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.”
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.”
As with many other aspects of government policy, overfishing and other fishing-related environmental issues are a real problem, but it’s not clear that government intervention is the solution. Indeed, it might be one of the main drivers of overfishing and other conservation and sustainability issues stemming from commercial fishing. Much like drone fishing, there are serious ethical issues of interest to the average angler.
There’s another commonality that overfishing has with environmental issues more broadly: The Western companies primarily concerned with serious efforts to curb overfishing are not the ones who are most guilty of overfishing. What this means is that the costs of overfishing are disproportionately borne by the countries least engaged in practices that are counter to efforts to make commercial fishing more sustainable while also promoting conservation of fish biodiversity.
All of these are important issues not just for commercial fishermen, but also those interested in questions of conservation and sustainability in general, as well as recreational fisherman and basically anyone who uses fish as a food source. As the ocean goes, so goes the planet, so it is of paramount importance for everyone to educate themselves on what is driving overfishing, what its consequences are, and what meaningful steps — not simply theater to feel as if “something is being done” — can be taken.
Indeed, over three billion people around the world rely on fish as their primary source of protein. About 12 percent of the world relies on fisheries in some form or another. 90 percent of these being small-scale fishermen — “think a small crew in a boat, not a ship,” using small nets or even rods, reels and lures not too different from the kind you probably use.
There are 18.9 million fishermen in the world, with 90 percent of them falling under the same small-scale fisherman rubric discussed above.
Overfishing Definition: What is Overfishing?
First, take heart: As a recreational fisherman you are almost certainly not guilty of “overfishing.” This is an issue for commercial fishermen in the fishing industry who are trawling the ocean depths with massive nets to catch enough fish to make a living for themselves and their families, not the angler who enjoys a little peace and quiet on the weekends.
Overfishing is, in some sense, a rational reaction to increasing market needs for fish. Most people consume approximately twice as much fish as they did 50 years ago and there are four times as many people on earth as there were at the close of the 1960s. This is one driver of the 30 percent of commercially fished waters being classified as “overfished.” This means that the stock of available fishing waters are being depleted faster than they can be replaced.
There is a simple and straightforward definition of when an area is being “overfished” and it’s not simply about catching “too many” fish. Overfishing occurs when the breeding stock of an area becomes so depleted that the fish in the area cannot replenish themselves.
At best, this means fewer fish next year than there are this year. At worst, it means that a species of fish cannot be fished out of a specific area anymore. This also goes hand-in-hand with wasteful forms of fishing that harvest not just the fish the trawler is looking for, but just about every other organism big enough to be caught in a net. Over 80 percent of fish are caught in these kinds of nets but fish aren’t the only things caught in nets.
What’s more, there are a number of wide-reaching consequences of overfishing. It’s not simply bad because it depletes the fish stocks of available resources, though that certainly is one reason why it’s bad. Others include:
Increased Algae in the Water: Like many other things, algae is great but too much of it is very bad. When there are fewer fish in the water, algae doesn’t get eaten. This increases the acidity in the world’s oceans, which negatively impacts not only the remaining fish, but also the reefs and plankton.
Destruction of Fishing Communities: Overfishing can completely destroy fish populations and communities that once relied upon the fish that were there. This is particularly true for island communities. And it’s worth remembering that there are many isolated points on the globe where fishing isn’t just the driver of the economy, but also the primary source of protein for the population. When either or both of these disappear, the community disappears along with it.
Tougher Fishing for Small Vessels: If you’re a fan of small business, you ought to be concerned about overfishing. That’s because overfishing is mostly done by large vessels and makes it harder for smaller ones to meet their quotas. With over 40 million people around the world getting their food and livelihood from fishing, this is a serious problem.
Ghost Fishing: Ghost fishing refers to abandoned man-made fishing gear that is left behind. It’s believed that an estimated 25,000 nets float throughout the Northeast Atlantic. This left behind gear becomes a death trap for all marine life that swim through that area. While much of this is caused due to storms and natural disasters, much of it is the result of ignorance and neglect on behalf of commercial fishermen.
Species Pushed to Near Extinction: When we hear that a fish species is being depleted, we often think it’s fine because they can be found somewhere else. However, many species of fish are being pushed close to extinction by overfishing, such as several species of cod, tuna, halibut and even lobster.
Bycatch: If you’re old enough to remember people being concerned about dolphins caught in tuna nets, you know what bycatch is: It’s when marine life that is not being sought by commercial fishermen is caught in their nets as a byproduct. The possibility of bycatch increases dramatically with overfishing.
Waste: Overfishing creates waste in the supply chain. Approximately 20 percent of all fish in the United States is lost in the supply chain due to overfishing. In the Third World this rises to 30 percent thanks to a lack of available freezing devices. What this means is that even though there are more fish being caught than ever, there is also massive waste of harvested fish.
Mystery Fish: Because of overfishing, there are a significant amount of fish at your local fish market and on the shelves of your local grocery store that aren’t what they are labelled as. Just because something says that it’s cod doesn’t mean that it actually is. To give you an idea of the scope of this problem, only 13 percent of the “red snapper” on the market is actually red snapper. Most of this is unintentional due to the scale of fishing done today, but much of it is not, hiding behind the unfortunate realities of mass scale fishing to pass off inferior products to unwitting customers.
So why is overfishing happening? There are a variety of factors driving overfishing that we will delve into here, the bird’s eye view is below.
Regulation: Regulations are incredibly difficult to enforce even when they are carefully crafted, which they often are not. The worst offenders have little regulations in place and none of these regulations apply in international waters, which are effectively a Wild West.
Unreported Fishing: Existing regulations force many fisherman to do their fishing “off the books” if they wish to turn a profit. This is especially true in developing nations.
Mobile Processing: Mobile processing is when fish are processed before even returning to port. They are canned while still out at sea. Canned fish is increasingly taking up the fish consumption market at the expense of fresh fish.
Subsidies: Anyone familiar with farm subsidies knows that these are actually bad for the production of healthy food. Subsidies for fishing are similar. They don’t generally go to small fisherman whom one would think are most in need, but rather to massive vessels doing fuel-intensive shipping.
What’s more, subsidies encourage overfishing because the money keeps flowing no matter what — the more fish you catch, the more money you get, with no caps influenced by environmental impact fishing regulation.
Indeed, according to the World Wildlife Fund, subsidies drive illegal fishing, which is closely tied with piracy, slavery and human trafficking. The University of British Columbia conducted a study that found that $22 billion (63 percent of all fishing subsidies) went toward subsidies that encourage overfishing.
Of these, the main driver of overfishing is, predictably, government subsidies. So it is worth taking a few minutes to separate that out from the rest of these issues and give it some special attention.
More on Overfishing and Government Subsidies
The subsidies that drive overfishing are highly lucrative: The governments of the world are giving away over $35 billion every year to fishermen. That’s about 20 percent of the value of all the commercially caught fish in the world every year. Subsidies are often directed at reducing the costs for megafishing companies — things like paying for their massive fuel budgets, the gear they need to catch fish, or even the vessels themselves.
This effectively allows for large commercial fishing operations to take over the market or recapitalize at rates significantly below that of the market, disproportionately favoring them over their smaller competitors.
It is this advantage that drives large mega fishing companies into unsustainable fishing practices. The end result of this is not just depleted stocks, but also lower yields due to long-term overfishing, as well as lowered costs of fish at market, which has some advantages for the consumer, but also makes it significantly harder for smaller operations to turn a profit.
Such government subsidies could provide assistance to smaller fishermen, but are generally structured in a way that favors consolidation of the market and efforts counterproductive to conservation efforts.
What Role Do Farmed Fish Play?
Farmed fish is a phenomenon that we take for granted today, but is actually a revolutionary method of bringing fish out of the water and onto our dinner tables. Originally, it was seen as a way of preserving the population of wild fish. The thinking was this: We could eat fish from fish farming while the wild stock replenished itself.
At the same time, communities impacted by overfishing would find new ways to get income in an increasingly difficult market. Third world countries would have their protein needs met in a manner that did not negatively impact the environment. It was considered a big, easy win for the entire world.
The reality, as is often the case, turned out to be a little different. Crowding thousands of fish together in small areas away from their natural habitat turns out to have a number of detrimental effects. Waste products, primarily fish poop, excess food and dead fish, begin to contaminate the areas around fish farms. What’s more, like other factory farms, fish farms require lots of pesticides and drugs thanks to the high concentrations of fish and the parasites and diseases that spread in these kinds of areas.
Predictably, the chemicals used in making farmed fish possible are not contained in the areas where they are initially used. They spread into the surrounding waters and then simply become part of the water of the world, building up over time. In many cases, farmed fish are farmed in areas that are already heavily polluted. This is where the admonition to avoid eating too much fish for fear of contaminants like mercury has come from.
What’s more, the fish that we eat are not the only fish that are living at the fisheries. Often times, the preferred fish of the human consumer are carnivores that must eat lots of other fish to get up to an appropriate size to be part of the market. These fish, known as “reduction fish” or “trash fish” require the same kind of treatment that the larger fish they feed do.
All told, it takes 26 pounds of feed to produce a single pound of tuna, making farmed fishing an incredibly inefficient way of bringing food to market. Indeed, 37 percent of all seafood globally is now fed for farmed fish, up dramatically from 7.7 percent in 1948.
