By offsetting its carbon footprint for 2011, leading regional industrial enterprise, Jebsen & Jessen Group of Companies South East Asia (JJSEA), has become one of the first Asian industrial companies to become carbon neutral.
Partnering with carbon management company Climate Friendly, this historic milestone in the Group’s sustainability journey was achieved through a three-step approach, which saw JJSEA measure, reduce and offset its carbon footprint.
"Carbon neutrality is something we have been working toward since 2007. Through the process we created a system for measuring our footprint; explored and instigated carbon reduction initiatives and both researched and contracted with the right carbon credit partner,” said Mr Heinrich Jessen, Chairman of JJSEA
JJSEA developed gTool, an app that extracts data from the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP), to measure the aggregate carbon emissions of the entire Group’s activities. Information collected includes emissions from purchased fuels, electricity and travel related activities, all of which were converted into carbon equivalents according to the United Nations Greenhouse Protocol.
Having quantified the Group’s net carbon emissions a combination of carbon reduction initiatives and offsetting were implemented to bring this figure down to zero.
In 2011, major offices across the region were fitted with energy-saving LED lighting, while in 2012, JJSEA successfully undertook a US$400,000 project to install solar panels on its MHE-Demag facility in Tuas. The solar panels supply 20% of the facility’s energy needs. As a final step, JJSEA signed a three-year contract with Climate Friendly in July, purchasing 47,000t of carbon offset that would be invested in two projects; The Siam Cement Biomass Project in Thailand and the Chongli Qingsanying Wind Project in China.
