May 10, 2010
Engineering a carbon-neutral event
Founder and director of Blue Snow Consulting & Engineering Sdn Bhd Ir Bernard Sagaiyaraj is the carbon consultant for REHDA’s Green Solutions Conference which will be held on May 17. Dedicated to providing environmental and energy consulting and building commissioning professional services related to Sustainable Green Building Design and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, Sagaiyaraj also speaks on energy performance of buildings to various parties.
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| Carbon consultant for the Green Solutions Conference 2010 Bernard Sagaiyaraj |
You are a qualified Engineer. What made you take up the green agenda?
As a mechanical engineer with more than 20 years of experience in various related industries, one thing has always been cropping up and that is energy-efficiency. I’ve had my fair share of products and projects that dealt with energy-efficiency enhancement, mainly in the refrigeration and air-conditioning field.
It was during one project for a multi-national company that I heard about LEED and green building and got extremely glued-in as I realised then that green building IS the natural extension of energy-efficiency. So in early 2007, my partner in Blue Snow and I decided to move our firm from a Mechanical and Electrical Engineering firm to focus more on the ‘green agenda’ as you put it and that is what prompted me to study and sit for my LEED AP examination in the US in 2007.
Since then, we have been working on LEED projects in Malaysia and in the region. And as part of the LEED process, you have to create baseline energy models to be compared with proposed energy models in order to calculate energy savings in kWh and this is actually part of the certified calculation required when you wish to calculate your carbon footprint reduction. The rest of the calculation is done via a Life Cycle Assessment system. So, inevitably, we got ourselves into the building, project or even event carbon analysis business.
Life Cycle Assessment tracks the environmental impacts of a product from its raw materials through to disposal at the end of its useful life.
What is the state of the green agenda in Malaysia?
I think there are a lot of talks and seminars out there, which is great for informing and education. But other than large global firms like Sime Darby, for example, who are committed to the sustainability agenda and do not look towards incentives and tax rebates to be ‘sustainable’, there are not many who are keen to go green yet and many are keeping a wait-and-see approach.
KeTTHA (Kementerian Tenaga, Teknologi Hijau dan Air) and PTM (Pusat Tenaga Malaysia) are trying to promote the green agenda from the viewpoint of the government but in the end, I strongly believe only the concerted efforts the ‘big boys’ of the private sector will ensure that the green agenda does not fade away like another seasonal fad. And that cannot be allowed to happen as every little effort we make here in Malaysia goes a long way to help mitigate the global climate crises that we are facing now.
You are the carbon consultant for the Green Solutions Property Conference 2010. What does this mean?
The term carbon consultant is a very open term and can range from being a consultant that redesigns a system to reduce the carbon impact, or a carbon credit verifier or even a carbon trader/broker who maximises your return on your carbon credits.
For those who are unfamiliar with the terms, carbon refers to carbon dioxide equivalent or a group of gases that impact our atmosphere or Green House Gases (GHG). So carbon-impact refers to the impact of the GHG released indirectly when we carry out an action or use certain material. So when we carry out carbon-impact reduction activities, the GHG that we avoided release to the atmosphere can be converted into carbon credits by direct conversion (e.g. electricity savings) or by Life Cycle Assessment (e.g. consumption of beef). These credits can be traded through a carbon exchange market which is very similar to a stock exchange and the difference here being that the price of carbon credits per tonne varies based on the supply of credits to the market and demand for the credits, obviously by the polluters.
As for Blue Snow, we do verification and the necessary calculation to quantify the reduction; trading is not currently in our portfolio of services. For the Green Solutions Property Conference 2010, we were engaged to make the conference carbon-neutral.
How do you create a carbon-neutral conference?
You assume the event as a “product” that is being manufactured. You review the inputs and the outputs and energy involved in creating that product. We start with survey check-sheets that are passed to the venue manager, event manager, exhibitors and even the delegates. Variables reviewed are size of audience/venue, energy and water consumption, distance travelled and modes or travel, waste generated, products used during the conference and even the catering. With this, we create a Baseline Carbon Rating for the event i.e. the carbon impact of the event on a business-as-usual case.