Perhaps worst of all, farmed fish simply do not have the same nutritional value as their wild counterparts, losing almost all of the Omega-3 fatty acids that make fish such a prized part of the modern diet.
Salmon, for example, is only healthy when it is caught in the wild. Farmed salmon is essentially a form of junk food. This is in large part due to the diet that the fish eat in fish farms, which is high in fat and uses soy as a primary source of protein. Toxins at the farms concentrate in the fatty tissue of the salmon. Concentrations of the harmful chemical PCB are found in concentrations eight times higher in farmed fish than traditionally caught wild salmon.
The pesticides, of course, are not used for no reason, but because of the proliferation of pests due to the high concentrations of fish in the fisheries. Sea lice are one example of such pests, which can eat a live salmon down to the bone.
These pests do not stay in the fisheries, but quickly spread to the surrounding waters and infect wild salmon as well as their farmed counterparts. The pests aren’t the only ones escaping: Farmed fish often escape from their habitats and compete with the native fish for resources, becoming an invasive species.
Subsidies vary from one country to another and specific statistics about how much goes to fish farms is generally not forthcoming. But fish farms effectively move the problem of overfishing from the wild oceans and into more enclosed areas. This does not solve any of the problems of overfishing. It merely creates new ones with no less impact on the environment.
Which Countries Are Overfishing?
As stated above, the main offenders with regard to overfishing tend to not be developed Western countries, but countries from the undeveloped world and parts of Asia. Sadly, the United States is the only Western nation that appeared on a “shame list” put out by Pew Charitable Trusts. This is known as the Pacific Six. The other members include Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Indonesia.
The list only refers to overfishing with regard to bluefin tuna, but it provides a snapshot of the face of overfishing internationally. Overfishing facts say that these six countries are fishing 80 percent of the world’s bluefin tuna. These countries took collectively 111,482 metric tons of bluefin tuna out of the waters in 2011 alone.
However, when it comes to harmful subsidies there is a clear leader: China. A University of British Columbia study found that China provided more in the way of harmful subsidies encouraging overfishing than any other country on earth — $7.2 billion in 2018 or 21 percent of all global support. What’s more, subsidies that are more beneficial than harmful dropped by 73 percent.
The negative effects of overfishing are not taking place far away and in very abstract ways. They are causing communities right here in the United States to collapse. In the early 1990s, overfishing of cod caused entire communities in New England to collapse. Once this happens, it is very difficult to reverse. The effects are felt by the marine ecosystem but also by the people whose livelihoods depend on fishing.
Another example of economic instability is the Japanese fish market. Japanese fishermen are able to catch far less fish than they used to, meaning that the Japanese are now eating more imported fish, often from the United States, than ever before. This creates a perverse situation where America exports most of its best salmon to other countries, but consumes some of the worst farmed salmon in the world today.
Just How Bad Is Overfishing?
Surely overfishing can’t be that bad, right? The seas are just filled with tons of fish and it would take us forever to overfish to the point that they began to disappear entirely, right?
Think again. Overfishing is happening at biologically unsustainable levels. Pacific bluefin tuna, the type of fish discussed in the section above, has seen a 97 percent decline in overall population. This is important because the Pacific bluefin tuna is one of the most important predators in the ocean food chain. If it goes extinct the entire aquaculture will be irreparably disturbed.
The first fish that disappear from an ecosystem are larger fish with a longer lifespan and reach reproductive age later in life. These are also the most desirable fish on the open market. When these fish disappear, the destructive fishing operations do not leave the area: They simply move down the food chain to less desirable catches like squid and sardines. This is called “fishing down the web” and it slowly destroys the entire ecosystem removing first the predator fish and then the prey.
There are broader effects on the ecosystem beyond just the fish, effects that resonate throughout the entire Atlantic and Pacific ocean. Many of the smaller fish eat algae that grows on coral reefs. When these fish become overfished, the algae grows uncontrolled and the reefs suffer as a result. That deprives many marine life forms of their natural habitat, creating extreme disruption in the ocean ecosystem.
What Are Some Alternatives to Government-Driven Overfishing?
While there are certainly policy solutions to rampant overfishing, not all solutions will come from government. For example, there are emerging technological solutions that will make bycatching and other forms of waste less prevalent and harmful.
Simple innovations based on existing technologies, such as Fishtek Marine seek to save sea mammals from the nets of commercial fishermen while also increasing profit margins for these companies in a win-win scenario. Their device is small and inexpensive and thus does not present an undue burden to either the large-scale commercial fishing vessels or small fishermen looking to eke out a living in an increasingly difficult market.
We must also recognize that current regulations simply do not work. In one extreme case, governments restricted fishing for certain forms of tuna for three days a year. This did absolutely nothing for the population of tuna, as the big commercial fishing companies simply employed methods to harvest as many fish in three days as they were previously getting in any entire year.
This, in turn, led to a greater amount of bycatch and waste. Because the fishing operations didn’t have the luxury of time to ensure that they were only catching what they sought to catch, their truncated fishing season prized quantity over quality with predictable results.
Quotas, specifically the “individual transferable quota” scheme used by New Zealand and many other countries does not seem to work as intended for a number of reasons. First, these quotas are, as the name might suggest, transferable. This means that little fishermen might consider it a better deal to simply sell their quota to a large commercial fishing operation rather than go to work for themselves and we’re back to square one.
More generally speaking, quotas seem to be a source of waste. Here’s how they work: A fishing operation is given a specific tonnage of fish from a specific species that they can catch. However, not all fish are created equally. So when commercial fishing operations look at their catch and see that some of it is of higher quality than others, they discard the lower-quality fish in favor of higher-quality fish creating large amounts of waste. These discards can sometimes make up 40 percent of the catch.
An alternative to the current system is one that balances the need for fish as a global protein source with a long-term view of the ecosystem, planning for having as many fish tomorrow as there are today and thus, a sustainable model for feeding the world and providing jobs. One way to do this would be to tie subsidies to conservation and sustainability efforts, rather than simply writing checks to large commercial fishing operations to build new boats and buy new equipment. Such a scheme would also prize smaller scale operations over larger ones. A more diversified source of the world’s fish would also be more resilient.
One such alternative is called territorial use rights in fisheries management (TURF). In this case, individual fishermen or collectives of them are provided with long-term rights to fish in a specific area. This means that they have skin in the game. They don’t want to overfish the area because to do so would be to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. So they catch as many fish as is sustainable and no more. They have a vested, long-term interest in making sure that there is no overfishing in the fisheries that have been allotted to them.
Not only does this make sustainable fishing more attractive, it also means that there is less government bureaucracy and red tape involved. Fishermen with TURF are allowed to catch as much as they like. It is assumed that sustainability is baked into the equation because the fishermen with rights want to preserve the fishing not just for the next year, but for the next generation and the one after that. This model has been used successfully by Chile, one of the most economically free countries in the world (more economically free, in fact, than the United States), to prevent overfishing and create sustainability. It is a market-driven model that prizes small producers with skin in the game over massive, transnational conglomerates with none.
Belize, Denmark and even the United States are other countries who have used TURF, with significantly positive results.
While it’s nice to support the little guy over Big Fishing and we certainly support sustainability and conservation efforts, there’s another, perhaps more important and direct reason to support reforms designed to eliminate overfishing: food security. When bluefin tuna, for example, goes extinct, it’s not coming back. That means no more cans of tuna on the shelves of your local supermarket.
That’s a big deal for people in developed, first world countries, but a much bigger deal in developing countries. When major protein sources are depleted forever, there will be intensified competition for the resources that remain. This also creates unrest in the countries that are less able to compete in a global market due to issues of capital and scale. Even if you’re not concerned with overfishing, overfishing and the problems it creates will soon be on your doorstep unless corrective measures are taken before it’s too late.
Nutritional breakdowns, ethical trade branding, recycling information – and now estimates of a product’s climate impact.
Consumers across the globe are starting to see a new kind of information on goods packaging, indicating the level of planet-heating gases emitted by making the items they are buying.
This fresh wave of efforts at “carbon footprint” labelling is being praised by some as empowering consumers to help tackle climate change – but criticised by others as confusing at best, and greenwashing at worst.
Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of Food Tank, a US-based think-tank, said a carbon-labelling system has “been in the works for a while” but companies needed time to research it properly, “so we’re just seeing it now”.
Numi Organic Tea, a California-based company that sources 130 ingredients from 26 countries, will start putting carbon labels on its teas this summer, after tracking their emissions since 2015.
Now is the time – consumers are interested. Even if they don’t know what a gram of carbon is, it begins to develop the carbon literacy in our consumers and in society writ large.
Jane Franch, vice president for strategic sourcing and sustainability, Numi Organic Tea
Figuring out the teas’ carbon footprint required studying farm management practices, processing equipment, energy use along the supply chain and more, said Jane Franch, company vice president for strategic sourcing and sustainability.
“That was the first step in our journey – wrapping our minds around what is the impact, and looking for places where we can reduce (it),” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The effort has included pushing tea factories to start using cleaner energy and more energy-efficient equipment, she explained.
Numi packaging will carry a label that includes a single, product-specific number: a kilogram of carbon-dioxide equivalent, broken down by ingredients, transport, packaging and even the energy required to boil water at a tea-drinker’s home.
