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Cloud technology could be the most disruptive digital tool for empowering ASEAN’s vulnerable communities

Posted on March 29, 2021 by dishanth

Cloud technology in Asia Pacific is projected to grow dramatically in the next few years, and plays a crucial role in modernising and empowering communities across the region. But it is not without challenges to ensure its benefits are broadly felt.

Cloud technology plays a crucial role in modernising and empowering communities across Southeast Asia, from boosting financial inclusion to streamlining access to formal markets for smallholder farmers, according to a report by Eco-Business Research launched on Friday (19 March). But multiple stakeholders must collaborate to ensure that there is true democratisation of cloud technology across the region.

Cloud technology – the delivery of on-demand computing services through a network of remote servers – is projected to grow by 117 per cent in Asia Pacific between 2019 and 2024, according to GlobalData with more businesses allotting bigger budgets towards it.

Cloud needs minimal infrastructure and investment while it has the ability for companies to operate at scale quickly making it particularly appealing for emerging economies.

Nevertheless, the development and adoption of cloud technology vary considerably across the five focus countries studied in the Eco-Buisness report.

Singapore is a leader in cloud adoption and growth potential, which is underpinned by its robust infrastructure and enabling policies. It is ranked top in the Eco-Business Cloud Opportunity Matrix. Its ‘Smart City, Smart Nation’ initiative places heavy focus on cloud technology to enable a more efficient provision of services and to streamline government systems.

Parking, tax and government platforms allowing you to register births and businesses are powered by cloud technology. “We now have the ability to use data to manage transport systems like never before,” Jamie Leather, chief of Transport Sector Group, Asian Development Bank said in the report.

Thailand and Malaysia are ranked next in the matrix, with conducive regulatory environments and relatively high digital penetration at around 80 per cent of the populations in both countries.

Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia, and the Philippines still have some way to go, the report noted, with both countries lacking the bedrock digital infrastructure needed to propel cloud technology.

Nevertheless, Indonesia is one to watch as it is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud computing, with a thriving digital start-up industry boasting companies such as multi-service platform and digital payment group, Gojek and e-commerce company, Tokopedia.

Growing pains are to be expected as digital infrastructure, awareness and enabling policies develop alongside the uptake of cloud technology.

“Everyone is still on this journey, no-one has a solution for best practice,” said Calum Handforth during a panel discussion launching the paper, and who advises on smart cities and digitalisation for the United Nations Development Programme.

Breaches in data privacy are a headache for both public and private sector entities and could undermine the adoption of cloud technology, despite most providers having robust security systems in place, the report said. Singapore’s digital success story is marred by serious data breaches including one in 2018 when hackers accessed 1.5 million medical records, including those of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

“Governments are upskilling their ability to understand the discussions around privacy and security,” May Ann Lim, executive director of Asia Cloud Computing Association, said in the report.

Cloud technology is in a strong position to be a “force for good” the report said, enabling collaborative cross-border efforts to cohesively deal with cybercrime. However, borders must stay open to allow cloudtech to maximise on trade and economic opportunities. The report suggests the creation of a “common set of principles governing cross-border data flows” will boost economic competitiveness collectively as a region.

The report said that the digital divide is a major impediment to cloud technology. Some in Southeast Asia are being left behind in the race to digitise with stuttering power supply and unstable internet provision in developing markets including the Philippines and Indonesia.

Even in markets with high internet provision, “policymakers and digital service providers need to address the disparity between different segments of society,” the report charged. Meanwhile, improving computer literacy is instrumental in ensuring cloud technology is inclusive of all.

The report showcases several examples of best-practice in the region. Indonesia has rising potential in using cloud technology to help support and modernise agribusiness. “The farm-to-customer model has also helped the industry address the ongoing problem of multiple middlemen who typically take a 10 to 15 per cent margin each,” according to the report.

There is potential for smallholders to tap into the e-commerce market using cloud-powered apps as the country’s growing middle class opts for online shopping over the traditional open-air ‘wet’ market, Purnama Adil Marata, an expert in agribusiness in Indonesia told the panel. Meanwhile, cloud-powered innovations can “make modern farming more inclusive for the smallholder farmer,” Marata added.

Cloud has also played a part in facilitating access to finance for smallholder farmers in Southeast Asia, home to one of the world’s largest unbanked populations. By leapfrogging bricks-and-mortar banking, Indonesia’s farmers, one of the poorest groups in the region that would be ordinarily regarded as high-risk borrowers by traditional financers, can tap into micro-loans as well as agricultural cooperatives where farmers can pool their resources.

“These cloud-enabled lending platforms have also provided farmers with legitimate and safer alternatives to predatory loan sharks,” said the report.

More collaboration is needed in the region to maximise cloud potential. “For this to work, it requires more than just technology…you need to combine it with leadership,” Jane Treadwell from Amazon Web Services said during the panel discussion, whose backlog of experience also includes the digital transformation of governments for the World Bank.

Greater collaboration is needed between government, the private sector, academia and customers to ensure democratisation of the cloud, and that the benefits of this technology can help the most vulnerable people in the region. “Without partnerships, collaborations, we have nothing,” Akanksha Bilani, regional alliance head at Intel told panellists.

By Gillian Parker

Source Eco Business

Asian companies claim they are going net-zero — but are their targets realistic, ambitious or greenwash?

Posted on March 29, 2021 by dishanth

The race is on for the business world to figure out how to sustain economic growth and go carbon-free.

