Building a Green Future in Malaysia Makes Financial Sense

With leading multinational corporations at the forefront to lease green office space, the demand for green buildings in Malaysia will continue to rise as environmental awareness grows and more companies embrace the practice of corporate social responsibility. Another driver is the growing body of evidence demonstrating that green buildings make financial sense. There is growing recognition of the need to adopt sustainable building practices and related technologies in order to play a pro-active role in climate change mitigation.

Angie Ng in The Star, Malaysia, (25 December 2010):

With leading multinational corporations at the forefront to lease green office space, the demand for green buildings in Malaysia will continue to rise as environmental awareness grows and more companies embrace the practice of corporate social responsibility.

Another driver is the growing body of evidence demonstrating that green buildings make financial sense.

CB Richard Ellis (Malaysia) vice-president research, Nabeel Hussain says there is growing recognition that key participants in the country’s real estate sector have a responsibility to adopt sustainable building practices and related technologies in order to play a pro-active role in climate change mitigation.

“Malaysia has introduced its own green rating system, the Green Building Index (GBI) in 2009. The Government is supporting the drive towards green buildings and technology and its Budget 2010 was the first one ever to give priority to the procurement of goods and services that are environmentally friendly,” he adds.

Nabeel reveals that studies by CB Eichard Ellis on mature markets such as the United States and Australia have found that developing green buildings can help landlords achieve higher values, fetch higher rents and enjoy higher occupancy rates than comparable non-green buildings.

In an ongoing study of national office portfolio in the United States managed by CB Richard Ellis, the company concludes that sustainable buildings are expected to generate stronger investment returns than traditionally-managed properties.

The study found that owners of sustainably-managed buildings anticipate 4% higher return on investment than owners of traditionally-managed buildings, as well as 5% increase in building value.

“Roughly 79% of owners surveyed believe that sustainable properties perform well in attracting and retaining tenants, yielding a 5% increase in building occupancy and 1% increase in rental income,” Nabeel says.

This is the second phase of a multi-year study initiated in 2009 by CB Richard Ellis and the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate.

The largest and longest-running study of its kind, the ongoing analysis benchmarks and measures green building benefits and economic results as a framework of investment criteria for retrofit activity.

According to the study, tenants in sustainably-managed buildings report increased productivity, satisfaction and health. Roughly 10% of tenant respondents have seen increased productivity, 94% of tenant managers register higher employee satisfaction in green space and 83% of tenants believe their green space provides a healthier working environment.

The study defined a green building as those with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at any level or those that bear the EPA Energy Star label. All Energy Star buildings in the survey group had been awarded that label since 2008. Most of the buildings included in the research cohort had also adopted other sustainable practices like recycling, green cleaning and water conservation.

CB Richard Ellis was recently ranked 30 among Newsweek’s greenest companies in America, and occupied top spot in the financial services sector. The US Environmental Protection Agency has named CB Richard Ellis an Energy Star Partner of the Year for the past three years, including recent recognition for “Sustained Excellence.”

Nabeel says the US Green Building Council has awarded CB Richard Ellis its Leadership Award for Organisational Excellence and the industry group, CoreNet, recognised CB Richard Ellis with a special commendation for Sustainable Leadership and Design Development.

In Asia, CB Richard Ellis recently won a Merit Award for Interior Projects in an Existing Building at Hong Kong Green Building Council’s 2010 Green Building Awards, in relation to its office relocation in Hong Kong.

CB Richard Ellis’ new office premises in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Mumbai have been designed and constructed in accordance with LEED best practices.

Source: www.biz.thestar.com.my and www.eco-business.com

How’s This For An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Green Purchasing

More and more, small-business owners are evaluating their supply chain through the lens of the “triple bottom line” — that is, balancing economic considerations with social and environmental ones. But the rapid proliferation of sustainable products and services proves it’s not so easy being green. With more than 600 green labels on the market worldwide, according to a recent article on Greenbiz.com, business owners are awash with choices that didn’t exist three years ago. Anna Clark, author of Green, American Style, has come up with “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Green Purchasing”.

By Anna Clark, Author of the book Green, American Style, which released last year, and owner of Earth People, a Houston on based consultancy specialising in building best-in-class brands by harnessing human potential, fostering leadership and driving sustainable values through every facet of an organization. 

This first appeared in the American Express OPEN Forum

More and more, small-business owners are evaluating their supply chain through the lens of the “triple bottom line” — that is, balancing economic considerations with social and environmental ones.

