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Tag: Asia Pacific

Keeping digitalisation green: APAC governments hold key to unlocking renewables’ vast potential

Posted on by dishanth
Keeping digitalisation green: APAC governments hold key to unlocking renewables’ vast potential

As the world confronts the growing urgency of the climate crisis, hyperscale computing companies are stepping up their sustainability efforts. In recent years, cloud titans have emerged as the largest buyers of renewable energy, with the clean energy portfolios of Big Tech sometimes rivalling those of the world’s biggest utilities.

According to latest data from Bloomberg NEF, Amazon has been the largest corporate clean energy purchaser in the world for the second year straight. Globally, a total of 6.2 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy was purchased in 2021 through 44 offsite power purchase agreements (PPAs) in nine countries by the tech giant. The company now has 310 renewable energy projects around the globe, with capacity to generate over 15.7 gigawatts of energy, making it one of the world’s clean energy leaders.

However, despite the growing ambition and appetite of these companies, their 100-per-cent-renewable energy goals remain out of reach in some parts of Asia, primarily due to a lack of affordable clean power options.

Ken Haig, who leads Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s energy and environment policy engagement efforts, says governments in the region can encourage corporate renewable investments by setting up regulatory frameworks that incentivise the adoption of affordable and renewable energy. “Leading renewable energy purchasers and cloud service providers can drive the demand for clean energy and help the sector to grow, bringing with it associated capital, green jobs and the proliferation of green technologies and approaches across Asia Pacific,” he said.

Haig, who also chairs the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA)’s Sustainability Working Group, was speaking at AWS’s annual Asia Pacific Sustainability Summit held on 29 June. Experts on the same panel also said that overcoming the lack of financing, accurate information and confidence will give the region the breakthrough it needs.

 

Enabling renewable energy projects in Asia Pacific

Earlier this month, Singapore announced it would be importing up to 100 megawatts (MW) of hydropower from Laos via Thailand and Malaysia in the first multilateral cross-border electricity trade involving four ASEAN countries. With increasing regional collaboration, foreign imports of renewable energy for renewables-scarce Singapore, will become increasingly possible. This will not only boost investor confidence in such projects, but also make the sustainable construction and operation of digital infrastructure more achievable.

Heng Jian Wei, director (policy) at the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) in the Prime Minister’s Office – Strategy Group (Singapore), said: “Such projects can help spur the growth of renewable energy resources, which can be used to power the grid in the host countries as well. They are powerful as they create a win-win outcome.”

He further explained that renewable energy projects can make better financial sense if sufficient offtakers are secured, and by reducing upfront costs and enabling downstream recovery.

Haig added that Amazon’s renewable energy strategy focuses on additionality. “We identify projects to invest in as offtakers enabling additional renewable energy to help green the grids where we operate. This is what we have done in APAC as well with three projects in Australia, two in China, and one each in Singapore and Japan,” he said.

AWS is currently on track to meet its pledge of using 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025, five years earlier than expected.

Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) senior energy specialist Stephen Peters cited the international help given to construct Cambodia’s 100MW National Solar Park Project, as a further example of how governments can make renewable energy projects more economically viable and less financially daunting.

In addition to ADB’s US$7.64 million loan, the project was also given a US$11 million concessional loan and a US$3 million grant from the Climate Investment Fund’s Scaling Up Renewable Energy Programme (SREP). With funding from 14 donor countries, SREP aims to help resource-strapped nations fight the impacts of climate change and accelerate their shift to a low-carbon economy.

The project, the first of its kind in Cambodia, adopts reverse auctioning as a strategy for the government to procure renewable energy generation capacity. The competition drives down the power purchase tariff for solar. “The model was very successful because it allows risks to be shared between the public and private sectors based on who can best handle the risk. This avoids premiums due to misallocated risk and produces low energy prices,” said Peters.

 

Pursuing ‘green growth’ for Asia’s data centres

Data centre operators are now facing pressure to meet stricter sustainability goals. In Singapore, a moratorium on data centres, once imposed due to sustainability concerns such as the heavy electricity and water usage of the facilities, was lifted in January this year, but with regulations to ensure that their power usage effectiveness (PUE) is kept at 1.3 or below. Moreover, applications to operate new centres must include innovation and sustainability solutions, and applicants should ideally have a proven track record in building and operating data centres.

At the summit, strategic economic consultancy AlphaBeta launched a paper detailing how Singapore could achieve a “green growth” scenario, where there is ample, sustainable digital infrastructure, by providing assistance to data centres sourcing for renewable energy.

 

AlphaBeta detailed four possible scenarios for Singapore’s data centre industry. Image: AlphaBeta

 

In their report, AlphaBeta developed a best case, “green growth” scenario, where if the Singapore government assists in the construction of new data centres and helps source renewable energy, digital infrastructure can not only cope with the increasing demands, but provide energy efficient services which allow the nation to reach its climate goals.

Quint Simon, who heads public policy at AWS, emphasised that countries in the region should not need to choose between digitalisation and decarbonisation, as tackling them both provides nations with viable ways of reaching their climate goals.

“Contrary to some beliefs, the twin transitions of digitalisation and decarbonisation are not mutually exclusive, but in fact, mutually beneficial. Governments across APAC can turn these parallel challenges into mutual opportunities by harnessing the demand for digitalisation to meet pressing climate commitments,” said Simon.

She urged companies to consider switching from on-site data centres to cloud computing, which can reduce energy consumption by up to 80 per cent and make net-zero ambitions more achievable.

 

The value of business investments and sustainability is becoming increasingly clear. Studies find that companies moving or building sustainability strategies into their digital transformation plans are two and a half times more likely to outperform their peers. And that’s not idealism. That’s good business sense. –  Ken Haig, chair, ACCA Sustainability Working Group

 

Better data and disclosures

Experts at the AWS Sustainability Summit said that enhanced data disclosures are key to redirecting capital towards low-emissions investments.

Dr Amelia Sharman, New Zealand’s External Reporting Board’s director for climate standards, said that decision makers might still be using old frameworks. For example, some are preparing for scenarios where floods occur every once in 100 to 200 years, when in facts these extreme weather events are affecting nations every 10-20 years. She explained that these mechanisms are new and a lot of upskilling within the business, in the industry and with the investor community is necessary to support quality low-emission investments.

“We encourage entities to prioritise their investor and what is important to their investor’s decision making, when preparing climate-related disclosures,” said Sharman. “Quantitative data are an important element of the disclosures but entities are also encouraged to think qualitatively when exploring their climate-related risks and opportunities using strategic foresight tools such as scenario analysis.”

From 1 January 2023, climate-related disclosures aligned with the recommendations provided by the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will be mandatory for all equity and debt issuers listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) and selected financial service organisations.

Despite the different developmental stages APAC countries are on in their decarbonisation journey, the panellists discussed the need for standardisation. Heng emphasised that it is important to try and put a price on an externality like carbon because we do pay a price for climate change impacts.

“A single carbon price for the Asia Pacific region or the world probably won’t happen anytime soon. However, an agreement on a single carbon price would be pragmatic, as it would enable greater near-term carbon emissions reductions by building confidence that all participating countries are undertaking comparable mitigation efforts.

Peters adds that “we should seek new and innovative ways to achieve a low carbon transition and regenerate our natural environment. One of the ways we can do this is by using natural capital to support blue and green bonds. Using digital solutions can accelerate this tremendously.”

