The UK’s offshore wind workforce is set to more than treble over the next eight years to reach 100,000 employees by the end of the decade, according to industry predictions seen.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants the UK’s offshore wind capacity to jump five-fold by 2030 in a push to wean the UK grid off gas. The target will see dozens of huge new wind farms erected around the British coast over the coming years.
However, there are concerns that recruiting enough skilled workers will be difficult to achieve. Already there are shortages in some key areas such as consenting, data analysis, and electrical connections.
Such a massive expansion in capacity will require a huge increase in the industry’s workforce, with the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) predicting headcounts will grow from 31,000 employees today to more than 97,000 by 2030.
The figures are based on assessments of the current workforce and analysis of projects in planning and under development. Investment in new projects is expected to total £155bn over the next eight years, according to OWIC, delivering 47GW of new offshore wind capacity by 2030.
With the UK economy in turmoil, the predictions will be a major boost for the government’s levelling up agenda – particularly as most jobs are expected to be concentrated in regional manufacturing hotspots such as the Humber Estuary and Teesside.
“This report demonstrates the extraordinary potential of renewable energy to create jobs, drive investment and secure cheaper clean electricity,” said energy minister Greg Hands.
“We have ambitious plans to go even further as the UK becomes a global renewable energy powerhouse”.
The Government wants industry to build dozens of new wind farms around the UK coastline to help wean the British power grid off gas (Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty)
The offshore wind industry insists it is prepared for the recruitment challenge. Siemens-Gamesa, one of the world’s largest turbine manufacturers, is currently doubling the size of its factory in Hull, creating 200 new jobs over the next 12 months.
“There’s a real head of steam and momentum building, and there’s going to be a lot more jobs for the future, that’s for sure,” said Andy Sykes, director of the Siemens-Gamesa Hull plant.
But the growth in jobs depends on a steady supply of new wind farms winning approval and government contracts.
Ministers have promised to speed up the planning process and to hold annual offshore wind auctions to ensure new wind farms are rolled out quickly, however, the 50GW target is still seen by developers as hugely ambitious.
“These [job] numbers will only work if all of those projects go ahead, and go ahead in a timely fashion,” warned Melanie Onn, deputy chief executive of trade body RenewableUK.
Diversity is another major challenge. The offshore wind industry prides itself on being ethical and progressive, but currently, almost 80 percent of the workforce is male and 96 percent is white.
It has a target for women to women to make up at least one-third of the workforce by 2030, and for black, Asian and ethnic minority people to account for at least nine percent of the workforce by the same date.
“Now it’s an absolute concerted effort to try to encourage as many women and people from ethnic minorities… to come into the sector,” Ms Onn told i. “It’s a challenge, there’s no denying it”.
DHL Supply Chain announced the launch of the 20 vehicles, which are Volvo’s FH Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tractor unit models with Globetrotter cabs, on Monday morning (13 June). They will be used to transport M&S products across the retailer’s routes in Peterborough, Swindon and Castle Donington, replacing pure diesel models.
An 80% reduction in tailpipe emissions is expected to be delivered through the introduction of the trucks, which will be powered using bio-based LNG. DHL last year began sourcing bio-LNG from Shell, which produces the fuel from agricultural waste, to power trucks for Danish pump manufacturer Grundfos. edie has requested information on the source of the bio-LNG for M&S.
Should non-renewable LNG need to be used to power the trucks at any point, they will still generate 10-20% less tailpipe emissions than their diesel predecessor, DHL said in a statement.
DHL is notably aiming to operate more than 500 LNG-powered heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in Europe by 2025, as it works towards net-zero by 2050. The company promised to set verified 2030 emissions reduction targets through the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) last year to support this long-term vision, and pledged €7bn to deliver decarbonisation. It is yet to gain SBTi approval for these targets.
Other low-carbon transport commitments already unveiled by DHL include operating more than 80,000 electric and hybrid vehicles globally by 2030. The firm confirmed in March that it will add at least 270 new electric vans to its UK fleet by September, following the launch of 100 in 2021.
