Revonergy Inc.(fka RNRG)

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UK firms seek Filipino business partners
17 November 2010

British firms joined a trade mission to Manila this week organised by the British Embassy's UK Trade and Investment.

British Ambassador Stephen Lillie presents a token of appreciation to guest speaker Demetrio Ignacio Jr.
With more than a thousand open dump sites and only 24 existing sanitary landfills, waste management in the Philippines is a key issue that needs to be addressed. It is a major cause of water pollution and flooding, which are among the biggest problems facing the country.

It is precisely this need that prompted the British Embassy through UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) to bring a delegation from the UK to discuss waste management solutions to interested parties from government and the private sector. Representatives of the British companies – Arup, Revonergy and Stericycle (Avanti Environmental) – conducted a seminar this week in Makati City to explore local partnerships and share their low carbon technologies and expertise in the waste management sector. The UK companies have broad experience in this field and are already doing business in Asia and other parts of the world.

British Ambassador Stephen Lillie cited huge business opportunities in this fast-growing industry. He estimates that the market for low-carbon and environmental goods and services is worth around five trillion US dollars. "I very much hope that we will see more partnership between the UK and the Philippines to tap into this huge market in environmental technology and low carbon solutions,” he said. “We have made significant investment in research and development and so are able to offer a wide range of cutting-edge, innovative and transferable environmental technologies and other low-carbon solutions. Our industries are also very much about partnership. They have extensive knowledge not just in technology but in project management and financing. London remains the world’s international finance centre and we have extensive experience in providing financing and services to support clean development projects under the Kyoto CDM (clean development mechanism).”

UKTI Director Derek Page agreed, adding “In 2000, the Philippine Waste sector emitted over 11,000 Gigagrams of greenhouse gases. At the carbon price of at least USD$25 recently being recommended by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Group on Climate Finance, this amount of waste is possibly worth at least 498 million pesos to at least 12 billion pesos a year in the carbon market.”

Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio Jr. gave the welcoming address at the seminar and commended the British Embassy and UKTI for bringing in the UK trade mission, citing not only the business opportunities it presents but also its relevance to the country’s waste management problems. “2.7% is our rate of compliance to the solid waste management law enacted 10 years ago. In effect we have 97.3% violation 10 years after the law was signed,” he said. Ignacio added that only 70% of the country’s garbage is collected and disposed of, mostly in open dumpsites which are themselves health hazards to the environment. This is a problem in a country where 30,000 tons of garbage are generated every day.

Held on 16 November at the Hotel Intercontinental, the seminar was attended by over 150 representatives of local companies, industry associations, NGOs and government agencies, including Rene Golangco, Climate Change Commission Presidential Advisor for Business. To conclude the seminar, the British Embassy’s Climate Change Attaché Roslyn Arayata presented the interactive web-based 4-degree Google Earth map which shows the global impact of a 4-degree Celsius rise in temperature.

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