Hong Kong – Hong Kong’s carbon neutrality plan showcased in 2023 Lord Mayor’s Show in London (with photos)

Hong Kong’s carbon neutrality plan showcased in 2023 Lord Mayor’s Show in London (with photos)

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     The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, London (London ETO) took part in the City of London Lord Mayor’s Show on November 11 (London time) with a float highlighting Hong Kong’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050. 

     The London ETO’s float was driven by a 100 per cent electric truck, accompanied by a fleet of electric bikes and led by a group of dragon dancers and the Environment and Ecology Bureau’s mascot, Hanson. It displayed a dragon-style body with signature landmarks, carbon neutrality and sustainable development key initiatives and green landscape of Hong Kong, symbolising Hong Kong’s plan to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050 and reduce Hong Kong’s carbon emissions by 50 per cent before 2035 as compared to the 2005 level.

     The Director-General of the London ETO, Mr Gilford Law, whose office devised and organised Hong Kong’s float, said, “We congratulate the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli, and look forward to continuing to collaborate with him in the coming year.” Mr Law added, “Our float demonstrated the Lord Mayor’s theme this year to celebrate the knowledge connections among the financial and commercial centres between cities of the world, highlighting how they work together to address global problems such as climate change. Hong Kong, as Asia’s World City, will strive to achieve the ‘dual carbon’ targets, as highlighted in ‘The Chief Executive’s 2023 Policy Address’.”

     ​The annual Lord Mayor’s Show celebrates the swearing-in of the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, who serves as a global ambassador for the United Kingdom’s financial and professional services sector. This year, Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli became the 695th Lord Mayor of the City of London. More than half a million people take to the streets to see the parade each year, while the BBC broadcasts it live to millions of people in Britain and globally.

     London ETO first took part in the Lord Mayor’s Show in 2005. London ETO has been using colourful and exciting displays to showcase the different facets of Hong Kong, for instance, its status as international financial centre, natural attractions as well as innovation and technology. 

Japan – MHI Selected as Technology Licensor for EET Industrial Carbon Capture Targeting UK’s First Low Carbon Refinery

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has been selected as licensor of CO2 capture technology for the project known as EET Industrial Carbon Capture which is underway at the Stanlow Refinery, owned and operated by Essar Oil UK Limited in Cheshire County in northwest England. Essar Oil UK is the UK arm of the Essar Group, a multinational conglomerate based in India.

Stanlow Refinery, Cheshire County, UK (photo courtesy of Essar Oil UK)

The project at Stanlow will capture CO2 emissions from the fluid catalytic cracker in the refinery process. This contributes to Stanlow becoming the UK’s first low-carbon refinery. Once it is built, it will capture approximately 860,000 tons of CO2 per year. The project is supported by HyNet, the carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) cluster in northwest England. The captured CO2 will be permanently sequestered into depleted gas fields under the sea in Liverpool Bay.

MHI, as a licensor of the project’s CO2 capture technology, will support the project by providing the basic engineering design package (BEDP) applying its “Advanced KM CDR Process™,” CO2 capture technology jointly developed with The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc.

The British Government has set a target to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. In line with this initiative, the requisite infrastructure, including formation of CCUS clusters, is being developed to carry out all related processes – from CO2 capture to transportation and storage – at each of the country’s targeted industrial zones.

In October 2021, then the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) designated two CCUS clusters, HyNet and East Coast. This is still being supported by the subsequent new department, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). The project at Stanlow targets 2028 as the start of operations of EET Industrial Carbon Capture.

Essar Oil UK is actively advancing the decarbonization of its refinery and putting it at the forefront of UK’s energy transition. In order to commit this, the company is investing US$1.2 billion over the next five years to lower emissions from the refinery.

