Environmental Consultancy

Globally, the Green agenda has gained considerable ground as the general consensus is that it is a necessary survival tactic that needs to take place in a widespread and tightly coordinated manner to tip the balance back in the Earth’s favour.

For Iskandar Malaysia, creating a research-based, fully implementable green blueprint became a top priority. To this end, IRDA teamed up with leading researchers from Kyoto University, the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Okayama University and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) to develop the Low Carbon Society Blueprint, which was launched at the prestigious 18th Conference of Parties (COP18) meeting in Doha in November 2012 before an international audience.

This Blueprint illustrates strategies to slash Iskandar Malaysia’s carbon intensity emissions by half by 2025 to create a greener, more sustainable yet economically dynamic environment, and was established on Iskandar Malaysia’s three pillars of the Economy, Community and Environment. The Blueprint is premised on the active participation and consensus-building with major stakeholders in Iskandar Malaysia, including the public and private sectors, NGOs and the community.

There are Five Actions advocated by the Blueprint to fulfill a green economy vision, i.e.:

1. Integrated Green Transportation

2. Green Industry

3. Low Carbon Urban Governance

4. Green Building and Construction

5. Green Energy Systems and Renewable Energy

Chief of these actions is to have an integrated public transportation system in Iskandar Malaysia, with the objective of increasing the public transport modal share in Iskandar Malaysia from the current 18% to 40% in 2025.

To facilitate the creation of a green industry, IRDA is measures to encourage the creation of low carbon goods and services as well as ‘carbon-literate’ workers at all levels are being instituted. This involves replacing or upgrading existing equipment with better-performing low carbon-endorsed equipment. Under the Green Building and Constructions category, building industry stakeholders are encouraged to create a low carbon society through incentives and education. More than one-third of all new and existing buildings are to be green, sustainable and energy-efficient with 50% of the

materials and equipment utilised to promote energy efficiency.