Saturday, 27 July 2013 00:01
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National Cleaner Production Centre Guarantee Ltd. born
“Successful PPP for our industries”: Rishad
$ 3 m project almost a decade in the making
“High performance SL industries need more energy efficiency”: UNIDO’s Petra
New cleaner production methods can slash Lanka’s carbon emissions by almost 20% by 2020. The leading cleaner production solutions provider in Sri Lanka has successfully transformed itself into a new corporate entity after almost a decade in the making, while the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) model in Sri Lanka recorded yet another win.
“We are encouraged by the Asian Development Bank’s latest assessment on carbon emissions here. Today we mark the third phase of the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) project under UNIDO, transforming and institutionalising it as a guarantee-company. The NCPC has been in operation as a project under UNIDO, and now it becomes a non-profit guarantee company with successful Private-Public Partnership,” announced Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen on 25 July.
Bathiudeen was addressing the occasion to mark the institutionalisation of the National Cleaner Production Centre (formerly a project under the UNIDO Focal Point of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce) as an autonomous body, held on 25 July at the Ministry Auditorium, Colombo.
The partners of the newly-born National Cleaner Production Centre Guarantee Ltd. are the National Chamber of Exporters and Ceylon National Chamber of Industries. Of the nine Board Members, four are from the partner agencies and five are drawn from the public sector.
Also present on the occasion were Petra Schwager (Environmental Management Branch of the UNIDO in Vienna, Austria), Nawaz Rajabdeen (Director, UNIDO Focal Point Sri Lanka), Anura Siriwardena (Secretary, Ministry of Industry and Commerce), Eng. V.R. Sena Peiris (Director, NCPC) and B.M.U.D. Basnayake (Secretary to the Ministry of Environment and Renewable Energy), among others.
“We are encouraged by the Asian Development Bank’s latest assessment on carbon footprint here,” said Bathiudeen, addressing the occasion. “According to the ADB study, by following new green power initiatives, Sri Lanka could reduce its green-house gas emissions by almost 20% by 2020. This is no less than a strong reduction potential of 5.6 MT of carbon. NCPC helped our industries immensely by improving their resource efficiency and environmental performance as well as chemical usage. It also helps us in securing sustainability. The new legal structure of the NCPC will better position the institution to work closely with industries and other enterprises to deliver their services, more efficiently.
“On behalf of the people of Sri Lanka, I wish to thank the Government of Norway for the valuable support extended to the NCPC since 2002. In fact the Kingdom of Norway has donated a total of $ 3 m to NCPC since the project started in 2002 throughout the entire first and second phases of the project. I also extend, my thanks to UNIDO for their support. I am pleased to state that the work of NCPC has helped the committed industrial development vision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in many ways. In supporting President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s industrial development vision, and among others, the National Cleaner Production Awards series as well as, the Asia Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production with the participation of 30 countries in 2010 are important events.”
“I thank both the Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Environment for their support in this initiative,” said Petra Schwager (UNIDO-Vienna, Austria), addressing the occasion. “As Sri Lanka now becomes a high performance economy along with its industries, it will need more energy, green power technologies as well as energy and material efficiency. Working with Sri Lanka for the last seven years, I can tell you that the NCPC is a specialised team on green initiatives. The centre has become a national level operation centre. For the industries to keep growing, it is important that they use the energies more efficiently. Therefore it is very important for industries to receive support on energy efficiency and green power technologies. We have a global network of 50 cleaner production centres and more than 50% of them are self-sustainable. Sri Lanka’s NCPC is the latest to join our network of sustainable centres.”