But the rapid proliferation of sustainable products and services proves it’s not so easy being green. With more than 600 green labels on the market worldwide, according to a recent article on Greenbiz.com, business owners are awash with choices that didn’t exist three years ago.

Despite the challenges, companies of all sizes have much to gain by getting on board. Here’s a road map to help you navigate the green fog when buying products and services for your business. 

Mission Sustainable

A logical place to begin is to look at how you buy, not just what you buy. Inefficient processes always carry ecological and financial costs, hidden though they may be.

If, for example, you purchase supplies from a big-box retailer and are required to meet a minimum with each order, you’re probably ordering more products than your company needs. This increases the likelihood that miscellaneous items will go unused. How many companies have obsolete toner cartridges gathering dust on the shelves? Too many.

The next step is to create a green supply chain that corresponds with your business objectives. If your goal is to cut costs, you may save more money by printing double-sided than by switching to paper with higher recycled content.

If your goal is to reduce energy costs, you probably know to purchase ENERGY STAR-qualified products. But to go the extra mile, consider switching to a commercial electricity plan that offers a combination of renewable energy in varying amounts — at prices equal to or less than the competition. 

People, Planet and Profits

When evaluating your supply chain, you can rely on virtually the same set of criteria for everything from the cups in the break room to the packaging of your products. Most certifications apply the following attributes when determining a product’s environmental impact:

Clean. Emits the least amount of pollution possible for its category.

Energy-efficient. Energy is not wasted in producing or operating the product.

Water-conscious. Water is not wasted in manufacturing and/or the product itself is a water-saving device.

Resource-efficient. Goods are made with recyclable content.

Recyclable. At the end of its life, some or all of the product’s parts can be recycled.

Streamlined. Not over-packaged. 

Fair trade.The environment is half the battle. People matter too. Are those who make the product compensated fairly and are their working conditions safe?

Necessary. No product can be green if you can easily do without it.

Certified. A third party validates the manufacturer’s claims.

From a public relations standpoint, “certified” is one of the most pragmatic solutions. It’s far easier to say, “I work in a LEED-certified building” than it is to say, “I work in a building that conserves energy, has superior indoor air quality and was constructed with materials sourced from within 500 miles.” Credible green product certifications, such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED designation, communicate dozens of green attributes in a single term or phrase.

The Big Picture

Switching to certified products is a step in the right direction, but a more holistic policy is required to weave sustainability principles throughout the supply chain. Case in point: EarthSmart, a comprehensive program that integrates environmental responsibility with business solutions, work culture and community outreach efforts at FedEx.

“FedEx understands that we have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint while being a positive resource to communities around the world,” says Laura Fortenberry, a global brand manager for FedEx. “With EarthSmart, we’re able to measure our efforts against our goals to make sure we remain challenged to always do more and be better.” 

For small-business owners struggling to develop a sustainability policy, the  FedEx Global Citizenship Report includes more details on EarthSmart and provides some inspiration in terms of big-picture strategy.

In addition, several organizations offer practical tools for aligning an eco-friendly ethos with purchasing requirements. The EPA’s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Guide features an index for evaluating green products and services, and calculating the costs and benefits of purchasing choices. 

Members of the Responsible Purchasing Network have access to green purchasing tools and guides, an explanation of certifications, and a list of products that meet recommended criteria. 

And, to access lists of hundreds of green vendors for every type of product or service, look no further than Green America’s  National Green Pages and the Organic Consumers Association’s GreenPeople Directory.

Changing the way you purchase products is not a financial cost as much as an investment in your future. An environmentally responsible business plan will set you apart from the competition, while helping you conserve precious resources — not least of all your own.

 Source: www.earthpeopleco.com

Feeding the birds and watching the young ones take flight from my balcony, I feel I am paying off some of the bad karma I sowed by hunting birds for the pot when growing up in a very different India. In just my lifetime, I have seen the number of birds in the sky and fields dwindle, and great forests rolled back to small islands of green.

And I am part of this. I bought a tiny piece of land some years ago, in scrub forests in the foothills of the Himalayas, partly because when I visited the site, I heard a leopard calling nearby. Yet, if I ever build a house there, I will be eating into the habitat of that leopard.

I try not to be an eco-fascist or to wallow in guilt. But I believe we should try as individuals, even as governments and vested interests fail, to stop collectively sawing at the branch we are sitting on.

So I propagate my own island on my balconies. I switch off all lights when I leave. I buy ‘green’ products. I use things until they fall apart. I take public transport.

Yet, for all that, my footprint on this planet is still large.