The penny seems to be dropping that avoiding climate action comes with financial risks. Last October, 200 of the world’s largest multinational companies said they would achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Among them were Asian companies in sin industries linked with spotty environmental records such as Sinopec and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL). Chevron, Philip Morris and DuPont were also among those that made pledges.

By 2050, climate change will shrink the global economy by 3 per cent as drought, flooding, crop failure and infrastructure damage become more severe — unless drastic action is taken to bend the curve on global warming, according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The Covid-19 pandemic — which has been called a “dress rehearsal” for climate change — has accelerated the urgency to mitigate the impacts of climate change which cost the global economy billions every year.

“Suddenly, corporates have realised that if we’re going for a 1.5 degrees Celsius cap on global warming [the goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change], we have to hit net zero by 2030. It’ll be very expensive to decarbonise any later,” said Malavika Bambawale, Asia Pacific head of sustainability solutions at Engie Impact, a decarbonisation consultancy.

“What is the cost of not decarbonising? That is the question businesses should really be asking themselves.”
Pratima Divgi, director, Hong Kong, Asean, Oceania, CDP

Western businesses have led the way, with the likes of Microsoft saying it will make “the biggest commitment in our history” by removing all of the carbon it has put into the atmosphere since its founding in 1975. Asian companies have been slower to commit. “A lot of Asian companies are further down the supply chain, so they can hide for longer,” says Bambawale.

But climate action in a region that produces more than half of global emissions is cranking up. Of the 1,200 or so firms that have signed up to the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which helps companies cut their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, 250 Asian companies have set carbon-cutting targets or are in the process of getting targets approved — a 57 per cent increase between 2019 and 2020. Forty-eight of those 250 firms have aligned their business models with the Paris agreement.

“From a small base, corporate decarbonisation is growing in Asia Pacific,” says Pratima Divgi, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand director at CDP, a carbon disclosure non-proft that co-developed the SBTi. Companies that have signed up to the SBTi include Hong Kong real estate firm Swire Properties, Chinese computer giant Lenovo, and Malaysian textile firm Tai Wah Garments Industry.

National-level policy commitments, like China, Korea and Japan’s net-zero declarations over the past six months have set the tone for Asian corporate decarbonisation. Competition is helping. Australian supermarket chain Coles declared a 2050 net zero target six months after rival Woolworths did the same, and Singaporean real estate firm City Developments Limited (CDL) made a net zero pledge the week after competitor Frasers Property. Gojek and Grab are racing to be the first ride-hailing app in Southeast Asia to declare a decarbonisation target.

“Now that market leaders such as CDL have made net-zero commitments, it will be harder for their competitors to sit and wait,” says Bambawale.

Malaysian oil and gas giant Petronas announced in October that it would hit net-zero by 2050, a month after PetroChina, the region’s largest oil company, said it would be “near-zero” by mid-century.

Aspiration versus reality

But questions hang over how Asia’s big-polluters will realise their declared targets. Ensuring the big emitters share detailed plans and a budget to support their carbon neutral declarations is key for accountability.

PetroChina’s announcement came with “frustratingly little detail”, commented renewables consultancy Wood MacKenzie. The oil giant aims to spend just 1-2 per cent of its total budget on renewable energy between now and 2025. This compares to Italian oil major Eni’s planned 20 per cent of total spend on renewables by 2023 and BP’s 33 per cent by 2030.

Petronas’ own 2050 net-zero pledge is an “aspiration” and not a science-based target that aligns the firm with the Paris Agreement.

“Aspirational targets can only go so far — science-based targets also need to clearly allocate interim short- to medium-term targets to work out what this transformation means to your business and value chain,” says Divgi.

Setting a science-based carbon reduction target takes time. Singapore-based transport firm ComfortDelGro has given itself two years to set science-based goals, but the company avoided giving a carbon reduction timeline in its announcement earlier this month.

Other companies are also being selective with the information they make public. This could be because they do not want to reveal the extent to which they intend on decarbonising, or because they do not have a plan yet. CDL has pledged that it will be net-zero by 2030 — 20 years ahead of competitor Frasers Property — but has declined to give further detail on how it will meet this target.

CDL’s carbon commitment is limited to its wholly-owned assets and developments under its direct control, while Frasers Property is aiming to remove emissions from its entire value chain.

Why carbon dieting is difficult

For major emitters like oil and gas firms, decarbonising means transforming their business model without going out of business. Petronas told Eco-Business that meeting its 2050 target “won’t be easy”, and would require the company to “re-strategise how we do our business, with the focus no longer being on profitability or production capacity alone”.

Petronas plans include hydrocarbon flaring and venting, developing low and zero carbon fuels, capturing emissions and investing in nature-based solutions. It also plans to cap emissions to 49.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent for its Malaysia operations by 2024, and increase renewable energy capacity to 3,000 megawatts by the same year.

Meeting its target would “requires us to strike an equitable balance between providing low carbon solutions while still ensuring energy security and business profitability,” said the company’s group health, safety, security and environment vice-president, Dzafri Sham Ahmad.

But removing the carbon from a company’s operations is no longer deemed enough. The indirect emissions that occur in the entire value chain — known as scope 3 emissions — are becoming the new business imperative. A new report from CDP found that emissions from a company’s supply chain are on average 11.4 times higher than its operational emissions – double previous estimates. ExxonMobil’s scope 3 emissions from the use of its products exceed the national annual emissions of Canada, it was revealed in January.

