Four companies honoured at second Singapore Green Summit

Source : Channel NewsAsia - 11 Jun 2008

Four companies were recognised for their eco-friendly practices at the second Singapore Green Summit on Wednesday.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, speaking at the summit, urged companies to put in place more energy-efficient practices.

The Grand Hyatt is one of the award winners. The 37-year-old hotel undertook a range of green initiatives - recycling water for its laundry service, installing motion-activated lights in store rooms and installing solar films in guest rooms to reduce radiated heat.

For the hotel, going green makes a business case as well.

“Grand Hyatt Singapore invested S$3.5 million into a new efficient cooling system that delivers annual saving in utility costs of over S$1.2 million at 2001 utility prices. If you take today’s oil prices, the payback is less than 3 years,” said Mr Mah.

Come June next year, the hotel will roll out what it calls a “tri-generation plant” to produce electricity, heat and cooling more efficiently.

The plant will be developed at S$3.8 million and will be introduced to other Hyatt hotels in other countries.

Ivan Leong, director of engineering at Grand Hyatt Singapore, said: “Whatever heat that is previously exhausted into the atmosphere, we capture it and turn it into useful energy. We are expecting to save - using the current oil price - in the region of about S$800,000 per annum and the carbon footprint reduction (is) about 2500 per tonne, about equivalent of taking out 200 cars off the road for a year.”

Property developer CapitaLand also clinched an award for its green building features, which included rainwater harvesting systems, solar lighting and tree conservation programmes.

Marc-Plan Pte Ltd and Microwave Packaging (S) Pte Ltd are the other two award winners.

Environmental sustainability has been on the international agenda in recent years and many countries, including Singapore, are trying to raise awareness on the impact of climate change.

Minister Mah said Singapore will be significantly affected by global developments pertaining to oil and other scarce resources. So it is important that everyone does his part to make sure the quality of the living environment is not strained. - CNA/ac