Next year (2011), we should strive to walk more lightly, writes Nirmal Ghosh in The Straits Times.  Read More

OPINION: Will we have a greener 2011?

Nirmal Ghosh in the Straits Times ( 29 December 2010):

BANGKOK — The two balconies in my eighth floor apartment in downtown Bangkok are stuffed with green plants.

In one, where I keep only palms and bamboos, I put out a bowl of birdseed every morning along with an earthen platter filled with water.

More than 30 sparrows frequent the bamboos. A pair of spotted doves built a nest among them a year ago and has since reared half a dozen chicks.

I work from home, and see the palms and the bamboos as a successful scrap of nature — even if it is less than a tiny fraction of the big city, and smaller than dust in the wind on this planet spinning around the sun. But it makes my apartment more liveable.

To keep our planet green and habitable amid mounting pressure from a human population of about seven billion, we have seen, in recent months, two major worldwide efforts — the Biodiversity Convention meeting in Japan last month and the Climate Change meeting in Mexico earlier this month.

The talks at Cancun were approached with more realism both by those involved and by the media, after the crushing deflation of expectations at climate change talks in Copenhagen last year.

Cancun ended in a consensus agreement, the headlines assured us. The magazine New Scientist, for instance, said: ‘Dawn breaks on a low-carbon world.’

But the content of the article visibly struggled to live up to that vision. A false dawn, perhaps.

As Bolivia resentfully pointed out: ‘Compromise was always at the expense of the victims, rather than the culprits of climate change.’

The fact remains that whatever will be done as a result of Cancun will most likely be too little, too late.

True, there is more environmental awareness than ever. Ecological products are the rage — by choice for the rich in their mansions and condos, and by default for the poor in their mud and reed shacks.

There is some evidence of slowing deforestation. Several countries have ambitious national targets for curbing man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Cricket stars and children have marched in India to save the tiger.

Bookstores are full of doom-boom books with titles like The Flooded Earth, The Rising Sea and The Coming Famine. Several are not far off the mark.

Recent and under-reported data from the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration shows that from 1995 to 2005, global annual plant consumption rose from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of all plant production.

Which brings us to biodiversity.

If Cancun was lukewarm, the Biodiversity Summit in Nagoya the previous month was a disgrace. Only five heads of state showed up.

‘One-third of the countries represented there couldn’t even be bothered to send a minister. This is how much they value the world’s living systems,’ wrote columnist George Monbiot.

Indeed, even as Japan hosted that summit, it continues to fish for the disappearing bluefin tuna.

The plunder of marine life makes plunder on land seem gentle. A merchant ship captain recently told me that the sight of fishing boats as his container vessel approached the coast of China, was like a ‘snowstorm on my radar’. Europe’s fishing fleets have long since emptied many seas off Africa’s coast.

Will we have a greener 2011? Possibly. But it is likely to be superficial.

We remain locked in a model that emphasises consumption and materialism, with little respect for the thin skin of land, sea and sky that makes it possible for us to live.

Environmentalists have long sought to put a value to things like clean air and wetlands, in the hope of proving that preserving offers better returns than polluting or plundering. But once something is given a value, it can also be traded.

Production and trade is at the heart of our economic system and civilisation. In a logical consequence, as our population grows to over seven billion, we are trading the very biosphere which gives us life for little more than a handful of change.

Next December offers another opportunity to secure a meaningful agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, at the next talks on climate change in Durban, South Africa.

It may be the last chance, but nobody is holding his breath.

My guess is that it will take disasters, on a scale unheard of in human history, to force change.

Feeding the birds and watching the young ones take flight from my balcony, I feel I am paying off some of the bad karma I sowed by hunting birds for the pot when growing up in a very different India. In just my lifetime, I have seen the number of birds in the sky and fields dwindle, and great forests rolled back to small islands of green.

And I am part of this. I bought a tiny piece of land some years ago, in scrub forests in the foothills of the Himalayas, partly because when I visited the site, I heard a leopard calling nearby. Yet, if I ever build a house there, I will be eating into the habitat of that leopard.

I try not to be an eco-fascist or to wallow in guilt. But I believe we should try as individuals, even as governments and vested interests fail, to stop collectively sawing at the branch we are sitting on.

So I propagate my own island on my balconies. I switch off all lights when I leave. I buy ‘green’ products. I use things until they fall apart. I take public transport.

Yet, for all that, my footprint on this planet is still large.

Next year, we should strive to walk more lightly.

Source: www.dailyme.com