from the ground Up

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, September 16 2008
THE blue and white colours of Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are about to become a familiar sight in Singapore as the bank embarks on an aggressive expansion in Asia.
They replace the familiar green and yellow of Singapore’s oldest existing bank – the 150-year-old ABN Amro [...]

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, September 15 2008

Picture Caption: “The most resource-efficient firms will win,” says Mr Anderson, who stresses that his firm’s success was built on its sustainability journey.

SOME 14 years ago – long before “sustainability” became a buzz-word in the corporate world – one entrepreneur had an epiphany which he described as a “spear in the chest”.
He decided that his fossil fuel-intensive business will become the world’s greenest company. He was told by his peers then that he was “crazy and had “gone round the bend”.
But today, Mr Ray Anderson’s firm Interface Inc has silenced its sceptics.
The Atlanta-based company, one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, was listed as world No. 1 for corporate sustainability by polling firm GlobeScan in 2006. Interface also generates annual revenues of US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion), thanks to its green business model, said Mr Anderson.
By pumping money into research and development, Interface pioneered technologies that enabled it to recycle material and manufacture carpets efficiently. In that period, it has avoided cumulative waste costs amounting to some US$353 million.
And from 1996, its greenhouse gas emissions went down a staggering 82 per cent while total energy intensity fell 45 per cent. All the while, total global sales of Interface’s products jumped 49 per cent.
For his drive and vision, Mr Anderson was voted as one of Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment last year. He shared his experience with local business leaders last Monday at an event by Singapore’s American Chamber of Commerce.
The firm has had a Singapore office for 30 years, and its customers here include HSBC Bank and and Singapore Management University.
“In the 21st century, the most resource-efficient firms will win,” he told a 190-strong audience.
He sticks by the philosophy of “doing well by doing good” – Interface’s success was built on its sustainability journey, he said.
The Nasdaq-listed firm has a target which he calls “Mission Zero” – to have a zero carbon footprint by 2020. He said Interface is “more than halfway there now”.
Mr Anderson spoke of how his life changed when he was given a copy of US environmentalist and author’s Paul Hawken’s Ecology of Commerce.
“Suddenly, I began realising what we were doing to the earth,” he said. The book talked about the “death of birth” – how species were becoming extinct, never to be born again. And that was when he decided to revolutionise his fossil fuel-reliant carpet business.
Mr Anderson instructed his managers to find out what impact Interface’s business had on the environment.
“What I saw made me want to throw up,” he said. And that was the beginning of his climb on “Mount Sustainability” as he calls it.
Interface started revamping its operations by eliminating waste, enhancing energy efficiency and offsetting transport emissions.
It also began tracking energy and water intake, waste streams, greenhouse gas emissions and raw materials streams, to evaluate its progress towards sustainability.
Today, up to 25 per cent of raw materials used is recycled. Last year, Interface sold a record 22 million sq m of third-party verified “climate neutral” carpet.
The carpet was made climate neutral through the purchase of 390,000 tonnes of verified carbon credits to offset the entire life cycle of the products sold. It also offsets its land and air transport costs by planting trees and using carbon credits. His advice to firms in Singapore: The first step is find out what impact your business has on the environment.
“Then try to minimise this. You’ll find that costs of your business will go down.”
He draws the line, however, at sharing his technology with competitors.
“Our sustainability is our advantage… If we can do it, anybody can. And if anybody can, then everybody can.”

Am currently writing up an interview I did with one of Time magazine’s Heroes of the Environment 2007, Mr Ray Anderson, founder of Interface Inc, which was voted in 2006 by Globescan as No. 1 in the world for corporate sustainability.

While researching my subject, I came across a nicely-written idea online:

The concept is simple: For its first century, industrial capitalism has been obliviously, relentlessly linear: raw materials, energy, product, packaging, marketing, waste. In the century to come, Anderson wants business to evolve to the next level: cyclic capitalism. Companies would consume their own waste. Landfilllls, after a, are best seen as a yardstick of the failure of human ingenuity. In nature, there is no garbage; everyone’s waste becomes someone else’s food.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 10 September 2008
HIGH-END home prices have dropped by about 15 per cent to 20 per cent and will “stabilise at this level”, Wing Tai Holdings deputy chairman Edmund Cheng said yesterday.
The United States sub-prime crisis has affected Singapore’s property market, he said.
Transactions here in the first half of the [...]

I had to get up at stupid-o-clock to cover the Forbes CEO Global Conference today - which started at 8am!

As you might know, journalists are not known as early risers since news usually happens later in the day.