“Now is the time – consumers are interested,” Franch said. “Even if they don’t know what a gram of carbon is, it begins to develop the carbon literacy in our consumers and in society writ large.”
Numi joins a growing group of companies that have begun carbon labelling, particularly in the United States and Europe – from brands including plant-based-meat producer Quorn to electronics maker Logitech and household goods giant Unilever.
There are also broader efforts, such as a global push announced in February for the cosmetics industry, which includes Estee Lauder Companies, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health, L’Oréal Group and 33 others.
Some even want a system that is obligatory for all.
“Publishing the climate impact of food products should be mandatory and standardised, just as with nutrition labels,” said a spokesperson for Swedish oat milks producer Oatly, which is leading a petition to the German government on the issue.
Denmark and France are already looking at creating their own consumer carbon labels, while the European Union is aiming to come up with a draft for a broader eco-label by 2024.
‘No longer niche’
The food and beverage industry is at the centre of the push for carbon labelling, given its outsize climate impact.
The global food system accounts for about a third of carbon emissions, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
But until recently, most efforts to reduce food-related emissions focused on production, said Edwina Hughes, head of the Cool Food Pledge at the World Resources Institute (WRI).
“We’ve made loads of progress in the last 50 years, but we haven’t looked at consumption as much. That’s pretty significant – if you don’t look at shifting diets, you won’t get where you need to” in terms of curbing climate change, she said.
Some simple interventions appear to offer great potential.
For instance, adding messages at the top of menus nearly doubled the proportion of diners choosing plant-based dishes, according to WRI research published in February.
The Cool Food program runs a carbon labelling initiative that includes a “badge” on menu items, indicating that they meet nutritional standards and have a smaller carbon footprint than researchers say is needed to achieve key climate goals.
Panera Bread, which has 2,100 North American locations focusing on business lunches, was the first restaurant chain to adopt the badge, in 2020.
The company had measured its carbon footprint since 2016, but that information was not reaching consumers, said Sara Burnett, its vice president of food beliefs and sustainability.
“We know there are two sides to this coin – what we choose to put on the menu, how we source.
But the flip-side is consumers: they really impact our business significantly by what they choose,” she added.
About half of Panera’s online menu options carry the badge, with a goal of raising that to 60 per cent by 2025, including by working with supply chain vendors and developing new products.
“This is no longer something that is just the niche green consumers looking for responsibly sourced and raised products,” Burnett said. “It’s the everyday consumer that is now looking for that.”
And consumers are starting to take notice, said Carmen Castillo, assistant general manager at MOM’s Organic Market in Rockville, Maryland, near Washington DC.
“It’s a newer label, and it creates conversation – people want to know what it means, if it’s real and how it affects them,” she added.
Too much information?
Little is yet known about how consumers react to carbon labels, although globally 54 per cent of respondents to a 2021 survey by environmental consultancy Carbon Trust said they would be more likely to pick a product with such a label over a similar one without.
Burnett said Cool Food-branded meals have sparked a particularly positive response on social media.
Yet some worry the flurry of efforts could muddy the waters.
“This is a confusing time for consumers because there are all of these labels,” said Food Tank’s Nierenberg.
Many labels and certifications “put so much onus on the consumers” to understand and act, she said, warning of an increased risk of greenwashing or “climate-washing”.
According to the European Commission, there are more than 450 environmental labels in use globally today, including about 80 reporting initiatives and methods for carbon emissions.
“Some of these … are reliable, some not,” it said in an online policy document.
Brands, too, are expressing concern.
“What we need is the adoption of a harmonised, global standard for eco-labelling so people don’t get information overload,” said Archana Jagannathan, senior director of sustainability for PepsiCo Europe, in emailed comments.
But too much focus on how labelling shapes buying behaviour may be missing the point, warned Michael P. Vandenbergh, director of the Climate Change Research Network at the Nashville-based Vanderbilt Law School.
As carbon labelling sees substantial growth worldwide, there is evidence it works “even if consumer responses are limited”, he noted.
Amid rising pressure from investors, governments, employees and clients, simply having a label can push companies to find efficiencies that reduce their carbon footprint, he said.
Already 80 per cent of the biggest firms in seven of the largest global sectors – including retail stores, auto manufacturing and lumber production – put environmental requirements in their supply-chain contracting, he added.
Carbon labelling is not a panacea, Vandenbergh said.
“But (it) is a piece of a much larger system that can function even if the national government process is inadequate – which it is,” he added.
This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate.
In his May Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about the impact of soaring energy prices on Singapore and its people
The increase in electricity prices is due to a confluence of factors, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Singapore’s lack of alternatives for electricity, and rising demand for electricity as the world recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic
With electricity costs expected to continue rising for at least a year, Singapore’s move towards greener energy sources has become more important than ever, some experts said
Solar panel sellers said they have seen an increase in enquiries as households look to generate their own electricity instead
Given the limitations on tapping solar energy especially among HDB dwellers, what are other ways for households to not only do their part for the environment but also go easy on their wallets?
SINGAPORE — Whenever the sun is blazing, Mr Arun Murthy gets excited, as a mobile application on his phone would show that his house is generating more electricity than it is using.
In mid-March, he installed 100 solar panels on the roof of his landed property in Bukit Timah.
Since then, the family’s monthly electricity bill has dropped from about S$1,200 to about S$370. Apart from meeting some of the house’s energy needs, the solar panels also generate excess electricity during the day that is sold back to Singapore’s power grid system operated by SP Group.
“Every month, we get a cheque from SP Group for selling our excess electricity, which we can use to offset our electricity bill from a private retailer… We have reduced our dependency on the grid by about 70 per cent,” said the 54-year-old chief executive officer of cybersecurity firm Invisiron.
As the family does not have a battery system to store excess electricity generated, the solar panels only fuel the house’s electricity needs when the sun is out in the day. On rainy days and at night, the home then relies on the national energy grid.
While installing the solar panels has meant lower electricity bills for the family, Mr Murthy said that the “primary reason” for doing so was to do his part for the environment.
Installing the S$54,000 solar panels on his roof also means less reliance on natural gas — regarded as the cleanest form of fossil fuel and is used to generate 95 per cent of Singapore’s electricity supply, but whose prices have skyrocketed recently amid a global energy crunch.
Since Mr Arun Murthy installed solar panels on the roof of his home, the family’s monthly electricity bill has dropped from about S$1,200 to about S$370.
Singapore’s electricity tariffs for April 1 to June 30 increased from the preceding quarter by around 9.8 per cent to S$0.27 per kWh, excluding Goods and Services Tax.
Earlier this month, in his May Day Rally speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about the soaring energy prices, which will set the country back by about S$8 billion a year, as he warned that Singapore must be prepared for more economic challenges ahead.
The increase in electricity prices is due to a confluence of factors, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Singapore’s lack of alternatives for electricity and rising demand for electricity as the world recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, experts told TODAY.
And with electricity costs expected to continue rising for at least a year, Singapore’s move towards greener energy sources has become more important than ever, some of the experts added.
Indeed, by reducing electricity consumption or turning to renewable energy, households now can not only do their part to save the Earth — but also go easy on their wallets
The increase in electricity costs during the past few months is a good opportunity for the Government to accelerate the adoption of green energy.
Dr Chua Yeow Hwee from the Nanyang Technological University’s economics division
Factors driving the surge in electricity prices
One reason for the rising electricity tariffs for the past two years is that 95 percent of electricity in Singapore is generated by natural gas, a byproduct of crude oil, said Associate Professor Chang Young Ho, head of the business and management minor at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS).
Because it is a byproduct, the price of natural gas is indexed to the price of crude oil. Hence, recent spikes in oil prices have caused energy prices to similarly jump.
He also noted that while the cost breakdown of generating electricity is not publicly available, industry experts have estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the total cost is related to fuel costs.
By reducing electricity consumption or turning to renewable energy, households now can not only do their part to save the Earth — but also go easy on their wallets.
“The recovery from Covid-19 has increased demand for oil, such as for use by industries, commercial and transport, so the price of oil increased,” said Assoc Prof Chang.
“The Ukraine-Russia war affected production and supply of oil (so) it also increased oil prices… As long as the war continues, the price is expected to increase,” he added.
Dr David Broadstock, a senior research fellow and the head of the Energy Economics Division at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Energy Studies Institute, said the decision by Europe and other countries to stop purchasing natural gas from Russia has forced them to search for new gas suppliers.
“At the same time, there are limits to how much gas supply chains can scale up without major new infrastructure development, which would also take some years to provide.
“This is a perfect recipe for natural price increases for natural gas, as those countries which are willing and able to pay higher prices may choose to do so to ensure a secure energy supply,” said Dr Broadstock.
He also noted that China’s demand for natural gas has been consistently growing as it searches for a cleaner fuel option as compared to coal. This is especially so during the winter season, which has created long-term pressure on markets.
While all these have resulted in the rise of oil and energy prices, Dr Broadstock said that key energy commodity prices have, to some extent, stabilised.
He added that the Energy Market Authority (EMA) had implemented mechanisms following local power market disruptions in 2021, which will help Singapore reach stable prices faster.
This would take about a year, other experts including Assoc Prof Chang estimated.
