Fuisland gets honourable mention under Outstanding SME of the Year category

UNDER the Outstanding SME of the Year category, Fuisland Offset Printing (S) Pte Ltd has received the Honourable Mention award. The company's executive and management teams oversee the environmental and energy initiatives; track and monitor its energy use; and identify opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. And every year the executive team reviews improvement strategies for environmental sustainability and energy with the management team.

Fuisland says that it educates staff to be environmentally responsible by getting them to switch off the lights when not in use and maintaining aircon temperature at 25 deg C. Every staff member is also responsible to upkeep its environmental policies which includes recycling and reducing wastage. The company, which has obtained the Forest Stewardship Council licence, uses vegetable ink for all its printing work; and recycles all paper trimmings and printing plates from its operations.

In 2019, Fuisland embarked on two projects to improve its energy consumption. The first was the installation of solar panels to generate renewable energy for use in the printing process. This initiative resulted in an annual carbon abatement of 71.4 tonnes and helped reduce the energy required to cool the building. The use of solar panels, as well as buying of renewable energy credits (RECs), has allowed Fuisland to become the first printing company in Singapore to use 100 per cent clean energy.

Under the second project, 178 fluorescent lamps were retrofitted with energy efficient LED lights resulting in an annual energy savings of 13,584 kWh.

"We were able to win this recognition with an accumulation of environmental sustainability efforts throughout our supply chain. On energy management, we switched our energy source from conventional energy to 100 per cent solar energy. At the same time, we retrofitted all our existing lights with energy efficient LED lights to reduce our overall consumption of energy," says Png Eng Lee, managing director of Fuisland Offset Printing.

"Our initiative to switch to LED lights allowed us to achieve savings in energy consumption, carbon offsets and dollar savings. The impact of our achievements allowed us to save S$4,600 annually, save more than 19,800 kWh of energy and offset our carbon emissions by more than 8.4 tonnes."

He says that environmental sustainability has always been part of Fuisland's blueprint. "So we are elated to receive this recognition. We are very grateful for the opportunity to share what we have done as a company to achieve our environmental goals so that other similar companies are able to do the same."

Mr Png says that many people do not realise that the upfront investment cost associated with energy efficient fixtures like LED lights which are traditionally more expensive than non-LED lighting will help a company save on its operational expenses over the long run.

"On addressing global climate change, as a company, we always endeavour to use less electricity year on year. Energy efficiency solutions allow us to achieve this to a great extent," he adds.

Fuisland consumes a lot of electricity with its commercial printing machines running 24/7. Switching the energy source from conventional energy to 100 per cent solar energy last year was achieved via a combination of solar energy sources. Part of the solar energy used comes from the solar panel system installed on the roof, and the rest is procured from an energy retailer. The solar panel system also provides an added benefit of lowering the temperature in the building by 1 to 2 deg C, enabling the company to reduce the load on the air-conditioning units in its facility. Consumption of electricity increases by 7 per cent for every one degree Celsius that air-conditioning temperature is lowered. Fuisland also put in a company-wide effort to maintain all air-conditioning units in its facility at 25 deg C.

Mr Png highlights that besides retrofitting all existing lights with energy efficient LED lights, the company also retrofitted its water appliances with more water efficient equipment to reduce water consumption. He says that the company's goal is to achieve net zero carbon emissions. "To achieve this, we are continuously looking for ways to reduce and conserve energy. Currently, we are looking at different ways to further reduce our impact on the environment taking steps such as using more natural lighting and light sensors to manage our energy consumption. We are also in the midst of working towards acquiring BCA's Green Mark certification based on our various efforts."

"As an SME, we are always looking to learn from what other companies, especially the bigger companies, are doing so that we can do our business better and more responsibly. Many of our efforts in environmental sustainability are a result of our learning from and emulating the success of other companies, and we will continue to learn and implement more ways to conserve energy," he adds. "Looking ahead, we are hopeful that technology will improve and advance to the point where everyone has a chance to achieve net zero energy to contribute and make our planet greener."