 

Meeting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with technology

During the summit, the ACCA also released a concept note outlining how cloud computing and digital technologies can help countries reach their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the International Energy Agency, cloud-enabled technologies—such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing—will be critical to accelerating systemic sustainability transformation at scale.

For example, the Indonesian company Halodoc used behavioural insights from patient data stored on the cloud to connect millions of patients to 22,000 doctors and 1,000 partner pharmacies across the nation, thereby making healthcare simpler and more accessible. With wider adoption of such use cases, APAC countries can help promote their citizens’ good health and wellbeing, said the report.

Peter’s added, “Greater access to information and intelligence can support reaching the goals of the SDGs. The Asian Development Bank is exploring artificial intelligence tools to help governments analyse enormous amounts of data—for things like protected areas, wind speed, and solar radiance—to better determine, plan, and build their energy infrastructure.”

Another example is the use of cloud technology for agriculture in Asia. Farmers in Thailand and Pakistan reported a 50 per cent increase in yield and nearly 40 per cent corresponding increase in profitability after adopting cloud solutions for remote agricultural management.

Referencing this report, Haig said “The value of business investments and sustainability is becoming increasingly clear. Studies find that companies moving or building sustainability strategies into their digital transformation plans are two and a half times more likely to outperform their peers. And that’s not idealism. That’s good business sense.”

 

 

Source Eco Business

How Singapore is turning multi-storey car parks into farms

Posted on by dishanth
How Singapore is turning multi-storey car parks into farms

Eyleen Goh runs a farm from the top deck of a car park in Singapore.

And this is not a small operation – it supplies nearby retailers with up to 400kg of vegetables a day, she says.

“Singapore is quite small but we have many car parks. It is pretty much the dream to have farms [here] to meet the needs of residents in the community,” she says.

 

Urban farmer Eyleen Goh farms among high-rise buildings. BBC

 

At least a dozen of these rooftop farms have now sprouted up across the South East Asian city state.

The government started leasing out the unusual plots in 2020 as part of its plans to increase local food production. The country of 5.5m people currently imports more than 90% of its food.

But space in this densely populated island nation is scarce and that means land is not cheap. Singapore has some of the world’s most expensive property.

One farmer told the BBC that the high cost of his first car park plot meant that he had to give it up and move to a cheaper location.

When BBC News visited Ms Goh’s farm, which is about the third of the size of a football field, operations were in full swing.

Workers were picking, trimming and packing choy sum, a leafy green vegetable used in Chinese cooking.

At the other end of the facility meanwhile, another employee was busy re-potting seedlings.

“We are harvesting every day. Depending on the vegetables we are growing, it can range from 100kg to 200kg to 400kg per day,” Ms Goh says.

She says starting the farm cost around S$1m ($719,920; £597,720), with much of the money being spent on equipment to help speed up harvesting.

 

Workers harvesting vegetables at Eyleen Goh’s rooftop farm. BBC

 

Although she has received some subsidies, Ms Goh says her business is not profitable yet.

She has 10 employees and pays a rent of around S$90,000 a year for the space and another car park site, which is still being set up.

“Our setting up period happened during the Covid pandemic, so logistics were way more expensive and took a longer time,” Ms Goh explains.

“Moreover, this was the first rooftop car park tender awarded [by the government] so the process was very new to everyone,” she adds.

Singapore’s rooftop farmers are also finding other ways to make money.

Nicholas Goh, who is not related to Ms Goh, says he has managed to turn a profit by charging people a monthly fee to harvest vegetables at his urban farm.

He says the idea is particularly popular with families who live nearby as “it is a community kind of approach, rather than a commercial approach”.

However, another urban farmer, Mark Lee, says high costs have driven him to move to an industrial building that charges a “negligible” i.e. lower rent.

“Vegetables are ultimately just vegetables. You can get it at the freshest and best quality but there is limitation to how much one would pay. We’re not talking about truffles here,” Mr Lee says.

 

‘Existential issue’

Rooftop farms are not the only way Singapore aims to increase the amount of food it grows.

Most of the country’s home-grown produce comes from high-tech facilities that are heavily subsidised by the government. It had 238 licensed farms in 2020, according to official figures.

Some of the farms are already profitable, and can expand their production to increase profits, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) says.

“Food security is an existential issue for Singapore. As a globally connected small city-state with limited resources, Singapore is vulnerable to external shocks and supply disruptions,” an SFA spokesperson tells BBC News.

“This is why it is important that we continuously take steps to secure our essential resources,” the spokesperson adds.

 

The farms are located in public housing estates. NATURE’S INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY

 

Earlier this year, the issue of food security came into sharp focus in Singapore when several countries in the region banned or limited exports of key foods.

Governments reliant on imports tried to protect their food supplies as the Ukraine war and the pandemic pushed up the cost of everything from staple foods to crude oil.

By 2030, Singapore aims to produce 30% of the food it consumes itself – more than three times the current amount.

Professor William Chen of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University says more support should be offered to urban farms.

“There are measures in place such as productivity grants from SFA, and regular farmers’ markets to encourage consumers to buy more local produce,” says Prof Chen, who is a director of the university’s food science and technology programme.

“Perhaps helping local farmers to adopt simple technologies… may be considered,” he says.

However, Sonia Akter, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, believes high operating costs are likely to remain a major challenge for urban farmers.

“Singapore is offering a lot of subsidies and financial support to entrepreneurs who are working in this space,” she says.

“The question is whether these farms will be able to operate and be commercially viable when the government support stops flowing.”

Back on a rooftop surrounded by tower blocks in the midst of Singapore’s urban sprawl, Ms Goh may seem a world away from traditional agriculture.

However, she echoes the sentiments of generations of farmers who have come before her: “Giving up is not an option. The more challenging it is, the more rewarding it will be.”

 

 

Source BBC

Singapore green-lights nuclear power in low-carbon energy import proposals

Posted on by dishanth
Singapore green-lights nuclear power in low-carbon energy import proposals

Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) is allowing firms to propose importing nuclear energy as part of a scheme to acquire low-carbon electricity from overseas.

Only plans involving coal will be rejected outright in the latest call for applications that started on Friday (1 July). In an earlier round that ended in April, both coal and nuclear power were banned.

EMA said it is open to proposals from “diverse” low-carbon energy sources in the region, in response to a query from Eco-Business on why the change was made.

“EMA will also be considering a range of factors such as price-competitiveness, source diversity and safety when evaluating the proposals,” added Lee Seng Wai, director of the energy connections office at EMA.

Singapore wants to fulfil four gigawatts, or 30 per cent of its energy supply, by 2035 with imports of clean energy – defined as electricity produced with at most 150 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt-hour. Projects could start higher but must reach this level within five years of commercial operation.

Nuclear energy could fit the bill, with an “emissions factor” of 13 kilograms of CO₂ per megawatt-hour, on par with wind power and about a third of solar power, according to the United States energy department.

 

Emissions factors of various sources of energy, along with Singapore’s aggregate electricity generation, which is largely via natural gas. Data: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Singapore Energy Market Authority.

 

Singapore currently produces electricity almost entirely with natural gas. Each megawatt-hour generated creates about 400 kilograms of carbon emissions, according to EMA.