MHI Group has formally declared its intent to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, and the Company is now working strategically to decarbonize both the energy demand and supply sides. A core element of the Company’s “Energy Transition,” which targets decarbonization on the energy supply side, is the development of a CO2 solutions ecosystem integrating diverse sources of carbon emissions with modes for carbon storage and utilization. Through provision of the carbon capture technology at Stanlow, the Company will contribute to execution of the project and realization of the UK’s first CO2 capture for a refinery, and thereby boost its presence within the UK’s CCUS market. Going forward, MHI Group will continue to respond to the decarbonization needs of diverse industrial sectors.

About MHI Group’s CO2 capture technologies

MHI Group has been developing the KM CDR Process™ (Kansai Mitsubishi Carbon Dioxide Recovery Process) and the Advanced KM CDR Process™ in collaboration with The Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. since 1990. As of November 2023, the Company has delivered 16 plants adopting the KM CDR Process™, and two more are currently under construction. The Advanced KM CDR Process™ adopts the KS-21™ solvent, which incorporates technological improvements over the amine-based KS-1™ adopted at all 16 of the commercial CO2 capture plants delivered to date. The advanced version offers superior regeneration efficiency and lower deterioration than the KS-1™, and it has been verified to provide excellent energy saving performance, reduce operation costs, and result in low amine emissions.

For further information on MHI Group’s CO2 capture plants: www.mhi.com/products/engineering/co2plants.html

About MHI Group

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group is one of the world’s leading industrial groups, spanning energy, smart infrastructure, industrial machinery, aerospace and defense. MHI Group combines cutting-edge technology with deep experience to deliver innovative, integrated solutions that help to realize a carbon neutral world, improve the quality of life and ensure a safer world. For more information, please visit www.mhi.com or follow our insights and stories on spectra.mhi.com.

Copyright ©2023 JCN Newswire. All rights reserved. A division of Japan Corporate News Network.

“Carbon reduction” opportunities and Broad Homes’ growth potential

The second round of land auction rules in 22 cities has been adjusted, and competitive quality has become a standard feature in the multi-city land auction market. An enterprise’s vitality, product strength, innovation ability and product competitiveness are becoming the underlying logic to drive the industry into high-quality development.
Broad Homes (Ticker: 2163.HK) is the first company in the prefabricated construction industry to IPO on the HKEX. The Company has accumulated more than 20 years of technological and industrial capabilities. The industry believes that Broad Homes will help lead the construction industry towards resource integration and more environmental-friendly developments.

Opportunities under carbon reduction

This year, “carbon peak, carbon neutral” was formally written into the government work report, the “14th Five-Year Plan” included policies to accelerate the promotion of green and low-carbon development. Since the construction industry is a key contributor of carbon emissions, companies related to green buildings will usher in new development potential.

In fact, green building development is already on the rise. In June 2021, 15 departments including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the “Opinions on Strengthening Green and Low-Carbon Construction in County Towns” document, clarifying that the county will vigorously develop green buildings and building energy conservation, including the promotion and application of green building materials, the development of new construction methods such as prefabricated steel structures, and the full implementation green construction, etc.

Prefabricated buildings are highly energy-efficient and can reduce carbon emissions by more than 40% throughout its life cycle, according to CITIC Securities. From 2016 to 2020, the CAGR of newly started prefabricated buildings nationwide reached 53%, and the proportion of newly started prefabricated buildings reached 20.5% in 2020.

Broad Homes’ path to carbon reduction

Facing positive market prospects, Broad Homes’ strategy to grasp development opportunities is industrialized construction.

Tang Fen, Board Director and President of Broad Homes, commented: “Industrialized construction is the most effective technological path for the construction industry to achieve the dual-carbon goal.” Broad Homes will continue to invest in technology and product R&D to consistently enhance product characteristics. “Simply put, construction industrialization is like building a house like a car. This methodology is currently in its early stages of development in China”, Tang Fen added.

Compared with traditional engineering construction models, prefabricated buildings have the following two advantages: 1) prefabricated construction can effectively shorten the construction period and improve construction efficiency. During the early stage of construction, prefabricated buildings go through stages of detailed and standardized design, shortening the construction period by more than 1/3 compared to buildings built using traditional construction methods. 2) Prefabricated construction helps to achieve energy saving, environmental protection and low carbon emissions throughout the entire construction cycle, Ping An Securities’ research report indicated.

