Carbon what? Carbon-neutral may be a term you’re familiar with but what does it actually mean? Furthermore, what is carbon-neutral energy? We spoke to Sivakumar Avadiar, co-founder of Environmental Solutions and ES Power, to understand what it means to be carbon neutral, why it matters and how we can join the green energy movement.
Update (6th June 2019): iSwitch and ES Power announced a new partnership of their electricity retail businesses. As part of the partnership, ES Power’s business and residential consumers will be transferred to iSwitch, who will honour the same electricity rate, terms and conditions of their existing contracts. iSwitch and ES Power will work together to promote a sustainable and green Singapore.
Starting Environmental Solutions in 1999, Sivakumar has been in the sustainability business for a long while. Beginning with very niche group of customers and corporations, they wanted to expand and move to consumers. Behold, they entered electrical retail with the inception of ES Power.
Mother Nature would say “clean up after yourselves”. We are all here for a short span of time. This is just borrowed space. We inherit it, we leave it better, then pass it on to the next generation.
– Sivakumar Avadiar
In this interview, we speak to Sivakumar about:
> What it means to be carbon neutral
> Why it is important to be carbon neutral
> How going carbon neutral affect us in Singapore
The meaning of going carbon neutral
If you’re a user of electricity, it doesn’t matter who or where you are. If the source of the electricity is fossil fuel, you are still indirectly producing carbon dioxide from your consumption. Not everyone can set-up wind farms or solar panels, but they can join our carbon neutral programme where you buy green attributes from green projects around the world to offset your own carbon footprint and become carbon neutral.
Your energy consumption’s impact on the environment
Fossil fuels have been the main source of energy for electricity production in Singapore. About 30% of all CO2 emissions in Singapore is from electricity production. Even though Singapore uses the cleanest form of fossil fuels (liquefied natural gas), it is still a fossil fuel. On a global scale, electricity is a major contributor to CO2 emissions.
The social vein of ES Power
ES Power offers social institutions rock-bottom prices through their micro-philanthropy platform. This platform showcases these institutions, letting people know what they work on, their bill and allows anyone to offset/lower their bill. They aim to extend this to 1-room homes in Singapore. There’s a need to balance the social injustices that may arise from a market that will soon be liberalised, which sees bungalows enjoying huge savings and one-room flats facing the opposite.
Sivakumar’s #LittleGreenSteps on reducing your carbon footprint
– Going carbon neutral is one way you can reduce your own carbon footprint. Collectively we can make a difference
– Recycle, reduce your consumption and wastage
– Every bit counts, we should do everything we can to make the world a better place