As for M&S, the retailer updated its flagship ‘Plan A’ sustainability strategy last September, with major commitments to net-zero operations by 2035 and a net-zero supply chain by 2040 among the new additions. Plan A’s webpage lists ‘zero-emissions transport’ as a priority through to 2025 – but M&S is yet to set new targets for sourcing a certain number of certain vehicles within set timeframes.
M&S’s head of transport Tim Greenwood said: “We are committed to reducing our environmental impact in line with our Plan A sustainability action plan. It’s important to us that our partners’ values and ambitions align with ours and that’s one of the reasons we have a long-standing relationship with DHL. Replacing diesel trucks for brand new bio-LNG vehicles is a good step forward in reducing our carbon emissions.”
Biogas backers
Other businesses investing in biogas trucks to reduce transport emissions include brewer Anheuser-Busch, Evri (formerly Hermes) Royal Mail and M&S competitor John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose & Partners.
To date, it has been easier for many businesses to replace diesel HGVs with those powered by alternative fuels such as bio-LNG than with electric alternatives. The larger and heavier a vehicle is, the more challenging it is to electrify while retaining the same performance.
However, a new generation of electric HGVs is beginning to emerge. Sainsbury’s trialled fully electric refrigerated trailer lorries last year, integrated them into its fleet this year, and is now developing smart charging solutions for them.
Aldi UK is also trialling similar vehicles, assessing their performance in comparison to those powered with alternative fuels – as are Amazon and Carlsberg Group.
Operated by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the licensing round is inviting bids for projects in 13 areas within the North Sea and will be open rob ifs until 13 September. Plots of land are being offered off the coast in Aberdeen, Teesside, Liverpool and Lincolnshire.
The chosen 13 areas are “a mixture of saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas field storage opportunities”, the NSTA said in a statement, adding that it has “fully considered issues including co-location with offshore wind… environmental issues and potential overlaps with existing or future [oil and gas] licences”.
It is expected that the new licences will be awarded in early 2023. Applicants will also need to secure a lease from The Crown Estate or Crown Estate Scotland, as they would if they were applying to host offshore wind. The timelines for commencing the injection of carbon dioxide will depend on the project sizes and the approaches of the bidding companies, but the NSTA expects some projects to come online within six years of being granted a license and lease.
To date, the UK Government has only issued six licences to carbon storage projects in the North Sea. It first began issuing licenses in 2010, under the Energy Act of 2008.
The launch of the new licencing round, which is set to be the first of many through to 2030 and beyond, has been taken “in response to unprecedented levels of interest from companies eager to enter the market”, the NSTA has stated. These companies include existing oil and gas firms and new firms created to develop CCS technologies, often working in partnership.
NSTA boss Andy Samuel said: “This is an important day on the path to net-zero emissions. In addition to the huge environmental benefits of significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, the facilities will provide opportunities for many thousands of highly-skilled jobs.
“Carbon storage is going to be needed across the world. There is growing investor appetite and we are keen to accelerate the development of the carbon storage sector so that the UK is well-positioned to be a global leader.”
The NSTA was known as the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) prior to this March. Oil and gas activities are still its primary remit.
Policy vision, market stimulation
The UK’s decision to legislate for net-zero by 2050, made under Theresa May’s Government in 2019, provided the foundation for a new groundswell of interest in carbon capture and storage (CCS). Efforts to scale the sector had been made in the 2010s, but the Government’s decision to axe a £1bn fund to commercialise CCS technologies in 2015 was a major spanner in the works.
On the policy piece, the UK Government’s Ten-Point Plan, published in November 2020, envisions the creation of four industrial clusters utilizing CCS – the first of which should come online fully this decade. Policymakers have emphasised the importance of public-private collaboration in commercialising CCS technologies and scaling them up rapidly. The Ten-Point Plan’s specific target is for the UK to capture at least 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030, but some believe that a capacity of just 10 million tonnes will be likely within this timeframe.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Association has pointed out that the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has recommended that the UK aims to bring 22-30 million tonnes of annual CCS capacity online by 2030. Achieving this aim will require at least £1.2bn of funding by the Association’s estimates.
CCS has been described by the CCC as a “non-optional” component of the UK’s net-zero transition.