As the industry leader for prefabricated construction, Broad Homes has greater development advantages. Firstly, Broad Homes is the first company in the industry to fully adopt the full-process digital information system. Secondly, Broad Homes is also the first company to obtain exclusive intellectual properties for the entire industry technology chain.

At present, Broad Homes has 8 generations of product systems, a leading national information system, an accumulation of experience in building 200 million square meters of construction projects, and a strategic factory layout in China. As of June 2021, Broad Homes has 15 wholly owned PC factories and 60 joint PC factories that are currently under operations.

Future growth is empowered by digitalization

When industrialized construction reaches productization, it is necessary to gradually move away from passively meeting customer needs to actively meeting them. Broad Homes believes digitalization should be adopted to improve efficiency and push for product innovation.

Tang Fen commented: “How to return building construction to the essence of the product itself relies on realizing the values of industrialization and digitalization.” Broad Homes began to actively engage in digitalization capabilities in 2014. Currently, the Company’s operation is entirely driven by the data system. The front-end production and operation are driven by demand, and the influence of human factors in the entire production and operation process is reduced by 95%.

In March 2021, Broad Homes officially released the BOX Modul product. Since the trial production in July this year, a total of more than 100 million new orders have been contracted in three months, showing positive demand from the market. It is reported that the BOX Modul is built ready-to-live with a wide range of application scenarios including cultural tourism, homestays, public service spaces, etc. This product allows the realization of more innovative models of living and usage of land.

Take employee apartment as an example, in 2021, Broad Homes upgraded the settlement solution for employees. The multi-story employee apartment can be delivered in just 50 days, and high-rise employee apartment can be delivered in 150 days, which meets the differentiated market demand for rental housing in different cities.

Regarding the successful innovation of products, Hu Shengli, the Co-President of Broad Homes and CEO of Broad Box Technology Co., Ltd., commented: “The Company’s independently developed whole-process digitalized information system, PC-CPS, integrates all parts of the industrial chain including design, manufacturing, and construction and at the same time offering flexible manufacturing. This system has set a good foundation to produce BOX-Modul products.”

He also commented: “Through transformation and upgrades, the PC-CPS system can be implemented into BOX-Modul products. We hope in a year of continuous efforts, we can realize digitalization through the BOX-Modul’s CPS system and with feedback from the client end, we hope to further enhance and upgrade our product.”

In his view, in the near future, BOX-Modul products can be upgraded and iterated from hardware to software just like the iPhone. Digital technology provides this possibility for the BOX-Modul.






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Japan – Collaboration with South Pole to Generate and Sell Carbon Credits from Carbon Removal Technologies

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is pleased to announce it has signed a collaboration agreement with one of the world’s largest carbon credit developers, South Pole. Part of MC’s efforts to reduce its environmental impact, the agreement covers the joint study of a project to generate and sell carbon credits derived from carbon removal technologies such as CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage).

In order to achieve the goals set forth in the Paris Agreement and keep global warming within 1.5degC(1), it is considered critical not only to reduce CO2 emissions, but also to introduce carbon removal technologies such as CCUS, which captures, stores, and effectively uses the CO2 already emitted into the atmosphere. However, technological innovation and cost reduction are issues that need to be addressed before carbon removal technologies can be implemented on a large scale.

This project aims to solve these problems by developing and selling carbon credits for carbon removal technologies, providing a new source of revenue through credit sales to the companies that supply the credits, and offering credit buyers the opportunity to purchase the credits.

MC has been working on several projects in the field of CO2 mineralization(2), and by utilizing its knowledge and network, will examine and determine the feasibility of commercialization with South Pole by the end of this year. Through the commercialization of this project, MC hopes to contribute to global decarbonization by creating and leading a virtuous cycle that promotes the development and implementation of superior carbon removal technologies such as CCUS.