On April 4, Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng spoke in Parliament about these mechanisms, which include a standby liquefied natural gas facility and requirements imposed on power generation companies to “bolster existing stockpiles and provide additional layers of fuel security to cope with the short-term shocks to global gas supply”.
They were introduced after “upstream production issues in Indonesia’s West Natuna gas field and gas pressure issues from South Sumatra in the fourth quarter of 2021 caused disruptions to our piped natural gas supplies,” said Dr Tan, who is also Manpower Minister.
“As a result, some companies had to purchase more liquefied natural gas at elevated global gas prices to make up for the drop in piped natural gas supplies.”
EMA has also modified market rules, allowing the agency to direct power generation companies to use gas from its standby facility, allowing the authority to manage the cost impact on consumers.
“These measures have ensured that we have sufficient fuel and electricity supply and stabilised the uniform Singapore energy price,” said Dr Tan.
However, experts said that the prices and impact on supply reinforce the need for Singapore to diversify its energy sources and improve its local production — which currently makes up just 5 per cent of the country’s energy supply.
Dr Chua Yeow Hwee from the Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) economics division said: “The increase in electricity costs during the past few months is a good opportunity for the Government to accelerate the adoption of green energy.”
Dr Broadstock added: “The more power that can be produced locally, the more secure and predictable energy costs will become.
“However, there are limits to just how much solar energy can be deployed in Singapore. While more investment into solar will be very welcome, Singapore will inevitably need to explore additional energy resources.”
Dr Broadstock referred to recommendations made by a committee commissioned by EMA on March 22, which include importing renewable energy from verified resources — such as wind, large-scale solar and hydropower — which are abundant in other countries.
Viability of solar energy for households
Some households looking to cut their electricity bills without changing too much of their lifestyles can turn to generate their own electricity via solar power, which is the main renewable energy option here.
Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, executive director of NTU’s Energy Research Institute, noted that solar panel technology has advanced over the years, reaching efficiencies of between 20 to 22 percent. This efficiency refers to the amount of electricity generated from solar energy that falls on the panel.
“Efficiencies used to be around 15 percent a decade ago, and we have seen a 30 percent improvement… it definitely makes sense from both sustainability and cost perspectives,” said Prof Mhaisalkar.
He noted that a barrier to getting these panels installed is the upfront cost, but solar leasing and favorable financing options have made installation a compelling value proposition.
Under solar leasing, a company pays for and installs a solar system from which homeowners can buy electricity.
Solar panel installation companies told TODAY that they have seen increased interest in their services this year, with more homes looking to do their part for the environment while saving money.
Mr Satish Prasath, founder and director of PMCE (Global), said his company used to receive about one inquiry a day for its residential services when it first started in December 2017, but that has increased to three queries daily this year.
The company has since outfitted 300 residential homes with solar panels. On average, households spend between S$18,000 and S$22,000, and the average home installs 30 panels. This would equate to about S$300 to S$400 saved a month, Mr Prasath estimated.
“We’ve installed panels in about 50 homes (so far) this year… people are concerned about the impact of the Ukraine-Russia war so they are looking for long-term solutions,” he said. His company had put up panels in about 95 homes for the whole of last year.
The panels have a warranty of 25 to 30 years, so homeowners stand to profit from installing them, he added.
The (solar) energy generated is often more than the household consumption, so when they sell to the grid, some of our customers even get negative utility bills each month because they’re owed money.
Mr Benedict Goh, chief investment officer of renewable energy firm UTICA
Mr Benedict Goh, a chief investment officer of UTICA, said another draw of solar panels today is the increased efficiency and return on investment.
“When we started selling goods related to solar panels in 2004, costs were much higher and the return on investment was around 10 to 15 years… people purchased to show off new technology, or because they wanted to go green,” he said.
“But now, it’s more efficient and costs (for the solar panels) have dropped by half of what they were in early 2010.”
Mr Goh said his company has done “hundreds” of installations, and inquiries for landed properties have increased by 30 percent in the past two to three years.
Solar panel installation companies told TODAY that they have seen increased interest in their services this year, with more homes looking to do their part for the environment while saving money.
“The energy generated is often more than the household consumption, so when they sell to the grid, some of our customers even get negative utility bills each month because they’re owed money,” he said, adding it can save customers between 40 and 80 percent of their monthly consumption bills.
Mr Christophe Inglin, co-founder and managing director of Energetix, added that residents stand to get a return on investment within four to six years, although that time frame is likely to be shorter as electricity prices increase.
Energetix focuses on installing solar panels for commercial projects, with residential installations making up less than 5 percent of its volume of sales. However, the company has also seen a spike in enquiries from homeowners.
While it would typically receive around two queries a month two years ago, the company now gets around six a week — mostly through referrals.
Mr Inglin declined to share the average number of panels installed but estimates a terrace house generates 10 to 15 kilowatt peak (kWp) a day, 15 to 25 kWp for semi-detached homes, and 20 to 60 kWp for bungalows.
However, while solar energy may provide future cost-savings, it has its own limitations.
For one, households still need to rely on electricity from natural gas as solar panels generate electricity only during the day. Dr Broadstock noted that many households’ demand for electricity increases at night — when people are back from work.
And while they can combine solar power with chargeable batteries, Dr Broadstock said battery technologies can be unsafe, which makes their use in residential and high-density urban environments like Singapore “challenging”.
The installation of solar panels is also subject to a building’s structural limitations, be it for a landed property or a HDB flat.
According to the Building Construction Authority’s (BCA) handbook for solar photovoltaic systems, there are constraints whereby standard development control guidelines apply — for example, if solar panels are to be installed on the rooftop of an attic, attic guidelines would apply.
Apart from possibly requiring an electrical installation license, BCA said in its handbook that existing buildings may require a professional structural engineer to carry out an inspection of the roof structure and calculate the structural loading.
“If the roof is unable to withstand the loading of the solar photovoltaic system, structural plans will need to be submitted to BCA for approval before a building permit can be issued for commencement of installation works,” the authority said.
It also noted that the solar panels are exposed to the threat of lightning strikes and hence, require proper lightning protection.
The installation of solar panels is also subject to a building’s structural limitations, be it for a landed property or a HDB flat.
LANDED PROPERTIES
For landed properties, the existing roof’s material and the angle it is it can make it expensive, unsafe and inefficient to install solar panels.
Mr Prasath said: “About 30 to 40 percent of homes that enquire are unable to install the panels.
“Some roofs have tiles that are glued directly to it, so it can become unsafe for us to clear up some tiles and place our brackets for solar panels on top. It may compromise the roof’s integrity.”
He added that roofs which are at a 45 degree angle or have protruding windows would not be suitable for solar panels.
CONDOMINIUMS
For condominiums, homeowners seeking to install solar panels will need to get approval from their management committees — commonly known as Management Corporation Strata Title, or MCSTs — and the authorities, and the green light is given on a case-by-case basis depending on various factors.
Both Mr Prasath and Mr Goh said that their companies have received inquiries from condominium homeowners interested in installing solar panels, but faced difficulties in getting the necessary approvals.
Condominium homeowners interviewed said that even if they manage to get the green light from their MCSTs to install solar panels,they are unsure if authorities require additional approvals.
Approvals aside, cost savings for condominium owners are also limited because they are ineligible to sell excess electricity to the national grid.
Their apartments also need to be on the top floors with roof access belonging to them, and where there is enough sunlight to generate electricity.
Mr Prasath added that another obstacle is that condominiums often use submeters, which allows condominium homeowners to track their individual consumption.
“Solar panel systems require testing and commissioning by SP Group before they can be connected to the grid, which (SP Group) only does for buildings connected to master meters such as (landed homes) and private-owned industrial buildings,” he said.
SP Group did not reply to TODAY’s queries.
HDB FLATS
For HDB flat homeowners, their options are further limited as solar panels not only take up space, but also require direct sunlight to generate a significant amount of electricity for home usage.
In 2020, a HDB resident made the news when he put up solar panels — reportedly weighing 10kg to 20kg — on top of a clothes-drying rack and an air-conditioner.
HDB told the media then that said such installations outside flats are not allowed as they may affect the structural integrity of the building, and can pose a risk to the public. It also reiterated that installations outside of a flat are prohibited unless approved by the town council.
Dr Chua from NTU’s division of economics noted that households on high floors can still tap solar energy in a limited fashion, such as hanging small solar panels at their windows and using them to power their mobile phones or laptops.
Smaller solar power generators are also readily available in the market. Such generators can cost anywhere from several hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
Mr Goh from UTICA, which sells such products, said they are commonly bought by hikers and campers looking to tap solar energy while outdoors. Some residents have also bought these generators to place in their balconies to power their mobility devices and other gadgets at home.
As part of a Government initiative to harness solar energy, HDB has to date installed solar panels on about 2,700 blocks and plans to reach 8,400 blocks in the next “two to three years”. In total, this will produce enough electricity to power 95,000 four-room flats.
On how these panels will benefit residents, the Ministry of National Development (MND) said in a written parliamentary reply on Jan 10 that the energy generated is “first used to power common services in HDB estates, such as lifts and lights”, and any excess solar energy will be channeled to the national grid.