However, significant concerns remain around whether it will truly be used to address emissions from hard-to-abate sectors. MPs and researchers have questioned whether sectors that are easier to abate could simply purchase up credits, leaving none for heavy emitting sectors like steel. There are also concerns that the use of CCS could be used as an excuse to de-prioritise emissions reductions, which could be risky in terms of climate impact, as CCS technologies are in their relative infancy at a commercial scale.
European lawmakers have voted to ban the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars and vans in the E.U. from 2035, representing a significant shot in the arm to the region’s ambitious green goals.
On Wednesday, 339 MEPs in the European Parliament voted in favor of the plans, which had been proposed by the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch. There were 249 votes against the proposal, while 24 MEPs abstained.
It takes the European Union a step closer to its goal of cutting emissions from new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles by 100 percent in 2035, compared to 2021. By 2030, the target is an emissions reduction of 50 percent for vans and 55 percent for cars.
The Commission has previously said passenger cars and vans account for roughly 12 percent and 2.5 percent of the E.U.’s total CO2 emissions. MEPs will now undertake negotiations about the plans with the bloc’s 27 member states.
The U.K., meanwhile, wants to stop the sale of new diesel and gasoline cars and vans by 2030. It will require, from 2035, all new cars and vans to have zero tailpipe emissions. The U.K. left the E.U. on Jan. 31, 2020.
Dutch MEP Jan Huitema, who is part of the Renew Europe Group, welcomed the result of Wednesday’s vote. “I am thrilled that the European Parliament has backed an ambitious revision of the targets for 2030 and supported a 100 percent target for 2035, which is crucial to reach climate neutrality by 2050,” he said.
Others commenting on the news included Alex Keynes, clean vehicles manager at Brussels-based campaign group Transport & Environment. “The deadline means the last fossil fuel cars will be sold by 2035, giving us a fighting chance of averting runaway climate change,” Keynes said.
Earlier this week, Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced that it would launch the sale of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) credits in July 2022. The move is part of a pilot initiative of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and global investment company Temasek to advance the use of SAF in Singapore.
he credits will be available for purchase to corporate customers and individual passengers as well as air freight forwarders. On offer will be a total of 1,000 SAF credits, corresponding to 1,000 tonnes of neat sustainable fuel uplifted from Singapore Changi Airport, to be blended with conventional jet fuel.
Every credit purchased is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 2.5 tonnes, for a total of 2,500. Now, this might be a mere fraction of the emissions that the regular fuel still needed – both for regulatory reasons and a lack of supply – is responsible for. However, aviation isn’t going anywhere, neither is climate change, and the transition toward sustainable fuels has to start somewhere. Ms Lee Wen Fen, Senior Vice President Corporate Planning, Singapore Airlines, said,
“As we progress with the SAF pilot in Singapore, we can now offer more opportunities for our corporate customers and travellers to mitigate their carbon emissions using SAF credits, which are registered and accounted for within the RSB Book & Claim System. This will help to accelerate and scale up the collective adoption of SAF, reinforcing our commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
Singapore is hoping to become a regional SAF hub. Photo: Singapore Airlines
By purchasing SAF credits, customers will help stimulate the demand for SAF, which in turn will increase supply. As it becomes more available, even though they are by no means a perfect solution, sustainable fuels will begin to make more of a dent in aviation’s carbon footprint.
Sustainable Air Hub Blueprint in the works
Singapore has its sights set on becoming a South East Asia SAF hub. As part of its Green Plan 2030, Changi has ambitions to become one of the early movers in the region, thus far lagging behind the US and Europe when it comes to production and uptake. Mr Han Kok Juan, Director-General, CAAS, stated,
“The creation of a trusted and vibrant marketplace for the sale and purchase of SAF credits in Singapore will help support the adoption of SAF which is essential for the decarbonisation of the aviation sector and a key element of the Singapore Sustainable Air Hub Blueprint which CAAS is developing.”
