Seminar on Low Carbon Growth

Green Business Times was invited to the seminar on Low Carbon Growth yesterday. The seminar was organised by the British High Commission to discuss about high growth through low carbon means, with a focus on energy efficiency. The keynote address was presented by Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, which describes Singapore’s challenges, strategies and opportunities for climate change.

At the seminar, there were also the launch of a new website and a new film. Eco-Business.com is a new website by Jessica Cheam, offering news on the environment and climate change issues for Asia Pacific’s business community, and supported by the British High Commission and Singapore Environment Council.

The new film, High Stakes, was based on the Asian Development Bank’s recent report and presents the economics of climate change in Southeast Asia and highlights the actions needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Speakers presented on the following topics:

• High Growth Potential Using Low Carbon Means by Mr Suphachol Suphachalasai, Economist, Asian Development Bank
• Energy Efficiency – Business Opportunities Across Asia Pacific by Mr Frederick Crampe, Managing Director, ReEx Capital Asia
• CARE for Energy Efficiency – a programmatic CDM project by Mr William Pazos, Managing Director of Standard Bank and Mr Kes Shotam, Senior Managing Director, Climate Resources Exchange
• Developing Energy Efficiency in Singapore by Mr Lee Eng Lock, General Manager, Energy Division, Trane Singapore
• Scaling UP Ultra-Efficient Systems and Buildings by Mr Thomas Hartman, Founder, The Hartman Company, USA

Mr Suphachalasai emphasised that Southeast Asia should play an important part in working towards global action on climate change, given the high stakes involved and the vulnerabilities in this region. There is also a need for strengthening policy and planning coordination among the different ministries and levels of government.

Mr Crampe discussed about a report on the business guide to energy efficiency in Asia Pacific. The report studied 12 Asia Pacific countries and ranked them by which country provided the most conducive environments for energy efficiency projects and with the most business opportunities. China ranked first in being the most conducive, followed by India, Philippines and Singapore. He also highlighted the barriers to financing energy efficiency, including: low priority for end-users; small ESCO (energy service companies) industry; and the lack of commercial interest from financial institutions.

Mr Pazos and Mr Shotam shared the new programme of activities (POA) being developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which allows building owners and facility owners to participate together in a single programme of activities to improve the energy efficiency of their chiller plants and produce carbon credits.

Mr Lee is at his usual controversial best (in the good sense) to point out that green buildings are not necessarily energy efficient, and shared some mistakes of buildings in terms of how they locate cooling towers, not having enough measurements and monitoring, oversizing chiller units, using an inefficient technology, etc. He emphasised the need for governments to ask for energy specifications better than the current standards when awarding tenders, and to put in place specific targets and punishments if the targets are not met.

Mr Hartman discussed about the impediments to achieving ultra-efficient buildings, which includes: energy costs are not a major factor in the economics of most buildings; utilities continue to focus on increased energy sales to meet financial goals; and there is little accountability for achieving and maintaining efficient energy performance in buildings. He concluded with suggestions to upscale building efficiency: develop standards for building energy use that can be verified monthly for utility bill info; provide preferential rates to those who meet the standards and provide excess use charges to those whose use is well above the standards; and to create a fund from the excess use charges to assist in improving inefficient buildings.