise was founded with a simple yet profound goal: to replace single-use plastic products with innovative, sustainable alternatives. To date, the company has developed 25 eco-friendly products, most of which focus on improving daily life through environmentally conscious design.

Zen Zhou’s Water-Storing Seedling Pot sets itself apart from the company’s other products by going beyond everyday use: the pot directly addresses large-scale environmental sustainability challenges. More than a simple tree-planting tool, it’s a groundbreaking solution to climate change, embodying Zen Zhou’s profound commitment to ecological stewardship on a global scale.

Zen Zhou developed a series of products to replace disposable plastic products including silicon food containers and beeswax food wraps. (Photo credit: Zen Zhou Social Enterprise)

(Photo credit: Zen Zhou Social Enterprise)

The Water-Storing Seedling Pot was born from the profound observations of climate change and environmental degradation. As Taiwan’s coastline continues to fragment and recede, afforestation has become a crucial strategy for soil conservation and ecological balance. However, extreme coastal conditions including drought, strong winds, and heavy rain make it incredibly difficult for trees to survive, especially in the first three months of growth when stable water supply is essential.

Recognizing that water scarcity was a major barrier to successful afforestation to combat the shrinking coastline, the local professional tree planting team Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Foundation cooperated with the Zen Zhou team to develop a solution. Their goal was to design a tool that could efficiently store and release water, ensuring seedlings had a steady water supply in their critical early stages. The result was the Water-Storing Seedling Pot, an innovative, biodegradable product that not only conserves water but also eliminates the need for manual retrieval, reducing long-term maintenance costs. This innovation has made afforestation more viable in extreme environments, providing a vital solution for protecting Taiwan’s coastline and restoring forests in arid regions worldwide.

The Water Pot is designed to collect water in a basin and deliver it gradually to the soil through a rope-based drip irrigation system, increasing the survival rate of newly planted trees. Made from recycled pulp and natural biodegradable materials, the pot combines water storage and sapling protection to support young trees through their most critical early growth stages.

(Photo credit: Lasse Kusk）

The Water-Storing Seedling Pot is not just a container; it is a sophisticated tree-planting tool that incorporates advanced water management technology. It features a built-in water reservoir that gradually releases moisture through wicking ropes, ensuring seedlings receive consistent hydration even in drought conditions.

The pot’s distinctive ingot-shaped design symbolizes prosperity and regeneration, while also functioning as an efficient rainwater collection system. By minimizing water evaporation and shielding young trees from strong winds, it creates a more stable growing environment, allowing seedlings to develop stronger root systems and higher survival rates.

Material selection was also a critical aspect of its development. The pot is crafted from recycled paper pulp and naturally biodegradable materials, which provide excellent water retention and structural support. Over time, the pot naturally decomposes into organic fertilizer, enriching the soil and eliminating the plastic pollution typically associated with traditional seedling containers.

(Photo credit: Zen Zhou Social Enterprise)

Since its launch, the Water-Storing Seedling Pot has been widely adopted through collaborations with NGOs and corporations, contributing to afforestation projects across Taiwan, including on the outlying islands of Kinmen and Penghu.

In 2022, Zen Zhou partnered with the Tzu Chi Organic Agriculture Development Foundation, with support from the Taipei Representative Office in Mongolia, to introduce the seedling pot technology to Mongolia’s reforestation initiatives. The results were astounding. While traditional planting methods had survival rates around 30%, trees planted with the Water-Storing Seedling Pot achieved survival rates 70% and above. This dramatic increase in survival rates reduced the need for replanting, allowing resources to be redirected towards expanding afforestation efforts in new areas.

Additionally, the project found that seedlings grown with the Water-Storing Seedling Pot were twice as fast  as those planted without it, demonstrating a significant advantage in growth rates and long-term sustainability.

Reforestation efforts in Mongolia (Photo credit: Zen Zhou Social Enterprise)

During the crQlr 2021 Awards, David Benjamin, Principle of The Living and Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, praised the Water-Storing Seedling Pot for its innovative approach to sustainability:

This project engages a critical ecological problem with an ingenious design solution. It involves an elegant product and system, employs a light touch, and combines form and function in a compelling way. Equally appealing—and more radical—is how the project applies “design with time,” inviting change rather than resisting it, balancing the needs of today, one year from now, and ten years in the future—and thereby expanding the boundaries of what all good design might be.

This endorsement further cemented the long-term value of the Water-Storing Seedling Pot in sustainable agriculture and environmental conservation.

As the product gained global recognition, Zen Zhou prepared to showcase the post at the 2025 crQlr Exhibition at FabCafe Tokyo. The goal is to raise awareness of its ecological impact and foster collaboration with international environmental organizations, research institutions, and policymakers to advance global reforestation efforts.

But this is only the beginning. With continued research and innovation, Zen Zhou remains committed to developing solutions that extended beyond product design to support global environmental governance. As the influence of the Water-Storing Seedling Pot continues to grow, Zen Zhou is getting closer to realizing their vision of a greener, more sustainable world.

(Photo credit: Zen Zhou Social Enterprise )