Singapore Changi Airport has developed a ‘green plan’ for the remainder of the decade. Photo: Getty Images
Combining offsets and SAF
From Q4, all of SIA’s customers will be able to purchase a mix of SAF credits and carbon offsets as part of the SIA Group Voluntary Carbon Offset Programme, through a partnership with Climate Impact X, a global marketplace and exchange for high-quality carbon credits. Mr Mikkel Larsen, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Impact X, commented,
“SAF credits can help to spur adoption by enabling competitive price discovery, and channelling finance towards projects that can drive the use of sustainable fuels at the scale necessary to support decarbonisation in the aviation sector. Through CIX’s ongoing efforts to curate verified projects for our platforms, we aim to increase access to quality carbon credits worldwide and drive environmental impact at scale.”
Though ridding the atmosphere of carbon dioxide is one of the main battles in the fight against climate change, one Italian start-up has found a way to turn CO₂ into a weapon against global warming.
On Wednesday, Energy Dome launched its first CO₂ battery facility in Sardinia and entered the commercial scaling phase.
The company has been developing an emission-free storage method that stores power generated from the sun and wind. CO₂ plays a useful role in the process as it has properties that can help to store electricity from renewable energy sources when it is converted from gas to liquid.
The storage technology could prove to be a game changer in the way solar and wind power are used, as they are variable energies that are only generated when there is sunshine or wind.
“The issue with renewable energy is that those sources of energy are very clean, but they are also intermittent and cannot be dispatched,” Energy Dome founder and CEO Claudio Spadacini told Euronews Next.
“The missing technology to make renewable energy dispatchable 24/7 is a technology which is able to store solar when the sun shines and when the wind blows and can deliver (energy) back to the grid when the sun doesn’t shine”.
How does it work?
This method, which has never been used before, stores energy using pressure and heat.
The process begins by storing CO₂ gas, secured from commercial vendors, in a big sealed dome. When energy is fed into the system, it pushes the gas through a compressor to condense it into liquid, while the heat from this compression is captured and stored to be used again later.
When it is time to discharge the energy, the heat that was stored is used to evaporate the liquid CO₂ again, and its expansion – as it turns into gas and returns to the dome – drives a turbine that generates energy.
Though it sounds complicated, the method only requires steel, CO₂ and water, and the closed-loop system generates no emissions.
“Ironically, we use CO₂ to make our system work. It is just the fuel which we use to make our technology work,” Spadacini said, adding that it’s only needed to kick-start the system, which is designed to last around 30 years.
“Our system is fully closed, we have no emissions in the atmosphere. It’s just a black box which is able to charge with the surplus electricity when there is an abundance [of it]”.
To generate and dispatch electricity in times of demand, the same liquid CO₂ is heated up and converted back into a gas that powers a turbine, which generates power in a closed thermodynamic system.
“The CO₂ battery is fully sustainable and fully recyclable,” Spadacini said.
“We just use steel to produce the CO₂ battery and we use water only once to fill our water tank. We do not use water during the operation of the CO₂ battery and we just use a small amount of CO₂ to charge the battery at the beginning without any consumption of CO₂ during the operation”.
No rare minerals required
The other advantage of this technology is that it does not rely on lithium-ion batteries, which are often used for energy storage. The process also does not use any rare earth minerals such as cobalt.
“To be independent of minerals and rare material is a big advantage also from the point of view of energy security, but also in terms of geopolitical stability,” said Spadacini.
“Ironically, we use CO₂ to make our system work,” said Energy Dome’s CEO.Mignogna Andrea/Mignogna Andrea, Energy Dome
The founder said Energy Dome’s first full-scale storage plants should cost just under $200 (€180) per kilowatt-hour, which is also about half the price of a lithium-ion energy storage system.
The island of Sardinia is the perfect home for the 20MW-200MWh plant with an abundance of sunshine and wind. The facility also juxtaposes two coal-fired power plants on the island, which are being phased out.
“The demonstration of solar power storage in a sustainable way in that place can [allow] Sardinia to be the first fully green island in Europe,” said Spadacini.
The company is now getting ready to deploy its first full-scale plant by the end of next year.
A social forestry project has won the 2022 edition of the Liveability Challenge, a yearly search for ways to tackle the most difficult sustainability challenges faced in Southeast Asia.
Fairventures Social Forestry, a team from Germany, emerged ahead of five other finalists to clinch the grand prize of S$1 million (US$728,000) in funding from Temasek Foundation, the sponsor of the Liveability Challenge and philanthropic arm of Temasek, Singapore’s state-investment company.