Proponents of nuclear power say the energy source can provide a consistent flow of low-carbon electricity – something wind and sunlight struggle to achieve. Critics fear the lasting impact of both disasters and nuclear waste, a permanent solution for which largely does not exist.

Neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia could be possible candidates to supply Singapore with nuclear power based on their technological experience, said Dr Philip Andrews-Speed, a senior principal fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Energy Studies Institute.

“They have been working on nuclear power for decades. They could, in principle, tomorrow, make a decision (to build a reactor),” Dr Andrews-Speed said.

“But of course, as with everywhere in the world, this is a political issue. It is not purely energy policy,” he added.

The 2035 time frame EMA has set for Singapore’s energy imports may also be tight. Malaysia is thinking of building a new research reactor to replace its current 40-year-old model, according to a policy paper published this year, but no time frame has been set. It does not have a commercial plant.

The country did explore accelerating its nuclear power programme about 10 years ago, but progress has stalled under recent administrations.

Meanwhile, Indonesia wants to build its first commercial nuclear power plant by 2045.

Both Indonesia and Malaysia have said they will not export renewable energy, complicating Singapore’s plans to buy clean energy from its neighbours.

“Maybe Singapore is indicating it is accepting a wider choice of technologies,” Dr Andrews-Speed said, of Singapore’s decision to allow nuclear power in its latest call for import proposals.

He added that the cost of nuclear power over the next few years will depend on the type of technology used and the countries involved in building the reactors.

As it stands, nuclear power could cost over US$200 per megawatt-hour, much higher than solar and wind power, which caps off at around US$50 per megawatt-hour. Geothermal energy could reach close to US$100 per megawatt-hour, according to US-based asset manager Lazard.

Interest in nuclear energy worldwide has crept up recently, even outside its traditional supporters like France and China, amid high energy demand and fossil fuel prices. The United Kingdom wants to more than triple its capacity by 2050. Japan and the Philippines are planning to restart shelved plants.

Nuclear power is not in Southeast Asia’s regional green finance guidebook because of the high risks nuclear waste brings. The European Union considers nuclear energy projects green following a landmark vote this week, but its inclusion had attracted sizeable opposition from lawmakers and environmental groups.

Singapore does not have a nuclear power plant. In a scenario-planning paper released in March, EMA said the city-state could rely on domestic atomic energy to get its energy sector to net-zero emissions by 2050, if the world goes through a disorderly energy transition.

 

Longer runway

Singapore’s latest call for energy import proposals will be open for 18 months, till the end of 2023. The earlier round lasted only five months, and EMA said firms had asked for more time.

The agency said proposals from the earlier tranche will be automatically considered under the new round, which takes place under tweaked rules that allow consortiums to modify their plans after submitting initial papers.

EMA had earlier said it received 20 proposals in the earlier round, which detailed plans to import solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos.

 

 

Source Eco Business

How tech can enliven Japan’s energy market

Posted on by dishanth
How tech can enliven Japan’s energy market

In the transition to a low-carbon world, the sun accounts for an increasing amount of energy produced and consumed. But the energy generated is difficult to regulate as it is dependent on the weather. That is why accurate weather forecasting tools are gaining more traction, as researchers want to know in advance, as closely as possible, the amount of solar energy supply going into their power systems.

In Japan, where the government targets to make renewable sources of energy account for up to 36 to 38 per cent of the power supply by 2030, new technologies supporting the renewables market have sprung up. One of them is Apollon, a solar power generation forecasting system developed by Kansai Electric Power (also known as Kanden), which is based in Osaka and is the largest privately-owned electric utility in Japan.

Apollon, an acronym that stands for areal solar power forecasting system using satellite imagery estimation, uses imagery from the Japanese weather satellite Himawari-8 to predict solar radiation levels, and hence energy supply in the Kansai region in Japan.

Kanden’s manager Naoki Katayama says that while figures for absolute cost-savings cannot be disclosed, “Apollon can save millions of dollars, depending on the commodity prices such as oil and gas”. “If you don’t have good forecasting of solar power generation,” he adds, “then you would have to make fossil fuel power stations stand by, possibly in a wasteful way.”

 

Mr Naoki Katayama, who is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, believes in investing in companies providing environmentally friendly solutions across national borders.

 

Accurate forecasting systems can help make energy marketplaces more competitive. Katayama explains: “If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.”

 

“If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.” – Naoki Katayama, manager, Kanden

 

Katayama is also in charge of the company’s corporate venture capital arm named K4 Ventures. K4 Ventures invests in firms developing low-carbon solutions, storage batteries, AI and so on, and its fund constitutes approximately 9 billion Japanese yen.

In this interview, Eco-Business chats with this industry stalwart, who was trained as a lawyer and is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, to learn more about his thoughts on ESG trends in the Asia-Pacific region as well as his experience at the youth development programme.

 

How has the Covid-19 pandemic spurred investments in ESG-related companies?

I speak in the context of “E”, for environment. As more people work from home, they become more incentivised to reduce their electricity bills, which can make them turn to sources of renewable energy, and take measures like installing rooftop solar panels. This could spur investment in companies whose products are related to the clean energy movement.

What do you see as the key trends in ESG investing in the Asia-Pacific?

I see ESG investments, especially environment-related ones, growing not only within a single country, but across nations in APAC. As far as global warming is concerned, countries are interrelated and affected by one another. I believe that as neighbours living in the APAC region, we will see more movements to invest in companies providing environmentally-friendly solutions across national borders.

Which country is taking the lead for ESG investments in APAC and why? Is Japan poised to be a trendsetter in this area?

Yes, it is. Japan should be one of the leaders because it has been dependent on imports from the rest of the world for natural resources such as oil and gas. Therefore, this country is very keen to develop low-carbon energy-related technology and solutions, especially as we’re currently facing a crisis in energy supply due to the current Russia-Ukraine situation.

Why did you develop Apollon? How did that change how energy is distributed, managed, traded and governed?

Kansai Electric developed Apollon with its subsidiary company Meteorological Engineering Center two years ago, because the technology had the potential to help increase the use of renewable energy in the APAC region. Thanks to this technology, people can get a better forecast of the amount of energy produced by solar power stations, including their rooftop solar panels, and adjust their usage of fossil fuel energy, which also leads to cost reduction in their electricity bills.

Moreover, improved forecasting will make it easier for them to trade excess energy with others, a process called peer-to-peer (P2P) trading. More of such P2P trading can be governed by smart contracts [programmes stored on a blockchain that runs when predetermined conditions are met]. This will help remove the burden on independent and individual energy distributors to make legal contracts by hand.

Can you tell us more about the concept of PEACE, and how your team at HYLI came up with it?

We came up with PEACE (Process for an East Asia Common Economy) to accelerate the integration of economies in East Asia. “Challenges and Opportunities of Asian Economic Integration” was one of the sub-themes at the 7th HYLI. As our team members were aware that East Asian countries faced the challenge of participating in the opportunities of free trade, we came up with a win-win mechanism that would establish a so-called “PEACE Fund” comprised of voluntary contributions from member-nations. These nations could receive incentives, including prioritising sub-contracting and preferential tariffs, from other member countries.

How does Apollon fit into your team’s vision of PEACE?

Apollon will possibly make such an integration of East Asian economies happen by supporting cross-border transactions of solar energy and/or its environmental values on a P2P basis among independent and individual energy distributors in the region who will benefit from its forecasting technology.

