Energy Saving News
Businesses Told they can Save Money Through Energy Saving
AUSTRALIAN and New Zealand business leaders reckon they could cut carbon emissions by at least 15 per cent respectively and save money.
A report from the Australia-New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference reckons efforts taken across power, building, industry, forestry, agriculture and transport sectors can lower emissions to the benefit of business.
By adopting the correct policies emissions could be cut by 25 percent by 2020, the conference heard yesterday.
Jutsen, executive director of energy and climate change consultancy Energetics told the conference:
"Australia has very large scope for reducing emissions through energy efficiency,
"The Australian economy is only about 10 percent efficient -- this means that 90 percent of the energy in the fuel we dig up is lost in the supply chain and end uses,"
A reduction in government bureaucracy, improving supply contracts so industry can generate electricity that they can feed back into the grid, accelerated green depreciation for buildings along with broader energy efficiency steps which would be agreed to by both business and government, all this would make significant cuts to the CO2 emissions of both Australia and New Zealand.
Chairman of the not-for-profit Climate Change and Business Centre, Gary Taylor, highlighted that a carbon price was crucial, aligned with sector-specific procedures to tackle climate change.
“Australia can learn from New Zealand's experience implementing a price on carbon and New Zealand can benefit from Australia's experience with complementary measures,'' Taylor said, adding:
“The urgent need for strong leadership by business and government and closer collaboration between them was a strong theme of the conference.
"Businesses have opportunities to improve profitably through acting on energy productivity. While a price on carbon will increase the justification for action, government policy changes are required to maximise carbon mitigation.''
According to a poll of conference delegates the most popular measure for reducing emissions was energy efficiency.
Friday 13th August 2010
