HAESCO together with FOE (Friends of the Earth) organised a forum, but unlike other events delegate’s had the opportunity to express their view on the energy business sector in Hong Kong to everyone present.
With over 100 delegates, they where seated around a table forming teams, and each team comprised 8-10 people.
Angus from FOE had a prepared a few questions in advance to entice the teams to answer in their response. After the discussion period the table leader was invited to the stage to deliver the views of their table to the audience, and received a Oneclick technologies energy saving plug.
One issue each table offered was education, educating government, educating business, and educating the general public. It is a key issue, if we want wider acceptance of alternate business models, including performance contracting, business needs to know these options exist. Not to replace traditional ways of doing business, but to supplement them. Performance Contacts is just one option, it will never suit everyone and that’s fine. In other countries the ESCO companies started with government projects, then moved into the private sector, here the Hong Kong government has been painfully slow to show any interest, hoping that the commercial sector will be enough.
Hong Kong government or LEGCO didn’t offer any opinion.
Another important outcome was the financing for energy efficiency, presently banks and LFI’s (Local Financial Institutions) are stuck, only offering traditional loan services based on upfront collateral, and also fail to recognise the resulting cashflow generated by energy efficiency projects.
Delegates put forward a number of opinions, including loan guarantee by Hong Kong government, the setting up of a fund, and others. As other have any already pointed out, the existing SME loan guarantee scheme is not working as intended, and doesn’t educate the banks about energy project finance.
In addition to the forum session, a number of exhibitions booths allowed delegates to browse the latest services, equipment, and technology available.
Along with FOE’s director Mr Edwin Lau FOE opening presentation, Mr John Herbert HAESCO’s Vice chairman was also invited to provide opening remarks.
I must give special thanks to HAESCO’s own Mr Lawrence Wong Oneclick Technologies. Lawrence a founding director of HAESCO provided a free energy saving device for every table leader.
Several HAESCO directors and HAESCO members attended to support the event forum, I thank them all, including Simon Cheng (Honorary Treasurer), Mr Lawrence Wong, Mr David Leung, Mr Joe Ng, Mr Thomas Heinrich, and Mr Eddy Lui.
Both David Leung, and Thomas Heinrich also deserve a special mention, and additional thanks for taking up the challenge and supporting the exhibition. Below are some more pictures from the event, including the exhibition booths area.
Finally, I must thank FOE, Angus and all the FOE volunteers for helping organise a worthwhile event.