“Town Councils managing these HDB blocks will enter into a service agreement with the solar vendor to pay for the solar energy consumed, at a preferential rate not higher than the retail electricity tariff rate,” MND added. “This may help the Town Councils in mitigating the rising cost of energy.”
How to save on electricity bills
For now, there remain significant limitations as to how individual households can turn to renewable energy as an alternative power source.
Nevertheless, consumers can still take matters into their own hands, in terms of reducing their electricity consumption.
For example, Ms Valerie Khoo, a 27-year-old wealth management consultant, said she does not use a fan or air-conditioner on cooler days but instead, leaves her windows open at night while she sleeps.
“With the (electricity) price increase, we’ve been a bit more conscious and my mom nags at us more about not using the air conditioner unless its really too hot,” she said.
Her family of four spends about S$120 a month on electricity for their five-room flat. Apart from ensuring they turn off the lights when not in use, they also chose a two-tick refrigerator — the highest energy rating available for her nearly 650 litre fridge when it was bought in 2018.
Apart from her parents and younger brother, Ms Khoo lives with the family’s two dogs. The food for her dogs takes up half the space in the freezer, she said.
The ticks system by the National Environment Agency (NEA) rates the energy efficiency of household appliances, with five ticks being the most efficient, and one tick being the least efficient. This is displayed on the energy label, which also shows consumers the annual energy cost of the appliance.
Ms Valerie Khoo does not use a fan or air-conditioner on cooler days but instead, leaves her windows open at night while she sleeps.
Ms Khoo said that while the family is keen to save electricity, the cost of big-ticket items has to justify the long-term savings, and be within their means, before they decide to buy a pricier appliance with a higher energy saving rating.
Like some other consumers whom TODAY spoke to, Ms Khoo said her electricity-saving habits have been shaped over the years, motivated by a desire to not just reduce her electricity bill but also to reduce her carbon footprint.
By using energy-efficient appliances and adopting good energy consumption habits, households will enjoy lower utility bills whilst contributing towards climate action.
National Environment Agency
Responding to TODAY’s queries, NEA noted that small habits can help reduce electricity costs — for example, simply using a fan instead of an air-conditioner can save households around S$384 a year based on electricity tariffs of S$0.26 per kWh.
“Based on an earlier household energy consumption survey conducted by NEA, cost-savings is the key motivating factor that households consider when deciding on the purchase of more energy-efficient appliances,” the agency said.
“By using energy-efficient appliances and adopting good energy consumption habits, households will enjoy lower utility bills whilst contributing towards climate action.”
To help inform consumers’ purchasing decisions, NEA said they can use its online Life Cycle Cost Calculator to check yearly energy costs and compare these with upfront costs for electrical appliances.
NEA also said its “enforcement checks” at retail outlets have shown that there are appliances with higher ticks that are not more expensive than those with lower ticks.
“With rising electricity prices, the higher cost of a more energy-efficient appliance can be quickly recouped and the owner saves even more over the appliance’s lifespan,” it said.
Under the government’s Climate Friendly Households Programme, one-, two- and three-room HDB households can register for S$225 worth of e-vouchers to offset the purchase price of resource-efficient appliances.
For example, households may get a S$150 e-voucher for the purchase of an energy-efficient refrigerator, or a S$25 e-voucher for LED lights.
Nevertheless, consumers can do more beyond opting for appliances that are more energy-efficient, experts said.
Mr Tan Tsiat Siong, lecturer at SUSS’ School of Business, said households should not just replace damaged appliances with more energy-efficient ones but do so with their older appliances as well.
Amid higher electricity prices, energy-efficient appliances can bring about long-term savings, Mr Tan reiterated.
He added that the simple actions of turning off switches when not in use, not leaving chargers on when devices are fully charged, and unplugging cords when not in use, can help reduce electricity consumption.
Likewise, Prof Mhaisalkar from NTU’s Energy Research Institute said homeowners can minimise energy losses through simple steps such as by ensuring their windows are sealed well when using an air conditioner or relying on natural ventilation instead.
Dr Broadstock from NUS’ Energy Studies Institute suggested setting the timer on appliances such as water heaters to help eliminate unnecessary energy consumption.
Households should also watch out for appliances with standby modes, which he dubs as “electricity vampires”.
“These constantly ‘suck’ a little energy from the socket even when on standby, hence the name ‘vampire’. Turning these off when they are not being used will help to reduce some power consumption,” he said.
He added that when it comes to saving electricity, a “reasonable guiding principle” is to look for options to reduce energy consumption without reducing quality of life and even gaining “co-benefits” in ideal situations.
“For example… take an extra 15 minutes to walk around your community after dinner, reducing the energy used at home while getting health co-benefits,” said Dr Broadstock.
Construction and home renovations are notorious for the amount of waste they create. Think of how many times you’ve seen hulking construction dumpsters sitting in front of a house, brimming with wood scraps, drywall, old carpet, and all kinds of odds and ends that are almost guaranteed to end up in a landfill. They won’t be sorted or separated for recycling or compost — those dumpsters are nearly always upended in the nearest landfill Construction & Demolition area. Not only will this cost you a pretty penny, but that waste will negatively contribute to the ecology around the landfill, too.
So, what can you do? Lots! Depending on the type of renovation you’re looking at doing, there are many ways you can save money and be green. If you’re already used to reducing waste and being environmentally conscious, this is another excellent area to put your expertise to good use. If it’s something you want to get in the habit of, this is a great way to learn how to live more green overall.
If you’re planning for a larger renovation, do an online search for eco renovation companies in your area. This issue is coming to the forefront of homeowners’ minds, and as a result, contracting companies are adapting to their environmentally aware customers. They’ll be able to walk you through how they dispose of different materials from your reno, sustainable source products, or salvage from other job sites.
The 3 R’s – Relevant in Kindergarten, Relevant Now
Most of us will remember hearing the phrase, “Reduce, reuse, recycle!” bandied around schools, workplaces, or on TV at some point in our lives. This was always a good practice to follow and still is during your home reno project. Here’s how you can apply that old-school mantra now.
Reduce the amount of waste upfront. It’s staggering when you get an inside look into the amount of waste that many contractors consider to be just the price of doing business.
Why is this? There are a few main reasons. Most contractors learned their trades when construction materials were significantly less expensive than now and waste from off-cuts and scraps was less of an issue. In addition, the environmental movement has been gaining momentum over the past couple of decades, but it wasn’t always a consideration. Finally, the blunt truth is that it’s just easier for contractors to order more material and not optimize every piece that they’re using. This isn’t to say that they all do this, but it is a common practice, which is why it’s good to interview your contractor before you agree to work with them to get an idea of what their procedures are in this regard.
This requires a bit more time investment on your part, but it will pay off in savings and help you keep needless scraps out of the landfill. Asking questions about how many board feet your builder will need and comparing that to what they’re ordering can be an excellent way to track this. While it’s mostly impossible to make sure that every piece of every board or pipe is used, you’ll be able to monitor if the level of waste is reasonable. For example, if you’re putting in a 10-foot long, non-load bearing interior wall with studs 16 inches apart and a 9-foot ceiling, that’s about 120 total feet of 2×4 that you’ll need. If your builder suggests that they need to order 20 10-foot long 2x4s, you know that they’re over-ordering and not planning to optimize their use to reduce waste at the site. You can then ask them to do that, to find another area to use that 80 feet of off-cut, or order pre-cut material that fits your space and won’t generate any waste. These options will depend on your budget, builder, and your project and space specifics. This simplified example gives you a place to start thinking about questions to ask and how to approach this — we’re not contractors!
Re-use existing materials instead of purchasing brand new ones. You’d be shocked at how much building material gets ripped out during a renovation just to be heaved into a dumpster and then replaced with the same thing, only new.
For example, if you’re taking walls out, you’ll have 2×4 studs that will likely be somewhere around 8 feet. While you won’t want to reuse these as studs again necessarily, they’re perfectly good for use in other areas, like back framing.
Insulation can be reused as well — just know that as it ages, the R-value (the level to which it insulates) will decrease.
Even drywall can be reused if you’re keen enough or are working with a contractor that’s willing to spend some time on it. That goes for most of the ‘Reuse’ category – you have to have that conversation with your builder ahead of time because they won’t all be willing to do this. It takes more time to reuse old material than it does to send it to the dumpster and use neatly stacked, equal-sized 2x4s, and some builders just won’t want to take the extra time, even if you’re willing to pay for it.
Reusing items isn’t just for your building materials, either! Your interior decor can be upcycled or repurposed with a bit of gumption and some online tutorials, and who knows, you might love the DIY life and get into it regularly.
Recycle home renovation scraps instead of sending them to the landfill. This is another area that takes some dedicated time from you or agreement from your builder that they’ll handle this for you.
Recycling needs to be sorted, and this is the area that takes work in renovation projects. If you pull out a wall, for example, you’ll need to be sure to sort metal by separating the nails out of the studs and the electrical boxes and cable from the wood and drywall. The same goes for vinyl flooring, old carpet, and anything else that ends up coming out.
Once the sorting part is done, you’ll need to know where to dispose of everything properly. This will vary based on your location and the rules in your area, but you likely won’t have more than two or three stops to make to ensure you’re recycling instead of throwing out your construction waste.