Some interesting observations from the annual affair, some amusing, some not - which helped get me through waking up that early:

1. Steve Forbes is very pro-Republican. He thinks McCain is ‘better for free trade’ in Asia. He has made some good points. However, I’ve also heard from many others, who are more democratic inclined because Obama is “better for climate change” and “more likely to follow through with his actions”. To quote someone, “McCain, under pressure, will just build more oil rigs”. - I couldn’t agree more.

2. At last year’s conference, Aussie actor Mel Gibson was invited and he turned up for one of the plenary sessions dressed in berms and crocs, Yes, crocs. Apparently, he was on a panel with Tulsi Tanti, chairman and managing director of Suzlon Energy, most famous for its business in wind power, and Gibson apparently flapped his arms like a chicken and cooed “wind energy!” - and you wonder why aren’t details like that reported!

3. Some fellow journalists can be scary. I requested to borrow a USB key from one IHT reporter and her response was “Okay, you can have it, but I’d better have it back or your head will be on the chopping board.”

I mean, I was grateful, but do strangers talk to each like that these days? I wonder if the IHT trains their journos to intimidate info out of people this way.

4. The funniest quote of the day: “Oil is like dating. Gas is like getting married, requiring proper contracts, and long arrangements. Your mother-in-law (banker) moves in with you to make sure you behave properly.”

5. And the quote I agree with most: “Solving the oil problem involves taxing people in the United States. If you don’t tax yourself, the market will tax you.” - an energy expert on the US’s consumption of fuel for transport

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 9 September 2008

As US president, he is more likely to reduce trade barriers than Obama, says Forbes boss

THE changing of the guard in the White House will have a direct impact on Asia, especially when it comes to the region’s lifeblood – global trade, said Mr Steve Forbes, the boss of Forbes.
He made no secret of his support for Republican John McCain during a press conference in Singapore yesterday, and warned that a reversal or slowdown in trade liberalisation would affect regional economies.
The chairman and chief executive of the magazine publishing group said Mr McCain was more likely to reduce trade barriers if he wins instead of his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama.
“Mr McCain is a committed free-trader, and is open and vociferous about it,” said Mr Forbes, who campaigned for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1996 and 2000.
He acknowledged that the Democrats have plenty of backing, but added: “The Democratic Party is now very protectionist and anti-trade… Even if MrObama wins and wants to pursue free trade, his party will be a major impediment.
“Asia is very dependent on trade, not just intra-Asia trade but trade around the world, so trade (policies) is something really real.”
Mr Forbes, who was speaking on the first day of the three-day Forbes Global CEO Conference, also tackled the weak greenback, maintaining that the United States must have an “open, stated policy of strengthening the dollar”.
“Inflation you see in this region, particularly in China, is a direct result of the weak dollar, and this hurts everybody. The sooner the US strengthens the dollar, the better,” said Mr Forbes, who is also editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine.
China’s economy is showing some signs of a slowdown, but this is happening everywhere, he said, adding that the US needs to stop “hectoring” the Chinese on its currency.
“Stability between the two countries’ currencies is a good thing. Hopefully, this will come to pass with a new president.”
China is also on its next phase of development, which will see it diversify its economic activities so it will not be dependent on a particular sector, he said.
The rising nation is one of many of “today’s pressing global issues” being discussed at the conference, which has as its theme: The Winning Hand.
This is about how leaders “play the hand” with “cards” being dealt by the global economy, he explained.
Topics will include strategies for dealing with the global uncertainty and topical issues such as energy and commodities, real estate, India, entertainment, entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
The event – now in its eighth year – gathers more than 450 business leaders with a combined net worth of more than US$160 billion (S$229 billion), said Mr Forbes.
Hyflux group chief executive and president Olivia Lum and Wing Tai Holdings deputy chairman Edmund Cheng are among the local business leaders who will speak at the event at the Shangri-La Hotel.

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 6 September 2008
Pure Power’s Kiwi technology aims to change the face of the biofuel industry
GREEN plastics might sound like an oxymoron – but they are exactly what a new player in town is trying to achieve.
Plastics made from renewable sources, that is.
The firm behind this idea is Pure Power [...]

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 5 September 2008
CHIEF executives helming Asian firms might be willing to develop the next generation of leaders, but few are proactive in doing so.
The absence of leadership development will make it harder for future leaders to successfully take on senior leadership roles.
This was the picture that emerged from a [...]

by Jessica Cheam, The Straits Times, 3 September 2008
CHIP Eng Seng, a mainboard-listed construction firm, has clinched a $156 million design-and- build contract from the HDB.
In a statement to the Singapore Exchange, the company said its unit Chip Eng Seng Contractors (1988) had won the award to design and build residential buildings with carpark and [...]