How was your experience at the Hitachi Young Leaders Initiative?

PEACE was originally developed for East Asia, but the idea could be widened for the entire APAC. Free trade can potentially happen in the context of exchanging environmental value or carbon credits among different industry players and individuals in the region. My experience at HYLI has enabled me to think more broadly.

It has also motivated me to stay peace-oriented in the real world. Through my discussion with my team members, I learnt to build win-win relationships among different players with conflicting interests across borders. Currently, I always try to keep in mind that my professional skill as attorney at law can be used to make peaceful relationships, especially after long and severe negotiations between different parties.

What advice would you give to youths who are interested in participating in HYLI?

With the Covid-19 pandemic, I imagine that students would have fewer opportunities to communicate with their peers from other countries. HYLI will be an excellent chance to discuss ideas with people from other backgrounds, and is a platform to create longstanding relationships.

Even though I participated in HYLI over 15 years ago, I’m still in communication with my batch mates! Some of my HYLI friends became my classmates at Columbia University in New York, and some even came to my wedding in Tokyo. Make the best use of your time together and get to really know people.

The theme for this year’s HYLI is Social Innovation in the New Normal. The event will be held from 18 to 21 July.

 

 

Source Eco Business

Has KFC found the secret sauce to circular packaging?

Posted on by dishanth
Has KFC found the secret sauce to circular packaging?

Fast food restaurants are big waste generators. However, the lack of viable sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic and the industry’s emphasis on cost and convenience means cheap, disposable foodware will be on their menus for some time yet.

Fast food chain KFC and Singapore-based sustainable foodware company TRIA are looking to disrupt the fast-food packaging industry with what they call the “world’s first” closed-loop single-use packaging pilot project.

In a six-month trial, one KFC restaurant in Singapore will switch its non-recyclable boxes, cups, and cutlery to those made from NEUTRIA, a rapidly degrading plant-based polyester developed by TRIA. The used packaging will be collected by TRIA and fed into their patented Bio24 digester, which turns it into compost within 24 hours.

Conventional plastic recycling faces many challenges in Singapore. Even if the food packaging is technically recyclable, segregating and cleaning it could potentially cost five times more than producing new packaging from scratch. Furthermore, most of the country’s plastic is incinerated. With little incentive to recycle or reduce plastic consumption, plastic waste is only expected to increase. Since 2017, plastic recycling rates have remained extremely low, usually hovering around 4 – 6 percent.

 

TRIA’s patented Bio24 digester, which can turn NEUTRIA packaging and food waste into compost within 24 hours. Image: Eco-Business

 

TRIA claims its product can remain relatively cost-competitive without compromising on sustainability. However, apart from ensuring the product’s economic viability, TRIA’s chief executive Ng Pei Kang says that sustainable foodware companies must give higher priority to their F&B partner’s operational needs if they are to make such packaging more widely accepted.

“I think it’s great that we are experimenting with [sustainable foodware like reusable cups], but we also need to empathise more with the food brands. How can KFC extend this to the 20,000 outlets they own without changing their operations? [With our model], they don’t need to hire more people or get new trash bins. If it’s not business as usual, it would be very tough [for restaurants to accept these new packaging products].” Ng said in an interview with Eco-Business.

During the pilot launch event at Shanaya Environmental Services on 21 June, KFC revealed that cost-competitiveness, design flexibility and operational resilience were some of the main factors which attracted them to TRIA’s product.

“Since 2017, we’ve been looking for new ways to reduce our use of non-recyclable packaging. We’ve previously considered edible spoons, but they could not meet our cost or operational requirements. However, TRIA was open to extensive redesigns and testing to ensure their product could withstand our daily operating needs and be collected and processed at an acceptable price point,” said Lynette Lim, general manager of KFC in an interview with Eco-Business.

 

The mashed potato/coleslaw cup, cutlery, pockets and mat made of NEUTRIA by TRIA for their 6-month pilot with KFC. Image: Eco-Business

 

Redesigning KFC’s mashed potato and coleslaw cup was particularly difficult for TRIA’s designers. Using the company’s plant-based material, the cup had to maintain its structural integrity when stacked, in addition to being heat and moisture-resistant. While it has yet to be tested in-store conditions, Lim cited this as an example of TRIA’s commitment to KFC’s operational standards.

For every tonne of NEUTRIA and food waste fed into the digester, TRIA claims that 200 – 300kg of compost can be produced. While the company has not yet secured an offtake agreement for its compost, it has signed memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with local rooftop farming company Comcrop, and Norwegian chemical and fertiliser company Yara International. Ng also highlighted how TRIA’s products and services can help these companies achieve their own business goals in a more profitable and sustainable way.

“Yara is looking to expand their regional presence here, and I think they are interested in our product because it could be a low-carbon source of fertiliser. In Europe, they have access to hydroponic power, which allows them to profitably produce low-carbon, green fertiliser. However, shipping this fertiliser to Asia is not realistic. That’s where we come in,” Ng explained.

 

Finished bags of compost made from NEUTRIA packaging and food waste. Image: Eco-Business.

 

In an upcoming bio-valorisation pilot, Yara hopes to produce bio-equivalent fertiliser from TRIA’s compost. Upon receiving TRIA’s product, Yara could theoretically adjust its nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus content to ensure that it is nutritionally equivalent to commercial fertilisers. Other than reducing costs, the closed-loop system allows the fertiliser to be traced, therefore building greater confidence in prospective buyers.

However, TRIA’s technology is not without drawbacks. The composting system hinges on TRIA’s ability to take ownership of and reprocess its post-consumer waste. Singapore is planning to introduce an extended producer responsibility (EPR) law for packaging by 2025, which could reduce public expenditure and the amount of waste sent to landfills. Nevertheless, Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, a mechanical engineering professor and chair of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Circular Economy Taskforce pointed out that achieving EPR has its difficulties.

 

What is extended producer responsibility (EPR)?
EPR is a policy approach where producers are given significant financial and/or physical responsibility for the treatment and disposal of post-consumer products.

 

“For EPR to work effectively, the presence of good waste management systems must be in place, including infrastructure to reprocess the waste. There should be a high level of compliance and enforcement,” explained Ramakrishna.

While Ng is confident TRIA can handle KFC’s in-store waste, he admitted that a system for managing takeaway waste remains elusive for now.

“Takeaway waste will still be sent to the public waste management system. However, the majority of packaging is used for dine-in purposes, and that’s where we are able to help,” Ng said.

In a previous interview with Eco-Business, Ng also professed that sourcing top talent for the sustainable food packaging industry remains a challenge. Furthermore, the hygiene and economic concerns of the pandemic have slowed the appetite for innovative new technologies like TRIA’s, he said. However, he stated that a partnership with one of the world’s most recognisable brands was an important step towards a circular packaging economy.

 

 

Source Eco Business

Big data, low carbon: how data centres innovate for sustainability

Posted on by dishanth
Big data, low carbon: how data centres innovate for sustainability

Data centres are well-known for being energy guzzlers because of the growth of digital demand. Worldwide, they consume an estimated 200 terawatt hours a year (TWh/yr), or nearly 1 per cent of global electricity demand.