What To Keep In Mind For Yourself, Or Communicate To Your Builder
Having stated goals is super important in keeping on track. That goes for you and for someone you hire! It also applies to your day-to-day efforts to live greener, not just in your eco renovation project.
Here’s our list to get you started:
Minimize the demolition work.
Use salvaged building materials.
Plan for deconstruction — meaning you can easily remove building parts during the next renovation.
Using materials that reduce waste during installation or use (that minimize packaging, adhesives, finishes, etc.).
Reduce and recycle waste during construction.
Use prefabricated components and materials prepared in a factory (such as framing) to reduce off-cut waste on your site.
Use standardized components that fit the dimensions of your house to reduce off-cut waste on your site.
Use materials and products that are durable, low maintenance, recyclable or reusable.
Products By Room To Keep Your Reno Eco-Friendly
If you plan ahead when you’re in the early stages, before you begin your eco renovation project, you’ll be able to think through what materials are coming out of each room and what you can use to build and redecorate to keep your materials environmentally responsible.
Painting – choose eco-friendly paints
Kitchen – reuse/repurpose kitchen cabinets, tips to save water, sell old appliances and fixtures
Living room – buy recycled furniture, upcycle your current furniture, save window hardware and screens, repurpose carpeting, etc.
Bedroom – salvage flooring, sell or donate doors
Remember that as you’re planning what you can do and what you need a contractor to do, there’s also a middle ground, and that’s your friendly neighborhood handyman. It’s a great option to call a handyperson to paint, assemble or disassemble furniture, or help with installations. These aren’t tasks a builder will do, but you can take some work off your plate using a handyperson!
Embrace a Zero Waste Lifestyle
This is your chance to make a significant impact on how much waste you produce — don’t let that stop with your eco renovation! Reducing daily waste is something that adds up quickly and makes a more significant impact than you might think, especially when that’s compounded over your lifestyle as a whole.
It takes some planning and coordination, but with a bit of extra thought and effort, your home renovation can be a great refresh for your life without having harmful impacts on the environment. You don’t have to be a DIY master to reduce, reuse, and recycle!
In 2019 the global economy consumed over 100 billion tonnes of materials.
The Circularity Gap Report highlights how moving to circular economy can reduce consumption levels and help mitigate climate change.
These 21 changes to how we make, keep and discard things can build more sustainable systems and a circular economy.
Never before has humankind made and consumed so much stuff. In 2019, for the first time, the global economy consumed over 100 billion tonnes of materials.
Already five of the nine planetary boundaries have been transgressed during humanity’s short presence on Earth, driven by a throwaway culture that too often exploits nature. Our economy has become inherently linear, and it may be difficult to reimagine how we make, use and discard things unless we shift toward a more regenerative and inherently natural system.
How can we build a circular economy?
The latest edition of theCircularity Gap Reportexplores the concept of a circular economy and investigates its role in climate mitigation and in cultivating more equitable societies around the world. Ultimately, the model will require a systems shift: radically rethinking how we use resources to fulfil our needs and wants. The report presents a range of circular solutions, based on four key principles of the circular economy: using fewer resources, using resources for longer, recycling resources and regenerating resources.
The report applies these strategies to “key societal needs and wants” – such as housing, nutrition and transport – to transform how resources are fed into the economy. If applied globally, this could result in a 28% reduction of resource use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 39% – keeping the world on track to reach its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. Here we outline 21 strategies that can be applied in daily life, to businesses and at local and national government level. Importantly, these are not only grounded in energy policies – they go far beyond and span economic policy, industry, business and individual consumer behaviour.
Feeding the world and the circular economy
Providing nutrition to the world is an extremely resource and emissions intensive task: accounting for 10 billion tonnes of GHG emissions and 21.3 billion tonnes of resources a year. It’s also extremely inefficient as more than 30% of all food produced is thought to be wasted. While a massive proportion of the global population are malnourished, many others are overweight. Nutrition for all can be delivered with a fraction of the resources currently pumped into the linear food systems. The current model is ripe for change to a circular economy.
Build a circular economy through food sufficiency and cutting excess consumption.
1. Enough really can be enough
It’s extremely impactful to first slash excessive consumption before increasing production to tackle food shortages and scarcity. The words “no” and “refuse” are important in the circular economy.
2. Put healthier, satiating foods first
Let’s make cutting excess consumption tangible through food sufficiency: bringing the per capita caloric and protein intakes of high-income, high-emitter countries (such as the US or many in the EU, see the Shift profile on the right) down to match healthy levels – 2,000 calories a day for a typical woman. This can be done by reducing the material and emissions footprint per calorie of foods by prioritising healthier and more satiating foods over foods with low nutritional value. Think here of sugary beverages and refined, heavily processed items that require resources and energy to be produced, but their “empty calorie” effect on our stomachs means they are a wildly inefficient diet choice.
3. Embrace a plant-based diet
Animal-based proteins are yet another inefficient way to reach our daily calorie quota: 25kg of grain and about 15,000 litres of water is needed to produce only 1kg of beef – inputs that could instead be used to nourish humans. In some parts of the world, where a variety of other high protein, nutritious options are available, ditching animal proteinscan be one of the most impactful individual actions for the climate. Eating a primarily plant-based diet could slash global emissions by 1.32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.
The role different countries play in reducing waste and building a systems approach for the circular economy.
4. Shop your fridge and cook creatively
Circular shifts will also deliver secondary benefits such as less packaging needed for food – a massive win in terms of reducing single-use plastic – reduced obesity and healthier overall communities. It could also help to reduce food waste, also a strategy in itself needed to make our food systems more circular. Try doing this at home by not only cutting excess consumption, but planning your meals ahead, looking up innovative recipes to make use of your broccoli stems or fruit peels, shopping your refrigerator before heading to the market and skipping impulse buys if possible. Food service can employ the use of AI apps, such as Winnow, which has been found to cut kitchen waste by 50% or more.
5. Check for certifications
Choosing food that is sustainably sourced – meaning it comes from ecosystems that are managed according to environmental standards that enable regeneration – is a strong circular choice. A range of sustainable and carbon-neutral certification schemes aim to provide this ethical stamp to consumers. Nowadays, even cheese can come with a PAS2060 certification, the international mark of carbon neutrality.
Eating a primarily plant-based diet could slash global emissions by 1.32 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.
—@circleeconomy
6. Support local
Sometimes we need to look to the past to learn lessons for the future. Practising the habits of our grandparents by going local and regionalwhen picking our ingredients can have substantial environmental plus points. This often reduces the need for hot-housing vegetables, which equates to a reduction in fuel inputs, plus fewer food miles and lower transportation impacts. Supporting or practising urban, organic and precision farming modelscan also eliminate harmful synthetic fertiliser use, a huge source of emissions on its own.
In the UK, interest in allotments soared during the COVID-19 pandemic as home-grown food caught on. Lastly, backed by carbon-neutral biomass certification, using food waste and losses as animal feed – instead of the usual soy-based feeds – is an age-old tradition that will support the growth of secondary markets, take a chunk out of livestock emissions and help to avoid deforestation. While it’s not legal in the EU, it’s a successful practice in Japan and South Korea, where about 40% of food waste is used as feed.
7. Cook clean
Finally, cooking with polluting fuels is a silent killer: nearly 4 million people die a year from illness related to the associated pollution. Food preparation resources can also be made more circular, and safe, by replacing polluting traditional biomass and black carbon producing stoves with clean cooking apparatuses, including advanced solar-electric stoves. Increasing access to clean and sustainable energy around the world will be key to making this circular act available to those who most need it.
Homes and buildings and the circular economy
Providing shelter for the world is the most intensive “need” in terms of resources and emissions. Buildings are often developed without regard for the ecosystems of which they are a part. And in our civilisation’s history, we have built a lot: the mass of human-made things, from pavements to apartments to phones, now outweighs all natural biomass, such as trees and animals. Using circular economy strategies to lessen the load of our housing needs on the environment, and building with (rather than over) nature is imperative. Fulfilling the global economy’s need for housing is currently responsible for nearly 40 billion tonnes of resources and 13.5 billion tonnes of GHG emissions a year.
Multi-purpose buildings reduce the overall floor space needed and optimise resource efficiency, and also deliver proportional savings on heating and cooling.
—@circleeconomy
8. Design flexible, multi-purpose homes
To make our need for housing circular, we must ultimately call for fewer, but better, new houses to be built and make using them for multiple purposes the norm, especially in higher-income countries where we have masses of stock already built up. To make the most of the buildings we already have, they should be used flexibly and be able to adapt as time and needs evolve. Imagine a hybrid building that is used as a flex-work office space, a community centre and an evening school. Such spaces can be payment-per-use, such as the cross-industry collaborative building Dutch Mountains in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Multi-purpose buildings reduce the overall floor space needed and optimise resource efficiency, and also deliver proportional savings on heating and cooling. These savings will be further boosted by cuts in energy consumption that can be practised by anyone: lower room temperatures, smart metering and improved thermal insulation.
9. Use existing homes for longer
To continue making the most of the buildings already gracing the Earth, we must prioritise extending the lifetime of existing stock. Up until the 1960s there were strong traditions of reusing and sorting building materials, but this began to change as the construction industry in Europe moved from lime mortar to cement mortar, building materials became cheaper, and there were fewer requirements regarding the service life of buildings. Supporting and urging government interventions that ban building with virgin materials and policies to cap new construction in line with available volumes of secondary materials for building can reduce the need to extract finite materials from the Earth. Ultimately, waste from demolished buildings can be processed into new building materials, such as concrete mix or building sand. These options massively boost resource efficiency in production and performance.