Overview of South Pole

South Pole recognizes that private sector climate action is essential to address climate change. To leverage this potential, South Pole focuses on working with large companies to reduce their environmental footprint while making concrete impacts on removing CO2 from the atmosphere through direct development of climate action projects. Founded in 2006, South Pole today has about 500 staff in 18 offices globally, and has developed about 1,000 projects responsible for removing, reducing or avoiding over 100 million tons of CO2e to date. South Pole has worked with over 1,000 companies and organizations on their climate journeys. For more information, visit www.southpole.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

(1) According to the IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5degC” (SR15) there is an urgent need to scale up efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in order to achieve the 100-1,000 Gt of CO2 removals by 2050 required to keep global warming within 1.5degC.
(2) Related MC announcements
R&D on Use of CO2 in Concrete(August 5th 2020)
Use of CO2 in Concrete / Partnership with Blue Planet Systems Corporation(September 23, 2020)
Use of CO2 in Concrete / Investment in CarbonCure and Formation of Partnership(January 29, 2021)

Copyright ©2021 JCN Newswire. All rights reserved. A division of Japan Corporate News Network.

Award-winning Carbon Broker to Assist XELS with Offset Procurement and Strategy

Redshaw Advisors will support XELS mission of increasing participation in carbon markets in Japan and beyond.

Tokyo, Japan, 30th April, 2021, ZEXPRWIRE, — XELS, a revolutionary blockchain-based carbon offset platform has announced that it has joined forces with renowned carbon brokerage and risk management firm Redshaw Advisors. Under the collaboration, Redshaw Advisors will provide strategic advisory, consulting, and procurement of carbon credits for XELS.

Immutable Carbon Offsets

Initially focused on the voluntary carbon credit segment, XELS launched its blockchain platform and eponymous digital asset earlier this month. The startup’s tokenized offset credits, which exist on an immutable public ledger, are designed to boost both transparency and participation in carbon markets. 

Unlike traditional carbon credits, XELS cannot be modified or double spent, and the process of “burning” used tokens ensures the credit is retired forever. Anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection (from eco-conscious individuals to corporations who are serious about tackling climate change) can buy and trade XELS. 

XELS and Redshaw LTD

By working with Redshaw Advisors, XELS will be able to ensure the legitimacy of each credit it tokenizes, while also providing an additional record of the credit’s retirement in the Redshaw Advisors’ registry account. Upon retirement, Redshaw Advisors will also issue certificates that XELS’ clients can use to show the exact amount of CO2 they’ve neutralized.

Bill Goldie, Head of Voluntary Market at Redshaw Advisors, stated that:

“Redshaw are delighted to have been given the opportunity to advise, consult, and procure for XELS across carbon markets – compliance and voluntary – and renewable energy,” 

Regulated “Compliance” Credits

In the future, XELS seeks to offer regulated “compliance” credits in addition to voluntary offset credits. The startup is in advanced discussions with a number of Japanese corporations that wish to significantly curtail their environmental impact, in line with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s goal of reaching net zero domestic emissions by 2050.

XELS founder and CEO Takeshi Nojima explains the two companies progression towards fighting global warming:

“In many ways, Japan is playing catch up with the rest of the world, and the European Union in particular,”

Takeshi stated that XELS will become the easiest, most transparent way for businesses to join the fight against global warming, and that the company will be able to provide clear proof of their commitment – backed by Redshaw Advisors. He added that this is something consumers appreciate, and will eventually come to expect from the companies that they support.

About XELS

XELS Limited was founded in 2017, with offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong, and is a member of the Climate Chain Coalition. XELS tokens can be obtained on the Bittrex Global and MXC cryptocurrency exchanges.

About Redsaw

Redshaw Advisors, founded in 2014, with a long track record of success in the European carbon markets, has a growing presence in voluntary markets. Among numerous industry accolades, Redshaw Advisors was named Best Trading Company and Best Advisory/Consultancy for EU ETS credits, Voluntary Carbon Market, and Renewable Energy Certificates in 2020. 

Businesses in the green tech space interested in collaborating with XELS can contact [email protected].