A Green Forum was held on the second day (March 30) of the 2012 Macao International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition (2012 MIECF). The two sessions in the morning discussed about green construction and finance to the environmental industry. At the first session, with the following topic: "Why Green Buildings is the Key Player in Developing Sustainable Environments", Prof. Bernd Kroplin, from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, shared with the audience the importance of energy storage. He said that people can store energy and reduce energy consumption through innovative buildings design. At present, one of the more effective ways is through solar power generation, but this method can only store about 15% of the energy, wasting the remaining 85%. He added that, in fact, there is still a lot of energy on earth that can be effectively store and used, such as the installation of solar panels in the roof of buildings, and that there is a new type of solar panels that automatically moves in line with the direction of the sun, and that such method can more efficiently store energy. Mr. Julian Bott, Principal of Cundall Hong Kong Ltd., made a presentation on the development of low water consumption buildings in Australia, explaining that these buildings are equipped with a system that widely gather, collect and recycle water. He pointed that that because water is becoming scarce and there are shortages in many places, water conservation is an important environmental issue. He gave the example of Australia, where some cities faces long-term season water shortages while there are recurrent floods in other cities. In view of this, the Australian Government is actively looking for solutions, by exploring new ways to more efficiently use water resources, such as additional storage of rain water or river water, for potable use, and also on effective ways to recycle water, and eventually move towards materializing the concept of zero consumption buildings. Dr. Ken Yeang, Chairman & Design Director, Llewelyn Davies Yeang, from the United Kingdom, introduced several of his ecological buildings projects. In his opinion, a "green design" should have all the following four factors, namely, engineering considerations, water resource management, nature conservation and human behaviour. Another speaker, Mr. Lin Xuefeng, Vice Chairman of Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Administration Committee, briefed the participants on the Sino-Singapore Eco-city project in Tianjin, including environmental protection, energy conservation, national-level environmental education and research, exchange exhibition centre and eco-type industrial base. The topic of the second session was "Green Finance and Green Investment/Risk Management", where issues such as renewable energy and other environmental projects and finance were discussed. Mr. Yi Zhongge, Vice Secretary-General of China Association for Small & Medium Commercial Enterprises said that the environmental industry in general is faced with financial difficulties, given the special assets, technology, operational model and market operation characteristics of the said industry. He said that, unlike traditional SMEs, operators of that industry have difficulty in obtaining loans from financial institutions. He pointed out that, at present, banks in China over pursuit commercial interests, losing their function of promoting and nurturing the industries. He suggested the restructuring of the banking system and to establish environmental industry banks, and introduce legislation to regulate the private finance, so as to optimize the financing to the environment industry. Mr. Yi also advocated the setting-up of an energy conservation and environmental protection development fund, to encourage non-governmental research and development of new environmental technologies and assist the industry to train professionals. Mr. Jan Napiorowski, Senior Risk Analyst of MunichRE, from Hong Kong, suggested that insurance companies develop an insurance solution which backs up technological risk and together with manufacturers´ balance sheets and liquidity, provide its financial rating and technological expertise. Mr. Sean Kidney, Co-Funder of Climate Bonds Initiative, from the United Kingdom, proposed a Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund concept. Said fund would co-invest with public/private investors in private equity funds to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in development countries. Ms. Pauline Chong, Associate Director, Clean Energy Project & Export Finance of Standard Chartered Bank and Dr. Tao Reng, of European Investment Bank Group, Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund, based in Luxembourg introduced how banks could arrange financing for Chinese renewable energy projects.