“Achieving this aspiration will require us to re-strategise how we do our business, with the focus no longer being on profitability or production capacity alone.”

Dzafri Sham Ahmad, vice-president, group health, safety, security and environment, Petronas

Electric vehicle makers such as Telsa are now asking questions about the emissions of their nickel suppliers while computer giant Apple wants to source low-carbon semiconductor chips. But tackling scope 3 emissions is tricky. For instance, how do Singapore construction companies reduce the imported carbon of building materials sourced from China, where electricity is generated from coal? And how does a building owner persuade its tenants to turn down the air-conditioning?

“Reducing scope 3 emissions looks easy enough from the top down. But for people in the field operating the assets it can be a nightmare,” says J. Sarvaiya, an engineer who’s an expert in decarbonisation.

Balancing the carbon books by sourcing renewable energy is also difficult in a region where fossil fuels are still the dominant power source, and where a diversity of regulatory landscapes has made scaling renewables hard and where prices remain high in places. This has led Asian companies to focus on reducing energy consumption first, before looking at procuring renewables, notes Bambawale.

But energy capping is not easy in a high-growth region with escalating energy needs. Southeast Asia’s energy consumption is growing by 4 per cent a year — twice the rate of the rest of the world — and much of that demand comes through cooling as global temperatures rise. Some 30 per cent of a business’s energy bill in this region goes on cooling, says Bambawale.

Offset or cut?

Facing so many challenges, it’s tempting for businesses to buy their way to net-zero. Carbon offsets, where companies fund projects that capture or store greenhouse gas emissions to offset their own, are becoming an increasingly popular path to carbon neutrality. Singapore state investor Temasek was one of Asia’s first companies to neutralise the carbon emissions of its operations last year, and did so primarily by buying carbon offsets. Petronas is also relying on offsets as part of its ‘measure, reduce, offset’ net-zero drive.

But offsets are drawing growing scepticism because they enable businesses to carry on as usual, without reducing their actual footprint. “Many companies find that it’s cheaper to reach net-zero by purchasing offsets. It may cost more to replace old technology with more efficient kit than buying offsets,” says Sarvaiya.

Offsets are a necessary piece of the decarbonisation puzzle — but the quality of offset is key, says Bambawale. Companies should ensure that an offset is additional—that is, the carbon reduction would not have happened without the company’s effort. It should also have permanent, rather than temporary, impact. And it should not cause any sort of environmental or social harm. Proving all of that is difficult. “Companies could spend years checking and validating that an offset is actually happening,” says Bambawale.

Offsets will get more problematic the warmer the world gets, Sarvaiya points out. The ability of plants to absorb carbon declines in a warmer world, so more trees will have to be planted to balance the carbon books. Buying renewable energy faces a similar issue. Every one degree increase of surface temperature reduces the efficiency of solar panels by 0.5 per cent.

Companies are also looking to emerging technologies to help them hit carbon goals. In Singapore, concrete producer Pan-United and Keppel Data Centres are part of a consortium that is banking on carbon capture, use and storage technology that won’t be online for another five to 10 years to reduce the carbon impact of the city-state’s oil refining, petrochemicals and chemicals sectors.

Heavy-emitting sectors such as steel production, aviation and shipping have high hopes for hydrogen power, which is considered the missing piece of the renewables puzzle. But questions over cost and transportation make hydrogen a fuel for the future for now. “Moonshot ideas should be the last step,” says Bambawale.

Why net-zero is not just hot air

In Southeast Asia, where governments have shown little interest in decarbonising their economies in their post-pandemic recovery plans, there is less incentive for businesses to cut their carbon footprints amid the struggle to stay afloat.

But a wave of commitments to decarbonisation in the past 18 months will likely lead to more. Scores of businesses have signed up for science-based targets during the pandemic, which has played a part in pushing others towards net-zero, says Divgi, adding that a Southeast Asian bank recently committed to SBTi whose suppliers’ emissions were 400 times its own.

Another indicator of interest in corporate climate action is the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a global framework for companies to disclose the financial risks they face from climate change. CDP has seen a 20 per cent increase in TCFD disclosures in Asia over the last year, Divgi notes.

More companies are trying to assess the financial implications of the transition to a low-carbon economy, and the more progressive companies have recognised that calculating climate risk is not a reporting exercise, it’s a strategic one, says Divgi.

“We’re not saying that it [decarbonising] is without problems. There’s a huge level of transformation involved, but climate change presents both a financial and an existential challenge for many businesses,” she says.

“What is the cost of not decarbonising — that is the question that businesses should really be asking themselves.”

By Robin Hicks

Source Eco Business

Climate justice and human rights movements must go hand-in-hand

Posted on March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 by dishanth

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

The climate justice and human rights movements have been on separate paths for far too long. Both have made considerable progress in the past decade, but if we are going to see the type of transformational change that our times require in either, the two must come together.

Recent advancements indicate that this is starting to take place.

The climate movement reached a watershed moment when the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016. Over 196 governments around the world set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, an unprecedented challenge of coordination and action.

They also sent a bold message to actors across all sectors – from finance and business, to civil society and philanthropy – that it was time for action.

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

Concurrently, the field of business and human rights rapidly accelerated in 2010 when the United Nations endorsed the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), a framework to prevent and address the risk of adverse impacts of business activities on human rights.

Governments have been encouraged to translate the UNGPs into national action plans or roadmaps. At the same time, demands on the corporate sector to implement human rights due diligence, a central component of the UNGPs, intensified.