That said, the energy consumption of data centres has not grown at the exponential rate of Internet traffic. This is due to the huge strides made in energy efficiency in data centres. Improvements in the efficiency of servers, storage devices and data centre infrastructure, as well as the move away from small data centres to larger cloud and hyperscale data centres, have all helped to limit the growth of electricity demand.

According to figures from a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), from 2010 to 2020, the number of internet users worldwide has doubled and global internet traffic has expanded 15-fold. But global data centre energy use has been flat since 2015, at about 200 TWh/yr.

Globally, leading data centre operators have committed to carbon neutrality and science-based targets for emissions reduction by 2030. To achieve these goals, they have partnered with technology companies to develop ways of reducing energy consumption at all levels of operation – from direct-to-chip cooling to providing on-site prime power through alternative energy fuel cells.

 

New cooling solutions

One of the main areas of innovation is developing new solutions to cool data centres more efficiently as their capacity grows. Typically, cooling accounts for a large proportion of overall power consumption. Estimates from 2021 suggest that the figure ranges from 30 to 37 per cent.

Air cooling has been widely adopted in data centres since their inception. The basic principle of such systems involves circulating cold air around the hardware to dissipate heat.

 

More high power-density racks of up to 50kW are being deployed in data centres, such as those at Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) data centres around the world. Source: Equinix.

 

But air cooling systems are struggling to keep up with the increases in the power density of racks. Thanks to new generations of central processing units (CPUs), rack power requirements have moved from below 20 kilowatts (kW) to up to 40 or 50 kW today, easily.

Air cooling systems have evolved to address higher densities, but there is a point at which air just does not have the thermal transfer properties to do so in an efficient manner. This has caused organisations to look into liquid cooling, as water and other fluids are up to 3,000 times more efficient in transferring heat than air.

Liquid cooling is available in a variety of configurations that use different technologies, including rear door heat exchangers and direct-to-chip cooling.

Rear door heat exchangers is the more mature technology, where a liquid-filled coil is mounted in place of the rear door of the rack. As server fans move heated air through the rack, the coil absorbs the heat before the air enters the data centre.

Direct-to-chip cooling integrates the cooling system directly into the computer’s chassis. A liquid coolant is brought via tubes directly to the chip, where it absorbs heat and removes it from the data hall. The warm liquid is then circulated to a cooling device or heat exchange.

One of the world’s largest data centre providers, Equinix, for example, is developing a new direct-to-chip cooling technology at their Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) located in the Washington DC area. Developed in collaboration with Zutacore, the system introduces a cooling fluid to an evaporator overlying the CPU to absorb heat directly, which in turn causes the liquid to evaporate and produce a constant temperature over the CPU.

 

Hotter temperatures

Some operators are challenging the thinking that data centres should be operated at low temperatures of 20 to 22 degrees celsius. There is evidence to support the running of data centres ‘hot’, i.e., increasing their temperature by 1 or 2 degrees Celsius, which improves efficiency without any significant sacrifices in system reliability.

In Singapore, the Infocomm Media Development Authority has been trialing the world’s first ‘tropical data centre’, to test if data centres can function optimally at temperatures of up to 38 degrees Celsius and ambient humidity up to or exceeding 90 per cent.

Running with simulated data, the trial would test how data servers react under various situations, such as peak surges or while transferring data, and in conditions such as with no temperature or humidity controls.

 

Using digital resources and analytics to optimise energy usage

Smart solutions monitoring energy consumption patterns allow data centres to configure the optimal use of their resources, as well as to identify and diagnose equipment problems and take steps to fix them. Software powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can also assist companies to better manage their infrastructure and maximise the utilisation of their CPUs.

In an interview with Fortune, Equinix’s chief executive Charles Meyer explained that AI is used in the company’s data centres to “anticipate where power needs to be applied, how cooling… needs to be done to improve the power usage efficiency of the facility overall”.

 

Using on-site lower-carbon energy sources

New cooling solutions and digital resources are offsetting the energy consumption from increasing data centre services. However, there remains the question of energy supply to the facility overall.

A totally carbon-free solution would involve locating a data centre beside a wind- or solar-generated renewable energy source, or purchasing 100 per cent green energy from the grid. But these may not always be feasible solutions. In Singapore, for instance, space constraints limit the use of solar energy, and wind conditions are not sufficient for wind power.

Alternatives include the use of fuel cells for primary power supply at data centres. Fuel cells generate power through electrochemical reactions using natural gas, biogas or LPG. Testing by Equinix at CIF indicates they are 20 to 40 per cent cleaner than gas-powered electricity generation.

 

Fuel cells generate power through electrochemical reactions using natural gas, biogas or LPG. Source: Equinix.

 

When fuel cells are set up near data centres, there are even greater efficiencies. The generated electricity has less distance to travel and hence less energy is lost in the transmission process.

Equinix has deployed fuel cells at 15 of its facilities, including the carrier-neutral SV11 opened in San Jose in 2021, which utilises 4 megawatts (MW) of fuel cells for primary power production on site and can scale up to 20 MW of fuel cells.

Equinix is also part of a consortium of seven companies (including InfraPrime, RISE, Snam, SOLIDpower, TEC4FUELS and Vertiv) which launched the Eco Edge Prime Power (E2P2) project. E2P2 is exploring the integration of fuel cells with uninterruptible power supply technology and lithium-ion batteries to provide resilient and low-carbon primary power to data centres.

This work will also pave the way to transition from natural gas to green hydrogen (hydrogen produced using renewable energy) in fuel cells. Such advances are a step change towards sustainability where green hydrogen is available.

 

A holistic approach

Energy efficiency is crucial in determining future emissions in an industry that will continue growing in response to digitalisation and data consumption.

Besides energy efficiency, major data centre operators are interested in holistic sustainability gains that minimise carbon emissions. They consider how sustainable their supply chains are, total resource use and the company’s whole carbon footprint such as the embodied carbon in building materials.

Equinix, for example, has adopted a global climate-neutral goal by 2030 and has embedded decarbonisation actions across its business and supply chain.

Jason Plamondon, Equinix’s regional manager for sustainability in Asia-Pacific, says that the company is “well on (its) way to meeting (its) climate commitments, with over 95 per cent renewable coverage for (its) portfolio in FY21, maintaining over 90 per cent for the fourth consecutive year”.

He adds: “As the world’s digital infrastructure company, we have the responsibility to harness the power of technology to create a more accessible, equitable and sustainable future. Our Future First sustainability approach includes continuing to innovate and develop new technologies that contribute to protecting our planet.”

 

 

Source Eco Business

Sustainable supply chains and the road to net zero

Posted on by dishanth
Sustainable supply chains and the road to net zero

There were 131 billion parcels shipped worldwide in 2020 — a figure that is predicted to double in the next five years. Asia represents a huge market for global trade and logistics with the continent expected to account for 57 per cent of the growth of the global e-commerce logistics markets between 2020 and 2025.

But getting things from A to B creates an enormous carbon footprint.

Transportation was responsible for 8.26 gigatons, or about 26 per cent, of CO2 emissions globally in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Freight, the transport of goods, accounts for more than 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Transport Forum.

Slashing planet-warming gases produced by transport and logistics will be instrumental in helping nations and corporates hit their climate goals.

A raft of corporate net-zero commitments has largely led to rapid efforts to drive down direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions. More organisations are pledging to reduce Scope 3 emissions generated upstream and downstream of the value chain and those embodied in transport and distribution.

