Royal Philips Electronics is to call upon
mayors and municipal leaders to accelerate sustainability in
infrastructure projects and building renovation, as part of the effort
to combat climate change.
With the United Nations Climate
Change Conference taking place in Copenhagen – attended by national and
civic leaders from all over the world – Philips believes that the
opportunity exists for a robust and comprehensive follow-up agreement
to the Kyoto Treaty, with existing technology solutions offering an
achievable path to reducing harmful emissions.
Earlier
this year at the UN climate conference in New York, Gerard Kleisterlee,
CEO of Royal Philips Electronics, said: “These are challenging times
for business in general. If an ambitious and effective global climate
change program can be agreed, it will create the conditions for
transformational change of our world economy and deliver the signals
that companies need to speed up investment of billions of dollars in
energy efficient products, services, technologies and infrastructure
such as LED lighting technology.” Philips put weight behind this appeal
by partnering with the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC),
committing to improving the energy efficiency of cities by 40% in the
next 10 years.
More than half of the world’s population
now live in cities and are responsible for 70% of global energy
consumption. Up to 50% of municipal energy spending goes to lighting:
making buildings alone energy efficient could save more carbon dioxide
than the entire emissions of the transport sector. At the same time,
the cost of energy efficiency measures is usually greatly
overestimated.
Philips argues that the current rate of
renovation of existing infrastructure, based on inefficient 1960s
technology or even older, is much too slow. For office lighting, for
example, it is only about 6-7% per year. In city lighting, it is just
3%.
"At this pace, it will take 30 years before the
environmental, economical and quality-of-life benefits of the latest
technologies can be reaped," says Marc de Jong, CEO, Professional
Luminaires, Philips Lighting. "Business can deliver technologies and
financial solutions as well as improve awareness. Efficient
technologies for all segments exist today, but the one thing we can’t
afford is delay their implementation."