Lawmakers saw an opportunity to recognise the expectation of due diligence behaviour on the part of companies, and governments started legal mandates, including the French Devoir de Vigilance law of 2017, the Dutch Child Labour Law of 2019.

Most recently, the European Parliament indicated through a large majority the likelihood of adopting an EU-wide mandatory due diligence law that would cover human rights and environmental issues.

Both the Paris Agreement and the advancements towards mandatory due diligence have the potential for a huge, transformational effect across our economy.

As governments and the private sector race to decarbonise and minimise their harmful greenhouse gas emissions, legal requirements on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence are being instituted that can themselves spur this action through incentives and sanctions.

For instance, a company’s failure to decarbonise could be seen as contributing to human rights and environmental violations under a mandatory due diligence regime.

The researcher Chiara Macchi has termed this merger “climate due diligence” and argues it as an emerging notion requiring corporations to assess and address risk, as well as to integrate the climate change dimension into vigilance planning, corporate reporting, external communication and investment decisions.

This concept is being tested in real-time in France. Oil giant Total is being sued by French nonprofit and law firm Sherpa together with 14 French local authorities and four NGOs.

The suit alleges that Total’s failure to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its operations is a violation of the French Devoir de Vigilance law, France’s seminal legislation that required a duty of care from French companies for human rights and environmental harms.

Sandra Cossart, Sherpa’s Director, said: “This law specifically obliges companies to prevent the risks of human rights and environmental violations caused by their activities, and to do so in an appropriate manner. Total is legally required to identify the risks resulting from its contribution to global warming and to take the necessary measures to reduce its emissions.”

(Editor’s note: After the lawsuit was filed in January last year, Total said it regretted the legal action taken, adding it was working in compliance with national legal standards. The case is ongoing.)

The same French law is also being applied to pursue broader climate justice and just transition issues by representatives of the community of Unión Hidalgo in Mexico. The civil lawsuit against Electricité de France (EDF)’s wind park project focuses on the non-compliance of EDF with its vigilance duties to respect human rights by seeking free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous Union Hidalgo community.

(Editor’s note: The EDF did not respond to a request for comment by the Thomson Reuters Foundation about the lawsuit).

The urgency of addressing the climate crisis is clear, and avenues to accelerate needed transformation in our economy are expanding, including through legal mechanisms like mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence.

If Europe moves to a standardised mandatory due diligence approach with a right of action, this could be an incredible tool to shift momentum on corporations in addressing their greenhouse gas emissions. Two distinct paths, the Paris Agreement and the UNGPs and the resulting momentum towards mandatory human rights due diligence, are indeed converging, and this couldn’t happen soon enough.

Amol Mehra is the Director of Industry Transformation at Laudes Foundation, while Ilan Vuddamalay is a Senior Programme Manager for Labour Rights.

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.

Source Eco Business

Singapore renewable energy finance firm Positive Energy scales back as Covid stymies investment

Posted on February 17, 2021 by dishanth

The startup endured a tough 2020, shed staff and its co-founder relocated to the Netherlands as the firm’s only remaining employee. The startup’s struggles reflect the difficulties of renewables entrepreneurship in the Covid era.

Singapore-based renewable energy financing company Positive Energy has scaled back operations after enduring a difficult year impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Positive Energy is a digital platform that connects renewable energy projects to investors, and aims to simplify and speed-up renewable energy project financing. Founded in 2017, the Asia-focused firm makes money by taking a cut of deals made on its platform.

Having raised seed funding and launched the platform in 2019, the firm ran into difficulties after failing to secure further financing in 2020. The platform was suspended late last year, and the company let go employees in Singapore, where it was headquartered, as well as business heads in Vietnam and India.

Co-founder and chief finance officer Vincent Bakker joined another firm at the start of this year. Co-founder and chief executive Nicolas Payen is now the sole employee, and has relocated from Singapore to the Netherlands.

Positive Energy recently landed a waste-to-energy deal that saved the company, and the platform is up and running again, Payen told Eco-Business.

Positive Energy is not the only player in the renewables space to face difficulties over the last year. The pandemic has applied the brakes to development capital, and investors have pulled back in emerging markets, meaning fewer potential deals to run on Positive Energy’s platform. The Covid-induced fall in electricity demand has also slowed the planning and execution of energy deals.

Payen said that although 2021 still presented uncertainties, if Covid vaccinations are rolled out quickly, a return to peak energy demand would follow, and that would mean a need for additional clean energy generation and investment.

“We have seen a number of countries declare net zero ambitions, and a lot of investment will be oriented towards climate friendly technology. So the fundamentals of our business are very strong,” he said.

“We will see growing momentum among climate technology venture capitalists this year. If we get the capital support we need, we can play our role in the energy transition.”

Payen said he remained focused on the company’s mission — rethinking the energy funding process to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy assets globally.

By Robin Hicks

Source EcoBusiness

Financing Sri Lanka’s Renewable Energy Drive – From Energy Storage to Diversification of Energy Generation

Posted on January 21, 2021 by dishanth

I have been following World Bank Group’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Unlocking Investment and Finance in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs)” and have been challenged to draw up a finance and investment strategy for a developing economy of my choosing. With the election season (presidential election in 2019 and parliamentary elections in 2020) drawing closer, I felt that I could focus on Sri Lanka and particularly on its development challenge in meeting its intended Nationally Determined Contribution of reducing GHG emissions in the energy sector by 20% against the Business As Usual scenario and recommend an investment strategy from the point of view of a Government Official. I hope this article will spur further discussion on the options and avenues available for the country in financing the desired transition on the energy profile and serve to inform decision makers on the best course of action.