Supply chains have become longer, more complex as logistics networks link more economic centres together and consumer preferences change leading to more regular, smaller freight shipments and rapid delivery by energy-intensive transport such as air freight.

While Europe and North America dominate historic transport emissions, much of the projected growth in emissions is in Asia, according to the World Economic Forum which reckons that highly ambitious policies could cut emissions by 70 per cent – but not to zero.

Operating in 220 countries and territories, Germany-headquartered Deutsche Post DHL Group is one of the largest logistics firms in the world. It also produced 33.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020.

The organisation has pegged its pathway to decarbonisation on reducing annual group carbon dioxide emissions to below 29 million tonnes by 2030 as it attempts to hit zero emissions by 2050. An investment of US$7.6 billion until 2030 will be funnelled into alternative aviation fuels, the expansion of electric vehicles and climate-neutral buildings, the group announced on 22 March.

“Logistics is a key contributor to the global carbon footprint. DHL occupies a big share of global logistics,” said Amrita Khadilkar, regional director, Operations Development, Digitalisation and GoGreen, APAC.

“In order to accelerate the move towards net zero carbon logistics, more work needs to be done to develop solutions within transport,” Khadilkar said. Private sector efforts alone are not enough, governments and policymakers must also buoy decarbonisation efforts.

 

From burning less, to burning clean

The S-curve charts the firm’s path to net zero logistics emissions.

The early climb on the solid S-curve represents carbon reduction strategies through supply chain efficiencies using existing technology that will enable the firm to burn fewer fossil fuels.

Carbon offsets are used to compensate for the hard-to-abate emissions and bridge the leap to the second dotted line S-curve—which represents the impending usage of new and currently less familiar types of technologies and approaches for carbon reduction—the final leg to net zero.

On this ‘burn clean’ pathway, the company sees the removal of carbon through sustainable fuels and alternative technologies, such as electric vehicles.

 

The S-curve framework – used to illustrate the typical pattern of start, rapid growth and maturity of technology diffusion as well as the corresponding efficiency improvements across an industry or economy – is one way to guide carbon reduction in logistics. This is achieved by reducing, compensating and removing. [Click to enlarge]. Image: DHL

 

However, there are several roadblocks to getting transport and logistics firms to burn clean fuels and move closer to net zero. Initial efforts show that firms find it challenging to navigate this road alone without meaningful collaboration.

“Most logistics firms have the know-how for reducing their carbon footprint using their existing technologies and familiar ways of working. But that will only take them so far as per the solid S-curve,” said Professor Emeritus Steven Miller, former vice provost (Research), Singapore Management University.

“To make the required progress in carbon reduction, companies need to jump to the next-generation (dotted line) S-curve enabled by new technology and new ways of working which will enable far greater opportunities for carbon footprint reduction,” he added.

Transport is still largely dependent on fossil fuels and is likely to remain so in the coming decades. Long-distance road freight (large trucks), aviation and shipping are areas from which carbon is particularly difficult to eliminate.

The potential for hydrogen as a fuel, or battery electricity to run planes, ships and large trucks is limited by the range and power required; the size and weight of batteries or hydrogen fuel tanks would be much larger and heavier than current combustion engines.

Currently, the logistics sector has low clean-technology maturity and high costs for such, such as new energy vehicles (NEVs), sustainable fuels, according to DHL. Supporting infrastructure like charging ports for EVs and access to renewable energy is currently lacking in some markets, driving up the cost of sustainable alternatives further. Meanwhile, aviation is still grappling with hitting on a viable low-carbon strategy.

“Some of the sustainable technologies and solutions in the early stages may not be commercially viable or operationally scalable,” acknowledged Khadilkar.

The IEA says that there needs to be deep cuts in fossil fuels to reach the mid-century target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest grouping of investors representing US$65 trillion in assets, warned in March that the aviation industry needed to take “urgent action” to align with the world’s climate goal. Its report highlighted the need for a “substantial” increase in sustainable aviation fuel between now and 2030.

 

Collaboration is key

In a bid to cut the reliance on fossil fuels in its air freight, DHL has set an ambitious goal of using 30 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for all air transport by 2030.

Last month, DHL announced one of the largest SAF deals with bp and Neste which have committed to provide 800 million litres until 2026. DHL expects its strategic collaborations to save about two million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the aviation fuel lifecycle – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of about 400,000 passenger cars.

Tackling emissions created on land, DHL teamed up with Swedish firm, Volvo Trucks to introduce heavy duty electric delivery trucks for regional transport in Europe. The initiative is buoyed with funding from the country’s innovation agency, Vinnova and energy agency.

The adoption of new fuel technologies, essential to helping firms complete the journey to zero carbon emissions, requires partnering with governments to fund research and development efforts. Public investment in higher-risk programmes can also lead to the development of potentially disruptive technologies for energy applications.

“Government support can improve the rate of adoption of such technologies or solutions,” said Khadilkar. “Government incentives can also enable more research in green technologies and speed up any efforts to bring them to market.”

This would also reduce the cost. While companies like DHL and its industry peers can pilot new green technologies into freight, the cost will have to be shouldered by the consumer to some extent. Customers and companies say they want to live more sustainably but not all are willing to pay a premium to enable it.

Firms can only edge closer to net zero through trial and error. “Governments need to help through more research and development support, staging and coordinating larger scale domestic and international field trials, and by providing incentives for relevant business investments in new technology and capital, as well as in the related needs for human learning and training to work with these new technologies,” Miller said.

The adoption of sustainable alternatives has accelerated in countries where governments are offering financial support. This includes subsides and incentives through tax relief. Government subsidies have helped China become the world’s largest market for EVs. It is expected to exceed the government 2025 target and hit 20 per cent nationwide penetration this year.

“Investing or promoting green infrastructure can enable local businesses’ operations to be greener—through available and affordable renewable energy or developed local EV charging infrastructure, for example. A regulatory push such as inner city emissions regulation, or incentives like tax breaks, subsidies, are other ways we have seen help accelerate sustainability efforts,” said Kevin Jungnitsch, project manager & APAC sustainability lead, DHL Consulting APAC office.

Governments have also proven that they can help reduce emissions created by last-mile delivery.

In Singapore, a nationwide parcel delivery locker network spearheaded by the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore allows e-commerce platforms and their customers collect and return online purchases using parcel lockers scattered across the city. It is expected to reduce the distance travelled for delivery purposes by 44 per cent daily and the city state’s CO2 emissions by up to 50 tonnes a year.

Waste also needs to be addressed. Out of the 1.56 million tonnes of household waste generated in Singapore in 2018, approximately one-third was packaging, according to a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature and DHL Consulting published in November. About 2000,000 e-commerce parcels are delivered daily in the city state, and this is expected to grow by about 50 per cent in the next three years.

In a bid to stem the tide of waste, a six-month pilot scheme was launched last month in Singapore to encourage shoppers to return packaging from their online purchases and encourage retailers to adopt a circular waste model. The pilot is an attempt to tackle the mountains of waste caused by the high volume of online shopping.

 

Navigating the decarbonisation road map

Supply chains are coming under greater scrutiny as firms and countries accelerate efforts to decarbonise. If the transport and logistics industry fails to respond effectively, it is likely to face significant and rapid regulatory tightening, and ever greater scrutiny from capital markets.