This marks the first time in the Challenge’s history that a nature-based solution has won top prize.
This year’s Challenge was themed around decarbonisation, agritechnology as well as nature-based solutions to climate change.
The Fairventures project aims to sustainably manage forests and improve livelihoods in Jambi, Indonesia, using a scalable social forestry model that incorporates blended finance.
Steve Melhuish, impact investor at Planet Rise and one of The Liveability Challenge judges, said: “What we really liked about Fairventures was that it is a true nature-based solution with a proven track record that has helped communities and has had a real carbon impact.”
Melhuish also commended Fairventures for its sustainable business model; it has secured offtakers for its products which include crops, timber and carbon credits.
Lim Hock Chuan, head of programmes, Temasek Foundation, also one of the judges, said: “This is one of the few nature-based solutions ventures that was genuinely end-to-end, with blended finance to make the project sustainable and viable. It also addressed a very big problem: what to do with vast expanses of degraded land in Indonesia.”
Tisha Ramadhini (centre) and Paul Schuelle (right) from social forestry venture Fairventures, winner of the 2022 edition of The Liveability Challenge, receiving the prize from judge Lim Hock Chuan, head of programmes, Temasek Foundation. This marks the first time in the Challenge’s history that a nature-based solution has won top prize. Image: Eco-Business
The winner was chosen from a field of finalists that included an initiative to curb the energy consumption of data centre through artificial intelligence and digital twin technology by a team from Singapore called Red Dot Analytics, and a large-scale carbon sequestration project by British team CQUESTR8.
Also among the finalists were GAIT, a team from Singapore and New Zealand that measures carbon, and Wasna, a team from Belgium and Singapore that makes low-cost cultivated meat using a universal serum.
The sixth finalist was ImpacFat, a Japan-Singapore team that produces alternative meat products using cell-based fish fat.
Additional prizes of S$50,000 from Quest Ventures went to Fairventures and ImpacFat, S$100,000 from Purpose Venture Capital was awarded to Red Dot Analytics, and S$100,000 from Amasia went to GAIT.
A further S$100,000 from PlanetRise was awarded to Fairventures. Wasna was also given S$100,000 by Silverstrand Capital.
According to an audience poll, Red Dot Analytics was the most popular candidate, followed by GAIT and Wasna.
Last year’s Liveability Challenge winner was SeaChange, a US-based company which produced construction materials like concrete and cement from CO2 dissolved in seawater.
Other past winners include TurtleTreeLabs, a Singapore-based company developing lab-grown milk, and Sophie’s Kitchen, a US-based firm developing sustainable, microalgae-based proteins.
Singapore on Thursday (Jun 9) published the governance framework for sovereign green bonds, ahead of the first such issuance expected in the next few months.
This comes as Singapore moves to develop the green finance market and make green finance a driving force for sustainability.
The Singapore Green Bond Framework sets out guidelines for public sector green bond issuances under the Significant Infrastructure Government Loan Act 2021 (SINGA), said the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in a media release.
It covers the Government’s intended use of green bond proceeds, governance structure to evaluate and select eligible projects, operational approach to manage green bond proceeds, and commitment to post-issuance allocation and impact reporting.
In addition to providing the foundation for green bonds issued by the Government, the framework will also serve as a reference for statutory boards that issue their own green bonds.
The key principles considered in the development of the framework were alignment with internationally recognised market principles and standards; stringent governance and oversight of project selection and allocation of proceeds; and technical screening to evaluate and identify green projects, MOF and MAS said.
Eligible expenditures
At Budget 2022, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong announced that the Government would issue S$35 billion of green bonds by 2030 to fund public sector green infrastructure projects.
Proceeds from these bonds, which will be issued under the new framework, will be used to finance costs associated with the Singapore Green Plan 2030, MOF and MAS said.
In turn, the eligible green projects are expected to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy in Singapore and contribute to the climate-related and environmental goals set out by the Singapore Government.
The categories of “eligible green expenditures” are:
Renewable energy
Energy efficiency
Green building
Clean transportation
Sustainable water and wastewater management
Pollution prevention, control and circular economy
Climate change adaptation
Biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources and land use
The workplace as we know it has evolved dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic, expanding into our homes and complex digital-physical spaces. As organisations and their employees continue to navigate hybrid working arrangements this year, how can technology help to shape green and conducive workplaces of the future?