Sri Lanka has made major strides in its development journey with 100% of the population having access to electricity by the end of 2016 and approximately 83% of all adults having a bank account, with 18.6 bank branches for each 100,000 people in the population as at March 2018. These growth statistics could be taken to mean that the country is managing its energy and financial sectors well, however, a closer look will reveal that behind these respectable numbers are structural weaknesses in domestic resource mobilization and national financing strategy, which impede private sector investment in energy infrastructure and cause inefficiency in the system leading to higher costs for tax payers and higher energy cost for industry (posing a challenge to national competitiveness).

Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), a state-owned enterprise, controls all major functions of electricity generation, transmission, distribution and retailing in Sri Lanka. In attempting to make energy affordable for low-income households, a differentiated tariff regime is in place where the rates for low-energy consuming households are subsidized and some of this subsidy is recovered though higher rates to high-energy consuming households. Whilst subsidized electricity has helped to provide a better quality of life and led to positive externalities, the losses to the Government from this subsidization and reliance on expensive power generation has had to be met through increased taxation (with proportion of indirect taxes being approximately 80%). Therefore, even though low-income households spend less, directly for electricity, as a result of high proportion of indirect taxes, they are footing the heavy losses of the State Owned Utilities (eg: CEB reporting a LKR 23bn loss in Q1 2019).

This distortion in pricing of electricity and the extent of national grid coverage is also limiting renewable energy uptake and possibility of community-based micro-grid systems. In Kenya, with the coverage of the national grid being limited and with mobile money having a rapid uptake, off-grid solutions such as M-Kopa that employs “pay-as-you-go” solar model has seen great success. Similar off-grid solutions are also gathering great momentum in India, with the cost of renewable energy generation becoming cheaper than traditional fossil fuel sources. In Sri Lanka, with over 70% of the population having a mobile connection as at 2017 and with mobile money services such as Frimi and Genie available, “pay-as-you-go” rooftop solar investments are not attractive to many in the bottom of the pyramid because electricity is subsidized.

For high-energy consuming households in Sri Lanka, however, rooftop solar is attractive proposition with payback being between 5 to 8 years. As a result, there is high conversion to solar in this segment (177 MegaWatts (MW) of rooftop solar installed as at April 2019) . This would be a positive development in the country’s ambition on climate action, however, it does not bode well for the CEB, the utility provider, for whom this would mean a loss of revenue, because it is losing the client segment that is paying high tariffs. This would exacerbate the losses further and affect Government’s debt sustainability.

If renewables could provide consistent power, this solar rooftop adoption would not have been an issue. However, with the renewable energy generated being intermittent and with peak demand occurring at night time, CEB, the utility provider, has had to rely on large hydro and thermal power plants to provide the base-load. It also has to pay for peaker plants operated by Independent Power Producers and even buy expensive emergency power, when installed capacity falls short to provide the peak energy demand. The high energy consumers who have taken up rooftop solar systems park the excess power they generate during day to the grid and draw power from grid at night. Therefore, Government has to still incur the costs of maintaining the base-load and buy peak hour supply for night time energy demand.

Therefore, the need of the hour in scaling up renewable energy uptake is to invest in energy storage systems, where the excess energy generated during day can be made use of at night and in bad weather conditions. The Government has identified pumped storage hydropower plant (3 x 200MW in Maha Oya) to come online by 2028 and 125Mw of Battery Capacity Facilities to be set up where timelines have not yet been declared to address this issue. It has also planned for new investments in 1800Mw of solar , 850Mw of wind, 200Mw of Biomass, and 100Mw of Waste to Energy (6 plants).

The investment size for the pumped storage hydropower project is expected to be USD 621mn (USD 1,063/Kw). Delaying the set-up of pumped storage to 2028 will significantly affect amount of renewable energy that could be grid connected and renewable investments that could be scaled up. Government currently plans to invest in 4 new coal power plants due to issues in debt sustainability and grid reliability (noting that coal power is cheaper option and stabilizes the grid), however, if energy storage solutions are integrated to the grid making renewable energy investments feasible and if the inefficient subsidies are gradually replaced by alternate incentives facilitating self sustaining community micro-grids (loan schemes, roof rental for solar companies in working with low-income households, and making P2P energy trading possible through electricity auctions on micro-grids), Government will be able to ensure clean energy supply without having to spend public money on coal power plants, by crowding in private investment. This author came across a proof of concept developed by a group of students from University of Jaffna in having a mobile app for P2P energy trading in Sri Lanka during Sri Lanka’s first fintech hackathon. However, current regulatory set-up does not allow for such electricity trading within community micro-grids as sale of electricity is controlled. Therefore, a serious review on incentives for public engagement in support of the renewable energy drive needs to be undertaken and the enabling environment created.