10. No building left behind – or empty
Core circular methods must be practised at all levels, from the consumer to the national government. These include renovation, refurbishment, retrofitting and modular design. Modular design allows us to easily adapt buildings over time to suit changing needs and carries the potential for deconstruction, relocation and reuse of elements (or even whole buildings). Underused and disused buildings should also be occupied – in a time of resource scarcity buildings should not be sitting empty. Only with these methods can we try tomeet the global housing demand within our global stock limits.
11. Nature-based solutions and renewable technologies
Nature-based solutions (NBS) can also lower material and energy demand for housing. We can be inspired by low-energy approachessuch as Passivhaus design (this minimises the requirements for mechanical space heating, cooling and ventilation), while also applying renewable technologies such as solar photovoltaic or thermal, air-source and geothermal heat pumps to shrink the carbon footprint of a property. The Mahali Hub in South Africa are modular homes built with upcycled and locally available materials and a range of sustainable additions such as rainwater harvesting and passive cooling, resulting in net-zero homes.
We need to see the widespread use of low-carbon construction materials, material lightweighting and local sourcing to help to cut embodied energy in the housing system. And to add some regenerative power, the use of natural or renewable building materials, such as wood, straw and hemp, can boost biodiversity and regenerate ecosystems, while also generally slashing material footprints due to their lightweight character. Green roofs and living walls are all examples of NBS interventions with regenerative benefits, at least in terms of thermal performance, water management, biodiversity and air quality.
To dive into these 21 circular solutions that can bring us back on a 1.5 degree pathway, and understand the key role local and national governments and businesses play in driving the circular transition, download the Circularity Gap Report 2022.
Consuming and producing goods and the circular economy
Fulfilling the societal need for consumables – a diverse group of items ranging from refrigerators and furniture to clothing and cleaning agents – is not hugely resource-intensive compared to housing, for example, at 6.9 billion tonnes of resources and 5.6 billion tonnes of GHG a year. However, it’s incredibly wasteful, toxic and it is a huge drain on a different set of resources: cotton, synthetic, fossil fuel-based materials such as polyester and all the dye pigments and chemicals that go with it.
The production of low-cost, synthetic materials, which form the backbone of cheap, fast fashion, has increased nine-fold in the past 50 years, using around 350 million barrels of oil each year and shedding microplastics in the process. Meanwhile, the fashion industry is responsible for a fifth of waste water globally. That’s why we must move towards a circular economy.
Shifting consumption choices and mainstreaming circular design, both usage and acquisition rates can decline.
—@circleeconomy
12. Make careful consumer choices
As we know by now, we need to begin by using less. Aside from conscious choices and utilising the all-important r-word – refuse – we need to start with the efficient design and use of consumer products. By shifting consumption choices and mainstreaming circular design, both usage and acquisition rates can decline. Tangible actions include: increasing digitisation to reduce paper use; not making textiles from animals; aiming to eradicate single-use plastic; optimising the usage of electronics to minimise e-waste; choosing only eco-labelled responsibly-sourced timber furniture, and prioritising local purchasing and sourcing.
13. Get repairing and sharing
We must also learn to make the most of the stuff we have. Here, encouraging repair, maintenance, sharing, re-manufacturing and take-back programmes for textiles, appliances, furniture and machineryare powerful and should form the base of circular systems. Durable denim meets circular business models in the case of Kuyichi: the company’s resale business model offers a take-back scheme for customers to easily give their denim a new lease of life to their denim, as well as a resale service for preloved goods.
14. Support ‘right to repair’
The backwards practice of designing products to break relatively quickly, planned or built-in obsolescence, must be eliminated, or we should choose not to invest in the companies that fail to do so. A phone with an old battery should not have to be tossed out and replaced, but should instead be repaired, the battery replaced easily with available and value-for-money replacement parts. Design for disassembly, customisation and replacement parts are all practical and marketable options that should become mainstream. The EU has no dedicated policy in place to stop the absurd practice of planned obsolescence, yet, Biden in the US has taken a bold and necessary step in formally backing “right to repair” legislation that calls on companies to release the knowledge and tools required to repair many common devices.
15. Consider chemicals
To reduce the level of toxins and pollutants in the environment, we should prioritise the use of sustainable materials for chemical-free consumables. This is imperative in light of recent research that posits that the fifth planetary boundary to be surpassed is chemical pollution – spurred by plastics and chemicals from farmland fertilisers, for example, leaching into the environment. We use products and dispose of them, but they don’t just go away. To avoid further environmental degradation, businesses and consumers alike can prioritise bio-based alternatives, chemicals leasing and natural fertilisers, and organic compost in gardens.
16. Recycle and help build secondary markets
We can also look to recycle our consumables when refusing, repairing or refurbishing are not possible avenues. Closing loops and boosting value in secondary markets will allow a circular market for consumables to thrive. To get there, governments must promote the recycling of plastics, synthetic fibres, paper, wood and wood by-products; as well as specifying recycled content obligations, and substituting them where possible for virgin or raw material. On the plastics front, a range of legislation in this arena has been rolled out: by 2030, all plastic bottles in the EU must contain 30% recycled content, while this stands at 50% in California; and in Maharashtra in India, industrial packaging produced in the state must include 20% recycled content. All steps in the right direction, but this has got to move faster, while concurrently turning off the plastics tap by reducing unnecessary plastics production. If applied globally, this could cut 1.23 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and save 2.18 billion tonnes of materials, according to the Circularity Gap Report 2022.
Mobility, travel and the circular economy
Mobility systems in their current form are responsible for 8.7 billion tonnes of resources and 17.1 billion tonnes of GHG emissions a year – coming in second only to housing. With its mammoth footprint and contribution to air pollution worldwide, mobility is commonly associated with GHG emissions reduction in the minds of both policymakers and the public.
Current mobility habits leave much to be desired. Privately owned vehicles in Europe sit unused for 90% of the time, while the phenomenon of “ghost flights” recently shocked the world: airlines flying empty planes just to retain flight slots, all the while spewing GHG emissions. From driving to flying, opportunities for change are plentiful as we look towards a circular economy.
We can learn a lot from the behaviours practiced during the COVID-19 lockdowns – namely a cut in long-distance travel and telecommuting for work.
—@circleeconomy
17. Travel less often
When it comes to cutting the resource and emissions intensity of mobility, the simplest way is to reduce travel. We can learn a lot from the behaviours practiced during the COVID-19 lockdowns – namely a cut in long-distance travel and telecommuting for work. Post-pandemic, these environmentally friendly behaviours can continue to be encouraged through a range of interventions.
The provision of regional and local hubs – the so-called 15-minute city being piloted in both Paris, the US and China, for example – allows residents to reach amenities within 15 minutes, either by foot, bike or public transport. Shared and virtual offices, telecommuting and working from home when possible can continue to be promoted by employers, especially as many companies acknowledge that staff productivity was maintained.
18. Go for lightweight designs
Vehicle design improvements are another more incremental way to reduce the level of materials used in mobility. Lightweight and smaller vehicles, such as cars and scooters, result in less steel and aluminium used for production, as well as lower fuel consumption and embodied energy.
19. Keep your car for longer
When it comes to prioritising durable design and material selection, plus optimising repairability and maximising maintenance, we can also use materials for longer – extending the lifetime of vehicles.
20. Share when you can
As well as better designed vehicles, better utilisation of all vehicles will further reduce the intensity of this societal need. With personal vehicle ownership no longer the dream it once was, interventions include shared mobility, via car clubs and pools, ride-sharing, and public transport, with park-and-ride provision to cut fuel consumption.
21. Design for reuse
Finally, optimising end-of-life vehicle management is critical to cycle flows, with the recycling of metal and plastic components, and the use of recycled materials, on the rise.
To dive into these 21 circular solutions that can bring us back on a 1.5 degree pathway, and understand the key role local and national governments and businesses play in driving the circular transition, download the Circularity Gap Report 2022.
What started as a weekend passion project between friends, Thryft is now established as Singapore’s first sustainable online bookstore.
Thryft is an online site that allows people to trade in second-hand books in exchange for credits that can be spent on the platform. A group of students, Eddie Lim, Choy Jia Yu and Tan Ye Kai conceived the idea while studying at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The founders hope that by encouraging people to resell books and buy pre-loved ones, it will minimise waste. Old books gain a new lease of life while avid readers can create space for exciting new reads. Thryft has resold over 12,000 second-hand books since it began operating two years ago.
The platform uses algorithms to determine the trade-in value based on the current first-hand retail price, popularity and market saturation. Thryft’s community commitment operates on a 10, 50, and 100 per cent model. Ten per cent of their profits go to non-profit organisations on a quarterly basis to support tackling urgent environmental and social issues. Fifty per cent of their profits are donated to various social organisations. Non-profit organisations are able to list their books on the platform at no cost and take back 100 per cent of the profits from what they manage to sell.
Eco-Business sat down with the three bookworms to learn more about Thryft, their personal experiences in running a business, and the advice they would give to other budding entrepreneurs looking to make a name in the sustainability sphere.
