Pema Yangzom (Entrepreneur)

Pema Yangzom is a Bhutanese entrepreneur who identified a gap in her country's environmental infrastructure and built a business to fill it. As founder of Bhutan Alternatives, she created the first dedicated electronic waste (e-waste) recycling and management company in Bhutan — a country that has staked its identity on its carbon-negative status and its constitutional commitment to environmental conservation. Her work addresses a challenge that has grown steadily as Bhutan has modernised and as smartphone and computer penetration has increased: the responsible disposal of discarded electronic devices.

Background

The entrepreneurial challenge Yangzom took on is distinctly modern. Bhutan's carbon-negative status and its constitutional requirement to maintain 60 per cent forest cover are well-known internationally, but the country's rapid integration into the digital economy has generated a growing stream of electronic waste — computers, mobile phones, televisions, and related equipment — for which there was, until recently, no systematic management infrastructure. Discarded electronics can leach toxic materials into soil and water if improperly disposed of, a direct threat to the environmental quality that Bhutan's conservation framework is designed to protect.

Bhutan's accelerating digital transformation — driven by government digitalisation initiatives, rapidly rising smartphone ownership, and the growth of internet access — has compounded the e-waste challenge. Each upgrade cycle produces a new cohort of obsolete devices, and without specialist collection and processing facilities the default outcome is informal disposal.

Bhutan Alternatives

Yangzom founded Bhutan Alternatives to provide a formal, responsible alternative to informal e-waste disposal. The company collects electronic waste from businesses, government offices, and households; processes and sorts devices; and manages the responsible disposal or recovery of materials including metals and components that can be extracted and recycled rather than landfilled.

The venture is aligned with Bhutan's Gross National Happiness philosophy, which regards environmental conservation as one of the four foundational pillars of the country's development model. By treating e-waste management as a business opportunity rather than purely a regulatory compliance matter, Yangzom has demonstrated that sustainability and entrepreneurship can be complementary — a model with broader relevance for Bhutan's developing private sector.

Bhutan Alternatives represents Bhutan's emerging circular economy thinking, which seeks to recover value from waste streams rather than simply disposing of them. The broader policy environment, including the government's National Environment Commission and waste management regulations, provides a framework within which the company operates, though the formal regulatory infrastructure for e-waste specifically has been in development.

Significance

Pema Yangzom is part of a generation of Bhutanese women entrepreneurs who are building businesses in sectors that were previously unaddressed by either government or the private sector. Her work in e-waste management parallels the broader efforts of entrepreneurs like Damchae Dem in industrial manufacturing and Sonam Pelden in technology — each representing a different dimension of Bhutan's economic diversification.

The growing volume of e-waste globally, and Bhutan's particular vulnerability as a country that imports essentially all of its electronic devices, means that the service she founded will only become more relevant as the years pass. In this sense, Bhutan Alternatives is an early example of the kind of green economy enterprise that Bhutan's development trajectory will increasingly require.

References

1. "10 Influential Women Entrepreneurs in Bhutan You Should Know." Darling Keyz Blog, October 2024.
2. "BAOWE — A Woman Entrepreneur Network in Bhutan." WIPO IP Advantage.
3. "Circular Economy: Turning Waste into Wealth in Bhutan." Bhutan Ecological Society, 2025.