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SBF unveils Sustainable Development business platform to facilitate initiatives, opportunities and solutions among companies and businesses |
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Singapore, Friday, 21 August 2009 - The Singapore Business Federation (SBF) today unveiled the Sustainable Development Business Group (previously Clean Energy Business Group initiated in Jan 2009) to facilitate commercialization and adoption of energy efficient solutions and clean and green technologies among Singapore companies and businesses.
The name change reflects the increasing needs and focus of businesses not just in the area of clean energy but also in other energy efficient and sustainable solutions and opportunities. It enables the Group to reach out to an even wider range of industries and businesses, as well as encompass all areas in and/or related to sustainable development.
Other key areas of sustainable development under the purview of SDBG include eco-city or green urban solutions, sustainable manufacturing, sustainable transport and logistics and environmental pollution.
SBF's Outreach Efforts in Sustainable Development
The SDBG provides a strategic and functional platform for member companies interested in the adoption and commercialization of efficient, eco-friendly solutions. Its aim is to connect members to various industry verticals and technology partners, link them to business leads in the SD sector and facilitate tapping into available schemes, incentives, as well as funding for their SD business plans.
In the coming months, SBF will work towards facilitating more business opportunities for companies in the sustainable development sector.
In Sept 2009, SBF will be leading a delegation of 20 companies to Tianjin Eco-city and China's International New Energy Expo at Wuxi to gauge business and technology opportunities in the SD sector in China.
SBF recently inked an MOU with SingBridge International, Guangzhou Development District (GDD) and RSP Architects to enable SBF members to participate in projects to develop the Guangdong Knowledge City.
Besides the above, in the pipeline are business and study missions to Canada, Israel and Japan to help companies evaluate targeted overseas markets for SD business opportunities and technologies.
Yesterday, SBF signed an MOU with Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS) to promote the adoption and commercialization of clean energy and energy efficiency measures and solutions amongst Singapore companies. Together with SEAS, SBF will facilitate joint events, training workshops, business missions, networking as well as targeted business matching sessions that will allow our companies to enable Singapore-based companies to benefit from this collaboration.
The collaboration today between SBF and Local Global as joint presenters of Outstanding Sustainability Award aims to give specific and special recognition to local enterprises with outstanding sustainable business practices. The awards are aimed providing the impetus for Singapore Inc to work towards making Singapore a leading hub for sustainable development practices as well as green business solutions.
Under SDBG, one of the first major initiatives was the collaboration with Temasek Polytechnic (TP)'s Fuel Cell Community (FCC) to establish a Clean Energy Test-bedding Community (CETC) in January 2009, supported by EDB, aimed at business and technological cooperation to test-bed and pilot Fuel Cell (FC) and other Clean Energy Technologies (CET).
Outcomes of the CETC initiative include:
a. helping to match companies with Housing Development Board (HDB) and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) on fuel cell projects.
b. assisted with business matching of two member companies working on hydropower projects in China.
c. facilitated projects leads for the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city and Clean Energy Test-bedding at Pulau Ubin with Energy Market Authority.
d. launched the inaugural edition of the Singapore Sustainable Development Industry Directory in November 2008 with the support of Economic Development Board (EDB), International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, National Environment Agency (NEA), SPRING Singapore, and our business and industry partners and more than 300 companies. The second edition will be unveiled at the Singapore International Energy Week 2009 this November.
e. a business mission to Hydrogen & Fuel Cells 2009 in Vancouver, Canada.
In Green IT or the area of energy savings in the use of IT and by IT, SBF conducted a national green IT survey supported by iDA and NEA amongst 330 companies which identified existing and potential interests, as well as adoption amongst Singapore companies in the area of green IT. In the coming year, we will be working with IE Singapore to initiate a Green IT audit program to help Singapore companies in Green IT when they venture overseas.
In sustainable business practices, SBF is working with Singapore Compact - Singapore champion for CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility to inculcate greater awareness of environmental sustainability as part of a company's CSR agenda, the adoption of sustainability reporting, and the publication of a sustainable business practices handbook.
"Green business is about achieving sustainable economic growth. SBF is pleased to offer SDBG as a facilitation platform, to encourage partnerships, and to connect member companies as well as the wider business community to sustainable development programmes, business opportunities and new technology developments" said Mr. Teng Theng Dar, CEO of the Singapore Business Federation.
The federation also organised a Sustainability seminar which saw some 160 participants from more than 10 different industry sectors listening in to presentations from Arpels Corporate Finance, National Environment Agency, Economic Development Board, IBM, and Deloitte Energy and Resources.
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