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  Channel NewsAsia 19 Apr 07
Business world has big role on climate: UN meeting

Business Times 20 Apr 07
Calls for govts to promote green financing
Greater challenge can be found in Asia
By Pamela Chew

Channel NewsAsia 19 Apr 07
UN urges Asia to invent products and technologies to save environment

SINGAPORE: The United Nations says Asia is in a position to come up with environmentally-friendly technologies and products. So besides becoming an economic powerhouse, the region can also play a bigger role in helping to save the earth.

The call came from the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme who cited Singapore as an example of using technology to help the environment. Achim Steiner was speaking at the Global Business Summit for the Environment in Singapore on Thursday.

"If we talk about Asia today, we're talking about the continent that is the fastest growing economy - that is increasingly using both natural resources that is contributing to pollution, but is also becoming a major economic hub for production and innovation," said Mr Steiner.

The UN says Singapore has managed to develop the necessary technology to solve its problem of water scarcity. And now, Singapore can even impart the know-how to other countries as well.

"A state like Singapore, an urban economy, can work on particular areas where innovation very quickly becomes, in environmental terms, also an efficiency success. Water use and the way Singapore, at the moment, is looking at the whole question of water supplies, reusing and recycling water," said Mr Steiner.

And such an effort, he added, needs the corporate sector to be involved as well.

Mr Steiner said the world is facing a drastic challenge and this calls for everyone to play its part. The economic future is set to change, he warned, and companies cannot afford to ignore their impact on the environment, especially since profits are tied to how fast firms can innovate in the future to accommodate a different environment. - CNA/yy

Channel NewsAsia 19 Apr 07
Business world has big role on climate: UN meeting

SINGAPORE: More than 600 business executives and environmental experts gathered on Thursday in Singapore to thrash out ways the corporate world can help tackle the threat of climate change.

The two-day summit is the first major international conference focusing on business and the environment in Asia, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which is co-organising the event.

It comes two days after the UN Security Council held a groundbreaking debate on the security implications of climate change. Delegates in Singapore plan to examine how the private sector, governments and non-government organisations can cooperate to ensure development balances economic, social and environmental factors, organisers said.

UNEP organised the event with the UN Global Compact, an initiative that brings companies together with UN and other agencies to support environmental and social principles.

"The private sector is now becoming an active partner in environmental protection," Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Yaacob Ibrahim, said in his opening address.

"Many governments and businesses have also started to realise that environmental protection and economic growth can go hand in hand," he added. "Companies are being more frequently judged on the basis of their environmental stewardship."

Yaacob warned that the need for energy to fuel economic growth has further increased the risk of unsustainable energy production and waste management problems.

"In Asia, we could see an increase in the number of nuclear power installations. We would need to fully address the safety of nuclear power plants, and ensure that nuclear installations meet the highest operational safety requirements," he said.

Indonesia is pursuing plans to develop nuclear energy.

A key UN report released this month warned that billions would face a higher risk of water scarcity and millions more would likely go hungry as damage to the Earth's weather systems from greenhouse gases changed rainfall patterns, powered up storms and boosted the risk of drought, flooding and water stress. More than 1.2 billion people, or about one-fifth of the world's population, lack access to drinking water, conference organisers said, warning that without any action this could rise to 2.3 billion people by 2023.

Among other subjects for discussion are "green investment and financing," sustainable tourism and environmentally-sound building and construction.

A special session on Friday will be devoted to discussing solutions to the forest-fire haze that blankets parts of Southeast Asia each year.

Last year, a report commissioned by the British government warned that climate change could bring economic disaster on the scale of the world wars and the 1930s Great Depression unless urgent action was taken.

Among the organisations to be represented at the Singapore meeting are the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), World Resources Institute and the Carbon Disclosure Fund.

Scheduled speakers include Kirsi Sormunen, Nokia's vice president of environmental affairs, Diana Bell, a senior vice president at Hewlett-Packard, Greenpeace International director Steve Sawyer and actress and environmental activist Daryl Hannah. - AFP/so

Business Times 20 Apr 07
Calls for govts to promote green financing
Greater challenge can be found in Asia
By Pamela Chew

IT IS a case of the old chicken or egg scenario for green investment and financing in Asia. Financial institutions are facing a dilemma - take part in sustainability projects which will reap longer term profits, or choose those that are quantitatively lower risk.

At the opening day of the Global Business Summit for the Environment 2007 (B4E), panelists discussed the prospects of environment-related investments for the region.

Innovest Strategic Value Advisors managing director, Bill Hartnett, who moderated the discussion panel, said that 'the role of finance and capital markets is that of a sleeping giant'.

Mr Hartnett said the challenge lies in aligning company performance with social governance issues - how to translate qualitative issues in terms of share price, revenue and competitive advantage.

Mr Hartnett said: 'The key factor for banks is minimising credit risk.'

He added that if financiers worked with governments, it could be a powerful way of influencing change.

'More has to be done to move qualitative issues to more quantitative measures that fund managers require . . . this area is new to financiers who have mainly bread and butter concerns - risk issues,' Mr Hartnett said.

And the greater challenge can be found in Asia - unlike developed Western countries which have government policies on climate change to help facilitate greater investments in 'green' areas.

Association of Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia (AsRIA) executive director, Melissa Brown said that while 'there is overwhelming response to eco-issues from investors and financiers in Asia in the last 12 months, there are still immense challenges when dealing with investment sustainability in this area'.

She said that investors are moving quite quickly into environment-related investments in the region.

But despite Asia being keen, Ms Brown said that investment analysts like herself still find it difficult to say there is a definite trend for 'significant sustained investment'.

'The real challenge for private equity and public market investors is that much of the infrastructure for investing in issues related to the environment is still missing "...In a survey by AsRIA, we found that many Asian companies could not answer simple questions on carbon emission disclosure and management policies relating to climate change.

'It's not that they are doing nothing but it shows a lack of guidance - Asian governments have a lack of policies on climate change . . . And companies don't get incentives to shape investments related to the environment,' Ms Brown said.

Also calling for greater responsibility from the finance sector was Westpac group general manager for stakeholder communication, Noel Purcell, who said that 'banks are the ones that finance some of the world's biggest problems'.

He added that financing tomorrow's world has its challenges with 'deep issues on technology risks and also concerns on the sheer size of some of these projects like carbon capture which can be a multi-billion initiative; governments have to take a bigger role in this to help find ways to mitigate these risks (for banks)'.

B4E is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Global Compact, and organised by Sound Initiatives.
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