With regards to funding the energy storage solutions and renewable energy investments (over USD 56 billion is needed between 2017 – 2050 to meet 100% renewable energy generation by Sri Lanka power sector), Government need not be restricted to public finance in financing these large investments. It could and it should crowd in private investment for these sustainable energy infrastructure, rather than place extra burden on the tax payer. It could resort to financing internationally, as the Cost of Funds in Sri Lanka is high. Sri Lanka is yet to issue a Green or Sustainable Bond. As in Fiji, the Government can raise a sovereign green bond or work with Sri Lanka Banks’ Association’s Sustainable Banking Initiative to get local banks to lead on issuing Green Bonds and working with MDBs such as IFC, FMO, etc to support this process. Additionally, Government could tap directly and through partnerships vertical funds such as Global Environmental Facility and Green Climate Fund, where there is additionality and market is not ready to accept the risk return profile of the investments. Recently launched Central Bank of Sri Lanka led Roadmap for Sustainable Finance in Sri Lanka identifies the need to build capacity and integrate financial sector to support the real economy through new solutions such as Green Bonds and there is interest by banks to engage in blended financing. Government should fast track the implementation of this roadmap on sustainable finance and I recommend that the Government work with IFC and Sri Lanka Banks’ Association’s Sustainable Banking Initiative to launch Sri Lanka’s first Green Bond to immediately fund the Pumped Storage (also referred to as Pumped Hydro Energy Storage [PHES] or Pump Water Storage Power Plants [PWSPP]) and Battery Solutions and relevant upgrades to the national grid to transition to a smart grid. London Stock Exchange Group has also expressed support to Sri Lanka and Colombo Stock Exchange. Therefore, these support networks must be leveraged.

Government has been successful in soliciting concessional finance from China, Japan and India for energy infrastructure (government to government loans and grants). Beyond this, the Government could also encourage FDI and public-private partnership for investments. Support from MIGA could be elicited to give international investors the confidence to infuse capital to the country.

In conclusion, Government would need to implement concerted effort to on the one side improve domestic resource mobilization and on the other hand, expand its sources of sustainable finance in the energy sector. Like the energy profile, the country also needs to diversify its investment streams and not excessively rely on Government funding for green energy infrastructure. An investment opportunity of over USD 56 billion exists and a healthy mix of international, domestic, public and private and debt and equity investment streams need to be explored. A first step in this journey could be a 10 year US$800mn syndicated green bond using SLBA Sustainable Banking Initiative platform, where use of proceeds will be for renewable energy storage solutions.

This article first appeared on Green Building Council of Sri Lanka’s newsletter “Green Guardian” in December 2020.

Published by Adheesha Perera

Do you have an idea to make buildings part of the fight against climate change?

Posted on November 11, 2020November 11, 2020 by dishanth

The inaugural CapitaLand Sustainability X Challenge is searching the globe for the most innovative solutions to make buildings more climate-resilient and resource-efficient.

In less than a decade, 60 per cent of the global population will live in cities. How can the built environment innovate and adapt to accommodate 360 million more people projected to live in urban areas by 2030 and build within planetary boundaries?

On Tuesday (10 November), real estate group CapitaLand launched the inaugural CapitaLand Sustainability X Challenge, a global search for innovations to make buildings more climate-resilient and resource-efficient from their initial design to construction.

Launched in conjunction with CapitaLand’s 2030 Sustainability Master Plan, the innovation challenge will source for solutions to meet its new sustainability targets.

The challenge falls under four key themes that address important pain points of the built environment: low carbon transition, water conservation and resilience, waste management and the circular economy, and healthy and safe buildings.

“Through the CXSC, we are inviting individuals and companies worldwide to contribute their impactful and scalable innovations. We are also discussing with local and international organisations on opportunities to partner us for the challenge. We look forward to working with our partners and the participants to bring great ideas to life and to co-create a more sustainable built environment across the global communities we operate in,” said Lynette Leong, chief sustainability officer of CapitaLand Group.

“In addition to tackling the challenges of lowering carbon emissions and water conservation as well as promoting circularity in our waste management practices, threats such as Covid-19 and the haze have sharpened our focus on further improving the health and safety of our building occupants and customers, beginning with elevating the indoor air quality at our properties. This will reinforce our leading position as a sustainable global real estate company,” she added.

Two winners will be selected for the High Impact Award and Most Innovative Award, and will receive up to S$50,000 (US$37,200) in project funding and mentoring.

Winning submissions will be assessed based on the impact, potential outcomes, and depth of innovation. Other judging criteria include the solutions’ ability to be scaled and deployed across the different geographies and asset types of CapitaLand’s properties.

As well as prizes for the winners, other shortlisted participants will stand a chance to trial their innovations on selected CapitaLand properties.

Shortlisted teams will pitch their projects to a panel of judges at a finale event held in May 2021. The challenge is currently accepting submissions until 1 February 2021.

Ideas for CapitaLand Sustainability X Challenge can be submitted here.

By Sonia Sambhi

Source: Eco Business

Wood, metal, paper and fabric can help cut climate-harming plastics

Posted on October 11, 2020 by dishanth

Replacing plastics used in buildings with metal, wood, ceramics and glass, turning to paper and fabric for packaging, and boosting recycling rates could slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, researchers said on Monday.

A mixture of substitution, changes in business models and consumer behaviour, and producing more plastics without using fossil fuels could halve global plastic consumption and cut emissions from plastics by more than half, they said.

Otherwise, emissions from plastics are expected to increase threefold by 2050, jeopardising a goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, said a new report from the London-based Overseas Development Institute.

“Although plastics permeate our lives and every corner of our planet, it is technically possible to largely phase them out,” the report said.

