AS A utility player, Engie surprised a number of its stakeholders in 2015 – from employees to shareholders – when it pivoted its business model towards prioritising sustainability, in response to the looming impact of climate change.
Thomas Baudlot, the chief executive of Engie South East Asia, recalled how the Paris Agreement in 2015 brought “great realisation” that the company would not be able to continue its business as-is, because “it would simply not be sustainable for (the) planet”.
But the idea of a shift towards cleaner and greener products was not initially welcomed by everyone. Baudlot said some employees had spent their whole lives in the traditional oil-and-gas business, and needed some convincing.
“It took a few years to onboard everyone, but the fact that we were extremely clear about our ambition, and how that would affect our strategy… slowly but surely it helped the whole company. Today, the whole of Engie is really working day and night to achieve these ambitious goals,” he told The Business Times (BT) in a recent interview.
The shift was also easier said than done for a large utility company like Engie – one that was laden with carbon-intensive operations and a sizeable exposure to coal.
“This journey started by establishing a first goal, which was to stop the development of new coal power plants,” said Baudlot. The company then moved to exit coal completely, and is now targeting to become carbon-neutral by 2045 throughout its value chain.
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Back in 2017, Engie’s global exposure to coal plants stood at 7 gigawatts (GW); this figure is now 2.5 GW. In South-east Asia, Engie no longer has any exposure to coal, Baudlot noted.
Engie is also cutting its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90 per cent compared to 2017, and it plans to work on the development of carbon sinks to neutralise its residual emissions over the long term.
Engie is one of three winners of the Impact Enterprise Excellence Award for large enterprises in the inaugural Sustainability Impact Awards organised by UOB and BT. Judges recognised its commitment to providing sustainable solutions, such as district cooling and sustainable mobility, and its work at the Renewable Energy Integration Demonstrator – Singapore, a platform dedicated to designing, demonstrating, and testing sustainable and cost-effective energy solutions for South-east Asia.
Recent macroeconomic troubles, such as volatile energy prices and the Russia-Ukraine war, have also pushed Engie’s clients to think more about sustainability. “The cost of energy has become more volatile,” Baudlot said.
“Today, we still experience quite high energy prices and volatility, and that’s a natural driver for companies to look for ways to reduce energy use and to produce their own energy with systems that can be deployed on their production sites.”
For South-east Asia, Engie brings efficient energy solutions ranging from large-scale renewables to low-carbon infrastructure such as district cooling systems (DCS), electric vehicle (EV) charging and on-site solar to its clients.
Baudlot said the company chooses to focus on “high energy users” including data centres, real estate developers and certain types of manufacturers. The company also leverages partnerships where possible to meet the rising demand for its solutions.
Partnerships are also critical in markets such as Singapore, where there is a “clear plan towards decarbonisation”. This, Baudlot said, has resulted in new regulations forming around building efficiency and how industrial production should take place.
“We are in high demand for (our) solutions, which is a great place to be. For us, the key is how to organise ourselves to respond to this demand, and how to structure partnerships to scale the deployments or solutions as fast as possible,” he added.
Engie has partnered with JTC and the Singapore Institute of Technology for the development of two DCS in Punggol Digital District. The underground plant is slated for completion in 2024, and will be operated by Engie for 30 years.
Under this partnership, Engie will develop and construct the DCS plant that will be equipped with a cooling capacity of 30,000 refrigeration tons, equivalent to cooling 8,000 four-room HDB flats.
Baudlot said the move to centralise a cooling system in the district is more efficient, and helps to free up more space in the already densely populated country.
Engie is also capitalising on the EV boom here, inking a partnership with transport operator ComfortDelGro to advance the development and deployment of EV charging infrastructure in Singapore. The duo had in 2021 won a tender to deploy 479 EV chargers across Singapore by the third quarter of 2022.
The joint venture, CDG Engie, is one of the largest EV charging providers in Singapore today, and has secured contracts to deploy about 5,000 charging points across Singapore for both public and private spaces. The city-state has a goal of achieving 60,000 EV charging points by 2030.
A second joint venture was also announced in November 2021, with a ComfortDelGro unit linking up with Engie to develop and manage solar-energy solutions. Both parties sounded their intention to electrify ComfortDelGro’s fleet of vehicles with renewable power and offer fast-charging solutions to drivers and public EV users through renewable-energy assets.
Engie’s own commitment to cleaner energy and decarbonisation puts the company in pole position to help its clients from an advisory standpoint, and to construct unique strategies that work best for each individual client.
Baudlot said the company is “walking the talk” when it comes to sustainability, and hopes to push other utility players to think more about greener solutions and not shy away from setting ambitious targets for themselves.
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