Eddie: To add on to that, I don’t think many people know that we’re still students. Customers can be very demanding because they expect a full-time team to be behind Thryft. Even still, we try to be closely aligned to professional standards.
The Thryft team. Image: Thryft
With the surge of e-books in recent years, why did you choose to focus on physical books?
Ye Kai: If you look at the statistics in the past five years or so, after the initial surge of e-books in 2014-2016, we saw a steady decline and instead it was more ‘trendy’ to have print books. In the United Kingdom alone, 200 million physical books were sold last year. But, where do all the books end up? That was an important question we wanted to answer.
Eddie: There’s also an alarming statistic that every Singaporean household has an average of 52 books. With over 1.3 million households, that’s over 68 million books just lying around. So what can we do about all these resources? According to data, the trend is still increasing. These are key questions that we are trying to address.
What are your thoughts on the sustainability scene in Singapore?
Jia Yu: There’s a growing urgency where people are beginning to realise there is a need to reduce their plastic usage. People are also looking for more sustainable options when they shop. Especially in the past three years, there are more brands offering sustainable clothing or household items. There are more secondhand stores too. It’s encouraging to see this mindset gain popularity.
Do you think that the Asian/Singaporean stigma towards second-hand items is changing?
Eddie: Unfortunately, there aren’t many statistics or a lot of data in Singapore. However, the largest online second-hand fashion retailer in the United States, ThredUp, has said that it is outgrowing the traditional retail market by 11 times. There’s a general acceptance of second-hand items, particularly by millennials who are slowly reaching the stage where they have purchasing power. In that sense, the trend is likely to continue. Although there aren’t many robust reports available here, there are many sustainability-focused businesses popping up, so it definitely carries on in Singapore as well.
What advice would you give to young entrepreneurs looking to start a sustainable organisation like Thryft?
Jia Yu: One piece of advice would be to think about systems. Everything is interlinked and for us, because we’re trying to facilitate the movement of second-hand goods, our focus is placed on building a system that works for people. For entrepreneurs looking to start their own company, they should explore how their ideas can link systems together too.
You have to see meaning in what you do too. Owning a business is often difficult, and it’s very easy to get lost in all the operational or logistic challenges. Our motivation is making a circular economy of books within Singapore and Southeast Asia, as well as opening up opportunities for people who don’t have access to second-hand books. It helps push us and keeps us focused on what we’re really doing here.
Ye Kai: My advice is to be aware that you’re in it for the long term. Building a business doesn’t take one or two years, it’s more of a 10 year or more journey. A lot of people our age start with weekend projects just to see where it goes, but it’s important to keep the end in mind. When it shifts from a passion project to an actual business, that is when things get hard.
What does 2022 look like for Thryft?
Eddie: We started having monthly book fairs this year, but because of the pandemic it had to be switched from physical to virtual. Now that things have settled down, we are excited about hosting fairs again next year.
We also recently received the SG Eco Fund grant to run a sustainability fair. The idea is to host it a convention centre where like-minded vendors can set up booths and customers can bring items from their homes to trade them in. It’s a fun way for people who are quite new to sustainability to dip their toes in and try it out.
How did the idea for Thryft come about?
Eddie: I previously worked at a big data and Artificial Intelligence-related startup and I would get at least two cups of coffee every day. Three months into the job, I realised I had amassed over 100 cups. Just the thought of all those cups struck something in me; that an individual can make such a significant impact on the environment. That was when I started getting concerned about sustainability issues.
Our school has a small Facebook group where students can list and sell second-hand textbooks within the community. It got me thinking about what made this idea work compared to my own personal experience on public platforms (like Carousell) which are branded as marketplaces for buyers and sellers. The difference lies in the fact that all us students stay in the same student accommodation which offers great convenience. This allows us to move lower value goods easily and efficiently.
Trying to replicate this on large online marketplaces introduces inconveniences such as location and price negotiation. So, I began brainstorming ways to change the process of moving our pre-loved books quicker. By using data, we have created an algorithm that helps us arrive at a fair value for these second-hand books. This idea started out as a weekend project with friends, where we tested the first version of the algorithm to see how well we predicted prices. It continued from there.
Jia Yu: I started a thrift shop with a few friends when I started college in 2019 and we operated on a point system, whereby people could trade-in clothing for points depending on the quality of the donated item. One of the disadvantages I observed was that it was logistically and operationally challenging. For example, it is difficult to determine the actual value of the clothing, so even if someone traded in a high-end luxury item, it would be priced the same as a cheaper garment. When Eddie came to me with his algorithm, we realised we could help each other out.
What are some challenges you have faced growing this company?
Ye Kai: Aside from the obvious technical aspects that we had to learn, I would say our biggest challenge was just juggling work, school, and personal life. We are all still full-time students, and we started Thryft in Year 2. Trying to build a successful business forced us to learn how to better prioritise our responsibilities.
You will get six cents for every 1kg of paper deposited at a recycling machine.
That is the carrot dangled at 78 machines in Housing Board estates islandwide, under a new initiative that aims to bring green living to all 15 towns managed by the People’s Action Party.
The Action for Green Towns drive will see other measures being implemented by 2025, including energy-saving smart sensors in common areas.
Details of how these efforts will be rolled out were announced on Saturday (Dec 4) by the PAP at Block 68 Geylang Bahru, one of 58 locations which already have paper recycling machines.
The remaining 20 will be set up at various locations with high residential footfall such as shopping malls and markets by the end of December.
Mr Lim Biow Chuan, coordinating chairman for PAP town councils, said: “What you will see is that people bring the newspaper down and dump it at (bins at) the void deck. That’s a fire hazard and we will have to see whether a karung guni man comes and collects it.
“So it’s either dump at the dustbin and not earn anything or you can bring it (to the machines), do your part to recycle and earn some money in the process.”
Launched in May, the Action for Green Towns initiative will see MPs from each of the 15 PAP town councils work closely with residents to support sustainability.
The paper recycling machines each aims to recycle one tonne of paper every month.ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
Dr Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah, an MP for Jalan Besar GRC who chairs the Action for Green Towns task force, said ambassadors will be deployed at the recycling machines to share more about the sustainability push with residents.
For now, the task force is focusing on raising awareness among residents and engaging with stakeholders such as sustainability experts.
Dr Wan Rizal said: “We are trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone to come on board before we move further.”
Future initiatives could include the greening of lift lobbies and corridors.
To enhance energy efficiency, smart sensors will be installed in common areas with lower traffic, such that when no motion is detected, the lights can be dimmed or turned off.
This measure is expected to reduce up to 62 million kWh of energy usage by 2025, equivalent to the energy used by 14,452 four-room HDB homes in a year.
The Action for Green Towns drive will see other measures being implemented by 2025 including energy-saving smart sensors in common areas. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
Meanwhile, the paper recycling machines each aims to recycle one tonne of paper every month.
This will save 17 trees from being cut to obtain the pulp needed to produce one tonne of paper.
Civil servant Lau Chun Wai, 41, a resident of Block 65 that is a three-minute walk from the recycling machine at Block 68, said it is more convenient for him to recycle paper products now.
“During the pandemic, when we work from home or shop online, we would have accumulated paper products like cardboard or documents. In the offices, cleaners can help to clear the trash or we would shred them.
“But at home, we don’t have a shredder, so having such machines can help us recycle,” he noted.
Emission-free hydrogen could, one day, entirely replace fossil fuels – and a start up in Germany believes it has the key ingredient to make it accessible to all.
Born in a climate-change affected South Pacific Island, Vaitea Cowan believes deeply in green hydrogen technology. She co-founded Enapter more than three years ago.
“I wanted to replace all the diesel generators in New Caledonia and all the remote areas that didn’t need to rely on dirty diesel, ” she says.
“But then realising the potential for green hydrogen to replace fossil fuels, I wanted to be part of this change.”
Green solutions will only be adopted if they are the most economically attractive. And that’s our mission at an after to make green hydrogen cost-competitive with fossil fuels.
Vaitea Cowan, Co-founder, Enapter
With headquarters in Germany, the company has deployed its ion exchange membrane electrolysers in over 100 projects across 33 countries. The technology turns renewable electricity into emission-free hydrogen gas.
Developed more quickly and cheaply than once thought possible, the AEM electrolyser already fuels cars and planes, powers industry and heats homes.
Enapter’s hydrogen generators have recently won Prince William’s Earthshot Prize in the ‘Fix Our Climate’ category.
What is green hydrogen?
Much of the planet’s hydrogen is locked up in water. So-called ‘green’ hydrogen is an emission-free way of extracting it. This extraction relies on renewable energy, which is used to power electrolysis. Electrolysis is the chemical process needed to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the water.
Extracting hydrogen this way has been facing criticism, because of its low efficiency and high cost. Enapter says, however, that their AEM Electrolyser solves these problems and provides a quick and easy way to produce green energy, even at home.
Half of the water used to flush a toilet can power a home for days
Enapter says its electrolyser uses about 2.4 litres of water to generate enough hydrogen for a couple’s home for several days.
However, the exact number of days depends on the power storage capacity. This amount of water is equal to half of the water used for flushing a toilet once (5 litres), and eight times less than the water consumption of a dishwasher (20 litres).