When somebody buys a plastic product, they don’t actually generate emissions when they’re using it. But there’s emissions embodied in the product from the previous stages. – Andrew Scott, research fellow, Overseas Development Institute

Lead researcher Andrew Scott told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that all but 1-2 per cent of plastics are made from fossil fuels, principally oil and gas, with the emissions produced at different stages of the value chain.

“When somebody buys a plastic product, they don’t actually generate emissions when they’re using it. But there’s emissions embodied in the product from the previous stages,” he said, adding emissions could also come from discarded plastics.

The largest use of plastic is for packaging, accounting for 36 per cent of total output in 2015, followed by construction at 16 per cent, the report said.

However, switching to non-plastic alternatives that are currently available, such as wood and metal, could reduce the use of plastics in the construction industry by 95 per cent, it said.

A combination of regulation on single-use plastics and changes in consumer behaviour could cut plastic consumption by 78 per cent in the packaging sector, it added.

There is also much room for improvement with recycling as only about 20 per cent of plastic waste is recycled today, the report noted.

It also looked at the automotive and electrical and electronic equipment sectors, which together with construction and packaging make up more than 60 per cent of plastic use, said Scott.

North America, Europe and East Asia consume almost two-thirds of the world’s plastics, the report said.

Globally, per-capita consumption of plastics is 47 kg (103.6 lb) per year, but in Africa and South Asia, it is less than 10 kg per year.

A report last week from the Changing Markets Foundation criticised consumer giants such as Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Nestlé and Unilever for failing to meet their pledges to use less plastic in their products.

It also said they had lobbied against and undermined efforts to tackle plastic pollution, a charge the companies denied.

By Thomson Reuters Foundation

Source: Eco-Business

Bangkok on track for more green spaces with park on old train line

Posted on June 23, 2020June 20, 2020 by dishanth

A new park in Thailand’s capital – built on an abandoned train track – can be a model for turning the city’s other unused spaces into much-needed green areas to boost well-being and mitigate climate-change impacts, urban experts said on Tuesday.

The Phra Pok Klao Sky Park in Bangkok, which is scheduled to open later this month, connects neighbourhoods on either side of the Chao Phraya river and was built on an elevated rail line that lay unused for more than three decades.

“It is an example of how to repurpose an abandoned structure and increase green spaces in Bangkok through cost-effective design,” said Niramon Serisakul, director of Urban Design and Development Center, a consultancy that led the project.

“It may not be large, but it has outsized importance as a catalyst for urban regeneration, and can change the way people look at public spaces,” she said.

The lack of green spaces in Bangkok and other crowded cities has come under scrutiny as the coronavirus pandemic forced lockdowns worldwide, triggering a rush to parks for exercise and to improve well-being.

The health benefits are clear: city dwellers tend to live longer in leafy neighbourhoods, according to a study last year by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.

Bangkok, built on the floodplains of the Chao Phraya River, is also forecast by climate experts to be an urban area that will be hardest hit by extreme weather conditions in the coming years.

Flooding is already common during the monsoon season, but nearly 40 per cent of the city could become flooded each year by 2030 due to more intense rainfall, according to World Bank estimates.

“The effects of climate change are being felt more, so we need more green spaces,” Asawin Kwanmuang, governor of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, said at a ceremony to plant trees ahead of the park’s opening.

“Our goal is to increase green space in Bangkok from about 6 square metres (65 sq ft) per person to 9 square metres per person. At the same time, we want to reduce the number of cars and make the city more walkable,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The park, measuring 280 metres by 8 metres, makes it easier for residents to access nearby schools, markets and places of worship, said Niramon.

The goal is to replicate Paris’s “15-minute city”, where people can reach their destination within 15 minutes of walking, cycling or using mass transit, she said.

Across Asia’s space-starved cities, developers and planners are increasingly turning to so-called “dead land” underneath bridges, flyovers and viaducts.

Bangkok’s new sky park can be a model for swathes of unused land under the city’s expressways, said landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom, who was involved in the project.

Parks and rooftop gardens can reduce air pollution and harmful emissions, and also limit flooding, said Kotchakorn, who has designed a rooftop farm and park that can retain water.

“With the sky park we have shown it is possible to create green spaces from existing structures that can be valuable in fighting climate change,” she said.

Source: https://www.eco-business.com/

By Thomson Reuters Foundation

3 charts that show how attitudes to climate science vary around the world.

Posted on February 6, 2020February 2, 2020 by dishanth

Indians are the most trusting of climate science, according to a survey on global attitudes to climate change.
By region, almost a fifth of North American adults expressed little or no trust in climate science.

People in South Asia are the most trusting of climate science, according to a new survey.

More than 10,000 people in 30 countries were asked in an SAP and Qualtrics survey, “How much do you trust what scientists say about the environment?”

While more than half of the global respondents trust climate science, those in India were the most trusting. 86% said they trusted scientists ‘a great deal’ or ‘a lot’, followed by Bangladesh (78%) and Pakistan (70%).

India tops the list.
Image: SAP/Qualtrics

China and Turkey (both 69%) complete the top 5.

But, at the other end of the spectrum, only 23% of respondents from Russia said they trusted climate scientists ‘a great deal’ or ‘a lot’, with Japan (25%), Ukraine (33%), the US (45%) and France (47%) rounding out those countries that were the most skeptical.

By region, almost a fifth of North American adults expressed little (12%) or no (6%) trust in climate science, compared to South Asia: little trust (4%), no trust (2%).

There is overwhelming evidence of the connection between CO2 emissions and climate change, which is having a profound impact on the world’s oceans and weather patterns.