Many new innovations are aimed at helping workplaces save energy. While energy efficiency may not be the snazziest of climate solutions, it remains a potent and cost-effective way to slash emissions without major reworks of existing infrastructure. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has projected that low-cost measures, such as better ventilation and LED lighting, if implemented globally, could slash 3.5 gigatonnes worth of carbon emissions a year.
The savings would amount to 40 per cent of the emissions that need to be abated to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. With the increased focus on climate mitigation, energy efficiency solutions for the built sector is now a US$340 billion market globally that is set to grow by over 8 per cent through 2027.
In addition, in Singapore, energy efficiency incentives like the Green Mark Incentive Scheme are encouraging companies to pursue smart, sustainable and predictive solutions in the workplace. Companies are paying closer attention to their carbon footprint to support sustainability goals, and this requires more tools to monitor and optimise utilities consumption.
These tools usually come in the form of building intelligence systems, such as SP Digital’s GET Control. The system uses AI and IoT to optimise and regulate air-conditioning and maximise energy efficiency in real-time, based on changes in occupancy, current weather conditions and forecast data. The smart damper system, for example, divides large open-plan office spaces into micro-zones to enable better air-flow distribution and control. With predictive intelligence working together with all the sensors and smart dampers, data is sent wirelessly to a central control unit that recommends and adjusts the dampers dynamically such that the desired temperatures are met, making the office energy efficient and comfortable.
GET Control’s Dynamic Airflow Balancing in real-time is suitable for brownfield and greenfield projects. Image: SP Digital
These heat maps show how air temperature is regulated by GET Control. Left: Before implementation, there are hot and cold spots in the office. Right: After implentation, the office is evenly cooled. Image: SP Digital
Clement Cheong, SP Digital’s vice president of sales and customer operations, says that GET Control responds to the needs of corporate real estate owners and commercial landlords in Singapore.
“Landlords are seeing more occupants coming into work and at different times,” he says. “They need to adapt their buildings and systems to cope with this change dynamically. For example, they do not need as much cooling or fresh air supply at non-peak or low occupancy periods.”
Moreover, he adds that the pandemic has also made employees even more conscious of indoor environmental quality. “They want to have visibility into IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) and the building’s measures to monitor and improve IAQ. Even though occupants may spend less time in the office, they want a better, healthier indoor experience.”
He explains that currently, building owners or tenants have limited visibility into indoor air quality in offices and limited ability to intelligently control it. Traditional air side control and management technologies tend to be “reactive”, that is, facility managers make adjustments when occupants complain of any indoor thermal discomfort. Because such technologies do not take into account dynamic changes in ambient temperatures, they are not as energy efficient as a system with real-time tracking capabilities like GET Control.
He shares a case study from an educational institution in Singapore, where facility managers were faced with frequent occupant complaints about hot and cold spots in the office. Besides the fact that facility managers had to make time-consuming manual adjustments, the building’s cooling efficiency was poor, resulting in high energy use and carbon emissions. When SP Digital’s GET Control was deployed, the site saw more than 30 per cent airside cooling energy savings, enhanced thermal comfort and indoor air quality for employees, and improved operations and productivity.
On a larger scale, some multinational corporations are leading the way in greening their offices, and their examples might provide insights into the future of the sustainable workplace. One of them is Meta, which operates the social media platform Facebook and aims to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in carbon by 2030. At its 260,000 square-feet office in Singapore, spread over four floors at Marina One Tower, this target has translated into environmental control systems that use the latest in automated sensor technology, which can optimise even the smallest indicators of energy efficiency. Numerous sensors are in place to measure temperature, air, light and motion open spaces, meeting rooms and lifts.
Apart from office management, Meta Singapore also uses technology to assist employees to adopt carbon reducing behaviours, and, while in the workplace, to holistically analyse their carbon footprint across the product supply chain, recycling, water and waste management.
