Page 11 - Towards A Sustainable Future, Phase 2 2024
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Knots café is a restaurant run by Xpressflowers Pte Ltd. The ESI significant and if similar savings were achieved at other
team from ITE College West noted from the environmental similar salons, manufacturers, cafes and laundry businesses
review that the café generated meat offcuts while filleting across Singapore, then savings in CO2 emissions and business
meats, including salmon and beef, contributing to carbon operational costs multiply dramatically.
emissions if thrown away. The team proposed that offcut
meats be reused to prepare side dishes like soup as food
for pets and donated to needy people. Knots café produces Summary of Environmental Benefits
about 240 kg of waste meat annually, equivalent to 19,623
kg of CO2 emission. The ITE project to repurpose the meat In summary, the second phase of the “Towards a Sustainable
avoids these emissions. Future” project endorsed the findings of the inaugural first
phase of the project, i.e. the ‘Triple Win Formula’ works in all
Another example is the laundry business - Laundry Loft, cases. It is possible, whatever the nature of the SME business
which offers various laundry services. After the environmental is, to improve its operational efficiency by cutting inputs
review, the ESI team from ITE College East identified t hat and outputs, enhancing process efficiency to cut carbon
laundry dryers got overly hot during the clothes drying emissions, and save the company money.
cycle. The absence of insulation around the dryers led to
a rise in ambient room temperature and forced the air- Furthermore, through student training, the ESI teams were
conditioning system to consume more power to maintain able to work closely and diligently with SME management to
an optimum temperature. The team proposed insulating the gain insights into the operation of an SME business and how
dryers’ exterior surfaces to prevent heat from escaping to the it can increase its environmental performance and improve
surroundings. This can reduce energy consumption by sustainability through measures to cut carbon emissions.
about 1935 kW annually, saving 785 kg of CO2 emissions The solutions identified by the ESI teams are designed to be
annually. simple and widely applicable to other similar types of SMEs
across Singapore’s economy.
All of the examples highlighted above represent not
only savings in terms of carbon emissions but also cost
savings to the SME in terms of reduced costs relating to
power and water consumption and, in some cases,
savings in terms of waste material disposal. Savings for
each business are
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