Orient - The Official Magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore - Issue 67 July 2018 - Page 14 NEWS Seizing Commercial Opportunities at the Green Growth & Business Forum
The 4th regional Green Growth and Business Forum (GGBF) took place on the 9th July, aligned with the World Cities Summit, Clean-Enviro Summit Singapore and Singapore International Water Week. As a platform to drive increased green growth leadership, the GGBF series has been a longstanding part of the UK and Singapore’s collaborative relationship on climate action. The British Chamber as a supporting partner was well represented across the agenda with members including Mott MacDonald, Rolls Royce and InfraCo Asia joining as speakers.
Over 140 attendees from across various industries and the startup space congregated to discuss decarbonisation across their operations. Over the course of the afternoon, sessions addressed challenges such as developing practical approaches to climate risk, sustainability strategies, and growing green skill requirements as well as showcased game-changing technologies already impacting industries.
Nick Bridge, the UK Special Representative for Climate Change, reinforced the UK’s vision for the low carbon economy. As a fundamental threat to global prosperity, climate change is at the forefront of UK foreign policy. In his opening speech, Mr. Bridge highlighted that it was a higher-risk strategy for businesses not to invest in sustainable, low carbon or carbon neutral projects. This presented particularly significant opportunities for the SE Asia region, which has a lot to gain from the growth of the green economy.
Size of the Prize The UK’s low carbon transition can be traced to the UKs pivotal 2008 Climate Act – a legal commitment to 80% reduction of GHGs by 2050. Working towards this goal, the 2017 Clean Growth Strategy laid out strong ambitions including improving the energy efficiency of homes; phasing out the sale of new conventional petrol and diesel cars/vans by 2040; and achieving 85% of UK electricity generation from low carbon sources by 2032. The 2017 Industrial Strategy also maps out the UK’s largest increase in public spending on science, research and innovation, including investment in low carbon innovation such as battery storage and CCUS.
And progress is well underway: UK emissions have reduced by 42% since 1990 and GDP has risen by two-thirds. This proves that it is possible to reduce emissions while growing the economy. Currently in the UK, there are almost half a million people employed in the low carbon sector and associated supply chains – reflecting a 3.8% yearly growth since 2010. Future prospects are even more exciting with estimates indicating an 11% annual growth of the sector until 2030 (four times faster than the rest of the economy). This would mean four million more jobs and exports of GBP 170bn in low carbon goods/services from the UK over the next thirteen years. Platforms like the GGBF are reminders that the green economy presents one of the biggest commercial opportunities today.
Roundtable Discussion with Lucy Knight, Global Head of Diversity, BP
Making D&I part of your business strategy
In today’s volatile, uncertain, challenging and ambiguous world, companies of all sizes need to ensure they can adapt and be resilient. BP firmly believes that creating an inclusive culture is a key to modernising the firm and continuing our journey to ensuring safe, reliable and effective operations across our businesses. There are increasing expectations from governments, investors, the media and employees for greater transparency and open dialogue about D&I. On Wednesday, 27th June 2018, Lucy Knight, Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion for BP shared why D&I is critical to delivering business strategy. She also shared BP’s journey to building a compelling business case for diversity, setting tone from the top, and some of the other enablers and structures BP has in place to make it happen.
The group discussed the most pressing D&I areas for Singapore and the region, which included greater focus on mental health and employee wellbeing, as well as how to engage and educate staff around LGBTQ+ matters in a way which is sensitive to local context.
“Diversity is perceiving difference; Inclusion is valuing it.”
In 2012, BP set its D&I Ambition; “to attract, motivate, develop and retain the world’s diversity of top talent in our industry”. This was supported by a clear governance structure where D&I plans are owned by the businesses and built into leadership reward packages, and progress is reviewed by the Board level “People Committee” quarterly; with a consistent framework of strategy, leadership, capability, culture & improvement.
However, there is no silver bullet. Companies need to work on multiple areas in parallel but if they can get ‘inclusion’ right, then greater diversity will follow.
Employee-led groups are a critical part of driving inclusion by providing local context and driving effective employee engagement. BP and many multinationals have multiple groups which support gender, age, (dis)ability, ethnicity and sexual orientation. However, with a shift of focus towards ‘inclusion’, there is greater collaboration across groups and a drive towards overall inclusion where everyone is accountable and can be a role-model.