Philips calls for greater collaboration to counter climate change

BANGALORE, INDIA: Today, on World Earth Day 2008, Royal Philips Electronics, the world leader in lighting, calls for better collaboration among government, business and individuals to develop common approaches that have a strong and lasting impact on combating climate change and to achieve a better and sustainable society.  

Climate change and global warming are the most important issues facing the international community today. Lighting, a major contributor to warming the environment consumes 19 percent of all electricity produced in the world. New lighting technology with a realistic reduction of 40 percent throughout the world creates the same output of 500 medium sized power stations which would, in carbon capture terms, cover the whole Gobi desert with forest.  

In conjunction with World Earth Day 2008, Gerard Kleisterlee, President and CEO of Royal Philips Electronics actively advocated adopting energy efficiency solutions to counter climate change.  Kleisterlee pointed out that energy efficiency is not only an important way to combat climate change, but also to secure energy supply and to ensure responsible use of scarce resources. He encouraged all stakeholders to take critical action to achieve a triple win proposition and also indicated the importance of government support to tackle the existing barriers and hurdles that many developing countries face today.  

“By offering our most advanced technologies and solutions, Philips is well positioned to contribute to Asia’s development of green and sustainable growth for a bright and prosperous future,” commented Kleisterlee.

Existing new lighting technology today offers a triple win proposition —saving cost, energy and the environment. Hence, switching to energy efficient lighting is the quickest and easiest way to make a significant contribution.  For instance, Philips new street lighting system—Cosmopolis, has already been developed in several cities across Asia and it can reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission by 40 percent compared to the traditional street lighting solutions. Aside from energy saving, the new technology provides superior lighting, which allows for better driving safety and better aesthetics to highly improve our living quality. 

Economic growth is historically linked to consumption of energy. Higher levels of consumption and its environmental impact are a by-product of any country that is experiencing rapid economic growth.

“Although new solutions exist, market adoption rates are slow considering the severity of the current climate change crisis.  Collective efforts from government and business are necessary to further educate public to advocate a switch to more energy efficient lighting. Support from governments is also needed to initiate new legislation and policies to help accelerate market uptake and create the right incentive system to enable energy efficient investments in infrastructure and renovation,” said Kleisterlee.

Philips has long been an industry leader in introducing cleaner, greener technologies.  In its continuing commitment to dramatically reduce carbon emissions caused by the world’s lighting needs, Philips announced its Fourth EcoVision program last year in September to set a target to double sales from green products to 30 percent of total revenues within five years. These targets mean that by end of 2008, all the company’s offices will be outfitted with energy efficient lighting systems to further reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Furthermore, Philips’ campaign www.asimpleswitch.com communicated to the public at large that solutions in energy management can be simple and easy to implement.