Strong public-private partnerships are needed to accelerate the necessary transition to the new generation of technology and new supporting business processes and ways of working in order to get supply chains to net zero carbon emissions, Miller added.

The private sector and government institutions could follow a simple framework to prompt deeper discussion and action surrounding the acceleration of adopting decarbonising logistics. This begins with a discovery phase where current infrastructure, resources and technologies are evaluated, sustainability challenges assessed, and key areas of focus are prioritised.

Embedding sustainability into corporate governance could help influence the decision-making that flows into the supply chain. This includes measures such as introducing mandatory sustainability requirements around reporting and transparency.

The challenge for governments will be to encourage companies to form robust decarbonisation plans with supporting incentives so that no single player is penalised for taking the harder path to sustainability.

Lastly, companies on the path to net zero need to examine each aspect of decarbonisation and identify where they can follow, share or lead on aspects of the net zero journey. While some firms will be able to distinguish themselves as sustainable leaders in some areas, they will also need to make alliances with public and private stakeholders.

But time is of the essence as capping the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a target key to avoiding the worst climate impacts — is slipping further out of reach.

“Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action now,” said Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, following a clarion call by hundreds of scientists last month to take action against climate change. “It is time to stop burning our planet, and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.”

 

 

Source Eco Business

Sustainability recruitment firm Acre launches in Asia

Posted on by dishanth
Sustainability recruitment firm Acre launches in Asia

One of Asia’s first specialist sustainability recruitment firms has opened for business in Singapore as demand for jobs in the environmental, social and governance (ESG) space grows in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Acre, which was founded in London by British zoology graduate Andy Cartland in 2003, will use Singapore as its Asia Pacific base as it looks to service clients around the region.

Cartland said the time was right to launch in Asia, as the region is experiencing rapid growth in demand for sustainability talent and skills.

Acre posts candidates working in sustainability, impact investing, health and safety, and energy and clean technology, and will be compete with other firms that offer ESG recruitment services, such as NextWave, Formative Search, and Odgers Berndtson.

“Asia is arguably behind Europe and the United States when it comes to sustainability. But the region is moving at light speed to catch up. We want to be part of this transition,” Cartland told Eco-Business.

He noted that the business took a 20 percent revenue hit in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but 2021 saw the business rebound and revenue and headcount grow by 100 percent, which has enabled the company to expand to Asia.

“We are on track for similar growth this year as well,” he said.

Singapore will be Acre’s third overseas launch, with it having established a European operation in Amsterdam and a North American hub in New York in recent years.

Acre’s Singapore launch will enable the company to service existing multinational clients with operations in the region, and also local companies in the global supply chain.

The company’s past work in Asia includes recruiting a leadership team for the Bangladesh Accord, a coalition of global brands, retailers and trade unions set up in 2013 to improve health and safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry.

Among the candidates Acre has placed recently include the global environment, health and safety director at Amazon, and the executive director of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), a Swiss non-profit working to tackle child labour in the cocoa sector.

Cartland, who will move from London to Singapore in August to oversee the launch, has appointed an executive director for the Singapore office, who has yet to resign from his current job and will relocate from Hong Kong.

Acre’s Asia launch comes a month after a report by business social network LinkedIn showed 30 percent growth in hiring for green jobs between 2016 and 2021, with a spike in sustainability recruitment between 2020 and 2021.

The report also highlighted a shortage of talent for ESG roles in the region.

Cartland said that while there is a large talent pool of sustainability professionals in London, candidates in Asia, where the sustainability sector is less developed, are harder to find.

“Asia faces a different candidate sourcing challenge, and we will need to help clients navigate the [ESG] skills gap,” he said. “Our role is to find people where they’re tough to find.”

This will may involve thinking creatively about transitioning people out of non-sustainability roles, he said.

Acre is aiming to double its Asia operation by its second year, following the growth trajectories of its European and American businesses, Cartland said.

 

 

Source Eco Business

Nurturing greener tenants for more sustainable buildings

Posted on by dishanth
Nurturing greener tenants for more sustainable buildings

Switching lights off when they are not in use, turning up the temperature on air-conditioning, and saving water – these may seem like small actions, but they are vital to the fight against climate change.

Today, buildings are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, with their construction and operations contributing 11 per cent and 28 per cent respectively. Efforts to improve their sustainability are not going far enough, and buildings remain “off track” to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 according to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in November.

Managing climate-friendly and energy-efficient buildings is crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably under 1.5°C, but there are many challenges.

“Since 2010, rising demand for energy services in buildings – particularly electricity to power cooling equipment, appliances and connected devices – has been outpacing energy efficiency and decarbonisation gains,” the IEA said. “Very high temperatures and prolonged heatwaves set records in many countries, driving up demand for air-conditioning.”

The United Nations, in its latest climate assessment published in February, added that if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, all Asian regions studied in the report – Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam – will be affected by dangerously high heat and humidity levels, sea level rise, flooding and other physical climate risks.

As governments aim to meet ambitious climate goals, they will increasingly look to the building sector to reduce its impact on the environment.

 

By accelerating digitalisation and embracing the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other innovative digital technologies, we can achieve smarter, healthier and more sustainable buildings.

Chang Sau Sheong, chief executive, SP Digital

 

In Singapore, for instance, buildings make up over a third of the country’s electricity consumption. The city-state’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) notes that the built environment plays a “major role” in helping to achieve the national sustainability agenda to tackle climate change and global warming.

This presents huge opportunities, and challenges, for landlords trying to drive efficiencies in commercial buildings. Technology is key in this effort, according to SP Digital, the digital arm of SP Group, a utilities group in Asia Pacific that focuses on low carbon, smart energy solutions.

“By accelerating digitalisation and embracing the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other innovative digital technologies, we can achieve smarter, healthier and more sustainable buildings,” said Chang Sau Sheong, chief executive of SP Digital.

 

Mindset shifts key to green buildings 

Setting regulatory benchmarks and fiscal policies has helped to green buildings and boost efficiencies. Technologies and smart systems have also improved sustainability. But changing the behaviour of landlords and tenants could prove to be the biggest hurdle yet.

Dr Clayton Miller, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) who leads its Building and Urban Data Science Lab, told Eco-Business that there are many underused green building technologies, including innovative cooling systems that tap on high temperature radiant, desiccant dehumidification and mixed-mode ventilation.

“There are too many decision-makers who want to play it safe and stick with conventional systems, because they are afraid that trying something different will bring problems,” he said.

Some property owners and landlords may be put off by the costs and difficulties of retrofitting older buildings for sustainability. For example, installing green technologies may require space that is scarce in buildings not designed for them.

“With the myriad of green technologies out there, one of the key challenges that building owners may face is simply how and where to start the retrofitting process,” added Associate Professor Kua Harn Wei, of the Department of the Built Environment, NUS School of Design and Environment.

 

A smart way to achieve sustainability

Tenants may be stymied by a lack of data too, noted Chang. “Most landlords and property owners provide monthly utility bills, which makes it challenging for tenants to know how and where to best focus their efficiency efforts, and track how they are faring,” according to Chang.

A typical office in Singapore expends most – 60 per cent – of its energy on cooling, according to BCA. Lighting takes up 15 per cent of consumption.

 

GET TenantCare is a smart and automated tenant submetering solution designed to help landlords and property owners efficiently manage tenant utilities consumption. [Click to enlarge] Image: SP Digital.