Looking ahead globally, the journey to make buildings more sustainable will be a long one. Currently, the built environment is responsible for nearly 40 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world. According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the 2020 pandemic caused a drop in the buildings sector carbon emissions, followed by a moderate rebound in 2021, but buildings are not on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
In Singapore, energy efficiency remains a core tenet of the city-state’s decarbonisation pathway, even as longer-term solutions such as carbon capture and clean energy imports are being considered for the next few decades. Power generation firms are provided subsidies to upgrade their turbines and software; a similar fund is in place for building owners to buy more efficient air-conditioning systems and install motion sensors that automatically switch off appliances when not needed. Buildings contribute close to 15 per cent of Singapore’s national emissions — the high fraction resulting from the almost complete urbanisation of the island-state.
As part of its efforts to reach net-zero emissions around 2050, the government wants 80 per cent of buildings in Singapore – both old and new – to adopt energy efficiency measures by 2030, up from 50 per cent today.
There is growing awareness among businesses that greening their offices makes economic and environmental sense. The Singapore Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Incentive for Existing Buildings – a $100 million fund started to co-sponsor the adoption of energy-efficient technologies in existing buildings – has been fully committed, as has a separate $50 million fund which does the same for small and medium enterprises.
This suggests that more landlords in Singapore understand that the initial outlays of such green investments may be high, but returns in the long run justify the cost, given the changes in expectations of workplace experience, energy efficiency and sustainability in post-pandemic times.
A new study has put Auckland at the top of the world for the speed at which it’s going green.
The Bionic rankings look at 40 of the world’s most populated cities across the world, scoring them on 13 different metrics, such as pollution levels, electric vehicle uptake, annual plastic waste, renewable energy usage and meat consumption.
Tāmaki Makaurau scored 78.1 out of 100 in the index, ahead of Stockholm and Lyon in second and third place. Copenhagen and Dublin rounded out the top five.
But for a so-called green city, Auckland’s plastic waste was nearly through the roof at 177,314 tonnes per year, especially when compared to the Swedish capital’s waste of just 26,996 tonnes. Out of the top 10 cities, only Cologne and Dublin had more annual plastic waste than Auckland.
The study used data from OurWorldInData to look at the percentage of the cities that were covered in forest, how much that had changed since 1990 and the amount of the world’s mismanaged plastic waste each city is accountable for.
It also looked at job website Indeed, to find out which cities had the most sustainable jobs advertised – according to the study, Auckland had 21 jobs in the sustainability industry per 100 people.
LORNA THORNBER/STUFF
In the rankings, Auckland was revealed as having the lowest air pollution score of all the top 10 cities analysed, with an air quality score of just 9 (0-50 is considered good, 150+ not good), compared to second-placed Stockholm’s whopping 132. Lyon’s air quality level was rated at 43.
The study showed Auckland had lowered its carbon footprint to 5.9 metric tonnes, and had a 6% increase in forest-covered areas in the city since 1990.
Auckland’s average meat consumption was 34,435 tonnes, compared to around 40,000 tonnes for Stockholm and Lyon, but Auckland had higher poultry consumption. Average milk consumption was 226,784 tonnes, compared to Stockholm’s 572,942 tonnes.
The world city with the lowest air pollution was Sydney, with a level of 3, although the city ranked overall at 24, due to its low percentage of renewable energy, land covered by forest, and sustainable jobs advertised.
Of all the capital cities studied, Sao Paulo in Brazil came out top of the world for the highest percentage of renewable energy, with 45% coming from sustainable sources.
The city is still covered by 59% of forest, but due to climate change, that figure has been decreasing rapidly, with 16% of forest lost since 1990.
Auckland’s not the only New Zealand city to be noticed for going green. Lonely Planet named Wellington as one of the top eco-cities in the world in its new Sustainable Travel Handbook.
“With the lowest emissions per capita of any Australasian city, Wellington is at the forefront of the movement. Packed with world-class cultural institutions, eco-conscious cafes (many of which operate ‘mug libraries’), the compact capital is best explored on foot,” the writers said.
Lonely Planet also named Auckland the best city in the world to travel to in 2022, praising the city’s “considerable natural assets” – including its 53 volcanoes, more than 50 islands, three wine regions and numerous beaches – and “blossoming” cultural scene in the months before the Delta outbreak.
