San Francisco recently played host to the biannual Inogen Alliance Associate Meeting held between 31st October and 1st November. ESC Group Director Andrew Young and Managing Principal Sabine Ramaker are among the Inogen Associate partners from 25 nations who have gathered in person for the first time since the pandemic.
With COP27 looming, climate resilience and ESG strategy were key themes under discussion at this year’s meeting. Much of the conversation centred on the roadmap laid out in the Inogen Alliance 2021 ESG Report and covered a range of topics such as carbon footprinting and offsets, energy transition, and biodiversity management.
During the meeting, Young provided valuable insights on current trends and opportunities for the Environmental and Sustainability sector within the ASEAN region. Young cited the quick rate of energy transition in the region, aided by a surge in green investments from financial institutions and project development firms, as a cause for optimism. Young also cited the increasing number of schemes to export renewable electricity from one country to another as adding weight to the ASEAN region’s green energy boom.
For 20 years, ESC has emerged as one of the go-to names in Asia among governments and industry alike for facilitating the transition to a greener economy. The company’s experience in both national and international regulatory compliance is being called upon by developers across the continent to help them get their renewable energy projects off the ground.
Perhaps the most high profile of these is Sun Cable’s AAPowerLink, which will supply Singapore with renewable electricity from a huge solar farm in Darwin, Australia, via an undersea cable. ESC is currently conducting the environmental and social studies required to enable the cable’s passage through Indonesian territorial waters. ESC has helped dozens of other renewable energy projects meet environmental and social compliance standards in recent years, such as hydropower developments in the Solomon Islands and Indonesia and wind farm projects in Indonesia and Vietnam.
As ESG becomes increasingly prioritized across industries, ESC is also experiencing a notable spike in demand for its Sustainability and Climate Change services. ESC has been called upon by companies working in various sectors to help them reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and plan for a more sustainable future. Examples include developing a sustainability strategy and decarbonisation roadmap for a data centre operator with premises across Asia and conducting Climate Change Risk Assessments (CCRA) for a massive aromatics plant and an industrial fruit farmer in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Ramaker shed light on the region’s return to traditional EHS and compliance during the health & safety panel discussion as more businesses return to the workplace. Ramaker emphasised the importance of good health & safety in the workplace, citing its business advantages and the way it ties in with a company’s core values to foster a culture where employees care about their safety and the safety of others. The panel also discussed the latest global trends in international regulations, health & safety practices, and EHS developments in the digitally-enabled and rapidly-evolving industry.
The global industrial trends emerging from the Inogen Alliance Associate Meeting paint a very bright future for the Alliance and the EHS & Sustainability sector in general. With the ASEAN region being on a steeper development curve than much of the rest of the world, these trends and opportunities are only amplified.
For ESC, the 2022 Inogen Alliance meeting underlined the benefit of being able to draw on the expertise of some of the world’s most experienced EHS & Sustainability strategists and consultants. The insights gained will serve every member of the Alliance well in continuing to facilitate the global green energy transition.
Contact us to learn more or to discover how ESC can assist you in resolving your unique challenges.