SINGAPORE SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS 2014

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Low risk, high value

Alternative Energy Corporation proves to clients that sustainability-driven projects can bring about improved bottom lines

PHOTOS: AEG

By Suresh Nair

LTERNATIVE Energy Corporation put its money where its mouth was by using its own capital to establish suc-cessful operations in multiple jurisdic-tions and industries in South-east Asia,

trail-blazing sustainable transformation models. “Our vision is based on our ex-

tensible platform enabling the de-ployment of additional technolo-gies and environmental services further driving innovation and sustainable benefi ts,” says chief executive offi cer Mark Leslie (right). “We exemplify the enabler goals of the GTA (Green Tech-nology Awards) in the Small and Medium Enterprise category, now and in years to come.”

Its business enables a pioneering paradigm shift towards sustainability for client partners with demon-strated local, global, and bottom-line benefits. To date, it has deployed over US$30 million (S$38 mil-lion) at more than 25 client partner sites. As an own-er-operator over the past eight years, the company has made business sustainable by localising human capital required for successful operations, and driving knowl-edge transfer and local employment.

The core business is delivering wastewater treat-ment to renewable energy projects. The company treats wastewater at agricultural processing facilities and captures the resulting biogas, which the client partners use to create heat or electricity while destroy-ing the greenhouse gases.

Safety cultureMr Leslie says the company provides benefits to many stakeholders.

“Locally, we establish a safety culture and remove haz-ards at the water treatment areas while reducing water pollution. We improve local air quality by reducing toxic gases and odours, and non-methane volatile organic com-pounds like sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides,” he adds.

“We improve the bottom line of our client partners

by enabling signifi cant premiums for client partner fi nal product, reductions in production costs and/or incremen-tal revenues from the conversion of other waste products into value-added products, as well as improved regulato-ry and environmental compliance. Globally, we reduce greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.”

Alternative Energy Corporation processes more than 8.5 million cu m of waste water annually. And it displaces nearly 20,000 tonnes of lignite coal, 50,000 tonnes of biomass, and 8MW of diesel generation, cut-ting over 600,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually.

“We demonstrate that sustainability-centric projects can create high value,” says Mr Leslie, who developed the first strategic vision for AES Climate Solutions in Asean in 2006 and championed formal planning pro-cesses for end-to-end business creation. “We are an in-novator of business models enabling market adoption of sustainable practices.”

Since the start, the company recognised sustaina-bility as an emerging concept but with the perception of high risk.

“Risk-free” model“To counter this, we based our business on a ‘risk-free’ model where we provide the technology, human cap-ital and financing required to successfully implement the projects,” says Mr Leslie.

Moving forward, the company is expanding its depth of impact. He adds: “Our history of successful projects has led new client partners to perceive fewer project risks and to be willing to deploy capital. To meet this demand, we extended our business to in-clude turnkey projects.”

In addition, to further reduce financial and com-mercial risks, it began providing project development assistance to secure electricity sales contracts with creditworthy clients. Going further, it is developing innovative technical solutions, including solar-biogas hybrid power generation, further reducing risks and enhancing benefits to client partners and stakeholders.

“We were one of the fi rst companies to implement these kinds of project in the region,” says Mr Leslie. “We drove adoption through risk-free implementation mod-els and our successes have demonstrated opportunities where sustainability can be low risk and high value.”