According to a new study, the oceans in 2019 were 0.075 degrees Celsius above the average for 1981 to 2010 – and the warmest ever recorded.

Changing attitudes

Trust in East Asia and the Pacific dropped 9 percentage points
Image: SAP/Qualtrics

Compared to last year, some regions are slightly less trusting of climate science in 2020.

East Asia and the Pacific saw the biggest decline in those trusting scientists ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ – from 59% in 2019, to 50% in 2020.

Respondents were also asked for their views on whether they believed global warming exists and what causes it.

Overall, more than two-thirds of people agreed that it’s caused mostly by human activity – with the vast majority of those (78%) in Latin America and the Caribbean expressing this view.

Less that 60% of people shared this view in North America (59%), and East Asia and the Pacific (54%). The latter region had the highest percentage of people – almost four in 10 – who believe global warming is caused mostly by natural patterns in the Earth’s environment.

In North America, a third of people (32%) believe global warming has natural causes, while 9% said they believed global warming didn’t exist. This is compared to just 3% in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the second highest percentage of people believe it’s caused by human activity.

Taking action

Climate change is a key theme at the 2020 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Before Davos, the Forum, along with Boston Consulting Group, set out clear steps that companies governments and individuals must take to avert disaster, in the report The Net-Zero Challenge: Fast-Forward to Decisive Climate Action.

The Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab wrote to all the attendees inviting them to “set a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner”.

The event will be an opportunity for heads of industry and government to come together with academics and climate campaigners to look for solutions to the climate crisis.

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, will speaking at a session on Solving the Green Growth Equation, while climate campaigner Greta Thunberg will speak at a session on Averting a Climate Apocalypse.

Written by

Kate Whiting, Senior Writer, Formative Content

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi top plastic polluter audit again as green groups slam recyclable packaging as ‘false solution’.

Posted on November 1, 2019August 12, 2020 by dishanth

Food and beverage firms Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo are the world’s biggest plastic polluters, a study of litter found on beaches, streets, homes, and parks in 50 countries has revealed.

The same firms have topped the global plastic polluter audit, conducted by a collective of environmental groups running cleanup operations, for the second year in succession.

This is despite initiatives the multi-national consumer goods companies have launched to address the chronic plastic pollution problem they have contributed to.

Coca-Cola has launched recyclable bottles made entirely from renewable plant-based materials, aiming to use it in all its packaging by next year. Nestlé has a plan to make all of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025, while Pepsi has pledged to develop bottles made from renewable resources.

Coke uses PlantBottle packaging, which are bottles made from plants, saves the equivalent annual emissions of more than 315,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, Coke estimates.
Image: Coca-Cola

But these measures do not address the root of the problem – the overuse of plastic by consumer goods firms – and so have not affected their standing in the global litter audit, the campaigners noted.

“Commitments by corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo to address the crisis unfortunately continue to rely on false solutions like replacing plastic with paper or bioplastics and relying more heavily on a broken global recycling system,” said Abigail Aguilar, plastic campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, the lead group for the Break Free From Plastic campaign, in a media briefing on Wednesday.

“We call them false solutions because they perpetuate the throwaway culture that caused the plastic pollution crisis, and will do nothing to prevent these brands from being named the top polluters again in the future.”

As part of Break Free From Plastic, a global movement of non-governmental organisations advocating against new plastic production, Greenpeace orchestrated 4,384 cleanups in over 50 countries from August 1 to September 30, picking up 476,423 pieces of plastic. Almost half of the plastic waste was marked with a clear consumer brand.

Other companies identified in the study included Mondelez International, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris International and Perfetti van Melle.

The world’s top 10 biggest plastic polluters in 2019.
Image: Break Free From Plastic.

Von Hernandez, global coordinator of Break Free from Plastic, called on corporations to reduce their production of single-use plastic, instead of using recycling or recyclable packaging as a solution.

He cited a 2017 study that found that 8.3 billion metric tonnes of plastic trash have been produced since 1950, but only 9 per cent of it has been recycled globally.

“Even if all plastic packaging were collected to be recycled, it would only be down-cycled or transformed into another inferior product that inevitably becomes waste, ending up in incinerators and landfill, polluting our oceans,” Hernandez said.

“Over the next 30 years, the amount of plastic waste is set to quadruple,” he warned.

A call for ‘alternative delivery systems’

Environmentalists urged the consumer goods companies to invest in different ways to package their products that do not create pollution.

Unilever’s hair refilling station in a mall at the Makati Central Business District in the Philippines.
Image: Unilever

Unilever, which ranked as the fifth largest polluter in the audit, launched a shampoo and conditioner refilling station in three high-traffic malls in Metro Manila, Philippines in March.

The hair and skincare giant, which owns brands such as Dove, Sunsilk, and Lux, sells many of its products in single-use plastic sachets in developing countries like the Philippines and Indonesia to make its products more affordable.

While environmentalists lauded Unilever’s intiative, they said consumers in the lower income bracket who mostly use single-use sachets will not use the refilling stations.

“It’s a step in the right direction, but malls especially in the central business district are not that accessible to the common Filipino. In our dialogue with the companies, we told them that if they are to invest and introduce an alternative [to plastics], they need to position them where they are easily accesible, like in sari-sari (retail) stores or public markets,” Aguilar said.

“Solutions must be affordable, simple, convenient, durable, and non-toxic,” he said.

Source: www.eco-business.com