To give tenants and landlords more granular data to manage their energy and water use, SP Digital created Green Energy Tech (GET) TenantCare, a smart and automated tenant submetering solution. Tenants and landlords can get visibility of their utilities consumption in granularity of 30-minute intervals, unlocking more ways to save electricity and water. The platform not only increases operational efficiency, but can improve tenant engagement that will drive sustainability efforts, Chang said.

As a tenant, for instance, you can better understand how you use electricity, get alerted to unusual usage earlier, find out which of your equipment is using a lot of energy, whether through faults or inefficiency, and make changes to lower your energy consumption.

“If you’re a landlord, you can use our solution to automatically calculate your tenants’ energy use intensity, based on their units’ energy usage and gross floor area. You can identify which tenants are using more electricity than expected and engage with them to persuade them to adopt more energy-efficient equipment or habits,” Chang said.

Smart technologies have other advantages. With GET TenantCare’s automated meter readings, landlords do not have to deploy manpower to check on and read the meters. This also eliminates human errors in the readings.

Smart building management systems, connected to motion and other occupancy sensors and weather forecasting systems, can automatically adjust air-conditioning temperatures, switch off unneeded lights, and do more to save electricity and water while maintaining comfort for occupants.

 

Promoting greener behaviours

With insights from smart technologies leading to quick wins in energy and water savings, landlords and tenants may be more motivated to continue on their sustainability journey.

“If people have good experiences trying out sustainable behaviours, they are likely to repeat them and form green habits over time,” Dr Sonny Rosenthal, cluster director of smart and sustainable building technologies at the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), told Eco-Business.

Other novel systems and ideas could enable tenants and landlords to work in tandem to slash the carbon footprint of the buildings they occupy.

SP Digital’s GET Engaged solution is a digital dashboard that provides updates on buildings’ electricity and water use, and the resulting carbon emissions. When displayed in lobbies and other public areas, the information could spur tenants to make more sustainable choices.

Equipping people with relevant skills is essential too. Last year, the Singapore government launched the Sustainability in Singapore programme, which trains people from organisations to be green ambassadors.

This includes teaching them how to design effective sustainability campaigns to persuade their colleagues and other occupants in their buildings to be more environmentally friendly.

BCA chief executive Kelvin Wong explained: “As a building user myself, we tend to think that staying in green buildings alone is sufficient. But this is not true. Practising sustainable behaviour within building premises is equally important to make the most of green buildings.”

“Hand in hand, both green buildings and sustainable user behaviour would translate to lower carbon emissions, with the added advantage of monetary savings,” he added.

The BCA has also created “green lease” toolkits to guide landlords and tenants in crafting mutually-agreed-upon, sustainability-related agreements for office and retail buildings. These would set out objectives for how the building is to be improved, managed and occupied to reduce its impact on the environment.

Greener buildings go beyond providing environmental and economic benefits, Chang noted. Greener buildings can also enhance occupants’ health and overall well-being.

 

 

Source Eco Business

China and the US announce plan to work together on cutting emissions

Posted on by dishanth
China and the US announce plan to work together on cutting emissions

China and the US announced a surprise plan to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial next decade, in a strong boost to the Cop26 summit, as negotiators wrangled over a draft outcome.

The world’s two biggest emitters had been trading insults for the first week of the conference, but on Wednesday evening unveiled a joint declaration that would see the world’s two biggest economies cooperate closely on the emissions cuts scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C.

The remarkable turnaround came as a surprise to the UK hosts, and will send a strong signal to the 190-plus other countries at the talks. China and the US will work together on some key specific areas, such as cutting methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – and emissions from transport, energy and industry.

“Both sides recognise that there is a gap between the current effort and the Paris agreement goals, so we will jointly strengthen our Paris efforts and cooperation … to accelerate a green and low carbon transition,” said Xie Zhenhua, China’s head of delegation. “Climate change is becoming an increasingly urgent challenge. We hope this joint declaration will help to achieve success at Cop26.”

 

Speaking at a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Xi Jinping did not mention the deal directly but said “all of us can embark on a path of green, low-carbon sustainable development”.

“Together, we can usher in a future of green development,” he said.

John Kerry said: “The two largest economies in the world have agreed to work together on emissions in this decisive decade.

“This is a roadmap for our countries and future collaboration. China and the US have no shortage of differences. But cooperation is the only way to get this job done. This is about science, about physics.”

He told the conference: “This declaration is a step that we can build on to close the gap [between the emissions cuts set out so far and those needed]. Every step matters. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Kerry compared the cooperation with China with the agreements by the US to reduce nuclear weapon arsenals in the cold war. “You have to look beyond differences sometimes to find a way forward.”

 

 

The China-US Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s came despite growing political tensions between the two powers, which had been reflected in the climate talks. In his parting shot at the conference, Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed China’s president, Xi Jinping, for “not showing up”. After that, Xie took a swipe at the US in an interview with the Guardian, saying: “We are not like some countries who withdrew from the Paris agreement after entering into talks.”

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, welcomed the agreement: “Tackling the climate crisis requires international cooperation and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction.”

The announcement followed a call by developing countries for rich nations to come forward with more financial help for vulnerable countries, saying a new draft outcome for the talks was too weak in this regard.

The draft text, published early on Wednesday morning by the UK as president of the talks, set out the probable outcome of the Cop26 talks, including a potential requirement for countries to return to the negotiating table next year to beef up their national plans on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The text also set out the scientific case for limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and expressed “alarm” that emissions were far higher than the levels needed to stay within safe temperature thresholds.

But poor countries said the text needed more emphasis on climate finance, to help them cut carbon and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown.

Aubrey Webson, chair of the Alliance of Small Islands States, which represents 37 of the most at-risk countries, said: “The text provides a basis for moving forward but it needs to be strengthened in key areas in order to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable, particularly on finance. We won’t get the ambition on emissions we need for 1.5C if we don’t scale up the provision of finance, and this includes the long overdue recognition of a separate and additional component for loss and damage.”

He added that the language was too weak: “‘Urging’, ‘calling’, ‘encouraging’ and ‘inviting’ is not the decisive language that this moment calls for. We have limited time left in the Cop to get this right and send a clear message to our children, and the most vulnerable communities, that we hear you and we are taking this crisis seriously.”

Bruce Bilimon, minister of health for the Marshall Islands, part of the High Ambition Coalition made up of developed and developing countries, added: “We need a comprehensive Glasgow package to build and reinforce trust between developed and developing states.”

Other developing countries told the Guardian that clearer commitments were needed to force countries to ratchet up their emissions cuts.

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, made a flying visit to Glasgow on Wednesday, where he warned delegates that failure to reach an effective agreement would bring an “immense” and well-deserved backlash from around the globe.

Johnson called for “a determined push to get us over the line” – and said some countries had not done enough to achieve this. Leaders not in Glasgow needed to “pick up the phone to their teams here and give them the negotiating margin, give them the space they need in which to manoeuvre and get this done”, he said.

Johnson criticised – but did not name – some countries for “conspicuously patting themselves on the back” for signing up to the Paris climate accord but doing too little at Cop.

“The world will find it absolutely incomprehensible if we fail to deliver [a good outcome]. And the backlash from people will be immense and it will be long-lasting, and frankly we will deserve their criticism and their opprobrium.”

 

 

Source The Guardian