Then we come up with carbon-impact reduction strategies. To make the event carbon-neutral, you would need the Baseline Carbon Rating to be zero. Carbon-impact reduction strategies can range from reducing the number of event participants and getting them to join the conference via some form of videoconferencing. Another strategy would be to remove beef, lamb and dairy products from the menu and another strategy could be the increase in room temperature by a few degrees and request participants to dress lightly. Although it has been done before and we will strive to achieve carbon neutrality for this event, most events will find it difficult to make themselves carbon-neutral with offsetting some of the residual carbon-impact. And if there are any residuals, we will propose that they are offset with local green building projects that has well-documented energy-efficiency improvement programmes.
Take the Green Solutions Conference as an example. If it wasn't a carbon-neutral event, how much carbon would it have emitted?
About 50 tons of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide equivalent).
Which country in Asia has a strong green agenda, and will Malaysia be able to emulate that?
Japan is probably the greenest. But in terms of speed of catching-up and funds expanded to meet strict green targets, it has to be China. But let’s focus closer to home and look at our neighbour Thailand.
We do not need to go very far to see that the Thai government, without any great fanfare, has been inculcating the green agenda into the government sector and has successfully encouraged the private sector to pick up the mantle, which they have done.
Although Malaysia has a great National Green Technology Policy which was launched last year, we can still learn from our neighbour, especially in the areas of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
What do you hope to see in the next few years in relation to the adaptation of green practices by the real estate sector?
I would like the real estate owners and management to focus on converting existing buildings to green buildings. Even if not that, start with the low hanging fruit which is energy efficiency, especially the commercial buildings and government infrastructure.
How would the general public know if a green technology is as green as claimed by the manufacturer?
Ask them that if it claims to save water, save energy, uses recycled content material or material from sustainable production methods and improves the indoor environment quality, do they have test certificates to prove it. The next part, which is verifying the test results, is the difficult part and we, as LEED Consultants, have a difficult and onerous task of picking which products meet the LEED standards based on internationally accepted standards.
But I must say that we are now seeing more and more credible green building products in the market and that is a healthy sign for the green building industry. I strongly encourage more and more local manufacturers to manufacture green products, especially for the building industry and they can always refer to LEED or GBI guidelines on what is meant by a product rated for green building certification.
Could you provide examples of some green products in the market?
Most paints in the market are low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). They emit zero or very minimal VOC i.e. the occupants can safely occupy a completed building or home that has been freshly painted. Otherwise, the toxic VOC can remain in the building for six months or more depending on the air-conditioning or ventilation system. Also, any air-conditioning system that has very high certified efficiencies (EER, SEER and/or COP ratings) is green.
As for glass facades, if your window pane has a very low Shading Coefficient (SC) of 0.3 and below, it is green because it assists in lowering the energy consumption in the building.
Are there many other carbon-neutral events in Malaysia and globally?
Globally there have already been some very successful carbon neutral events and they all use the similar methodology that I have outlined above. I know of only one other event that happened in Malaysia recently that claimed carbon neutrality but I’m neither aware of the methodology used nor the means of offset.
But it’s great to know that more events in the pipeline are trying to reduce their carbon impact or even going carbon-neutral but I hope they carry this process in the correct manner and actually reduce their carbon impact before trying to offset the residual carbon that cannot be eliminated.
The alternative of 100% offset of the carbon impact is by purchasing overseas certificates. This is the easy and effortless way out and there is no real carbon impact reduction for the event. This is also claimed by some to be tantamount to ‘greenwashing ‘ – a term used in this field when an individual or a company claims its products or services to be green, quite well knowing it is not!
What is the message that you wish to impart to the Malaysian public, especially the real estate sector?
If you want to build a green building or create a green township, engage your Green Building consultant early in the process and not as an afterthought. The Green Building consultant should be engaged as early as when you get the project architect on-board. As long the Green Building or Building Sustainability consultant has the correct engineering and green building experience, they should be able to lower the first-cost impact of the additional green investment required for the building to be certified as a Green Building.
Government incentives are a good driver but that should allow the green capital investment to soar just because there are tax rebates etc. Good engineering practices should be the main green cost-down driver.
For the Malaysian public, just focus on three simple areas at home or workplace i.e. reduce energy, reduce water and reduce waste to the landfill. Simple as it seems, because of our mental conditioning, it becomes an onerous task and this is where these concepts need to be inculcated from a tender age.
For more information on REHDA's Green Solutions Property Conference 2010, visit www.rehdainstitute.com, call 03-7803 2978 or e-mail syahiidah@rehdainstitute.com / ong_huitse@rehdainstitute.com
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