Climate change and sustainability: Asian firms must ‘embrace digital technology’ to deliver on environmental goals
- Many Asian companies do not seem to appreciate the power of technology to conserve energy and reduce emissions, Schneider Electric’s Olivier Blum says
- Only 52 per cent of 205 Hong Kong firms surveyed by the Business Environment Council embraced digital technologies in the past year to reduce their carbon footprint
A lack of understanding of technologies that drive energy savings and commitment from top management to deliver on their climate goals are hampering decarbonisation progress at many companies in Asia, according to an industry executive.
“In Asia, you have some companies which are best-in-class in the world, including some that have managed to catch up in the past two years with what the best companies in the world are doing, while many others are lagging behind,” said Olivier Blum, executive vice-president for energy management at Schneider Electric.
“Our data shows that the laggards usually lack commitment from leadership at the board level and governance structures that empower someone at the highest level to lead the transformation.”
Many companies have yet to invest in technologies such as sensors and smart devices that monitor and automatically adjust temperature settings of indoor air-conditioning and heating systems to save energy, and dim or turn off lighting when people are not in certain parts of buildings, he said.
