PETALING JAYA (Nov 21): The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act (EECA), which was passed in Dewan Rakyat on June 25, has received the royal assent from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on Nov 14 and will be in force from Jan 1 next year, Energy Commission of Malaysia assistant director Raja Mohd Fadhil revealed at the GRESB Regional Insights 2024 on Thursday. 

“This date was provided by the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation (Petra). The EECA will be applicable for Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan only, whereas Sabah and Sarawak have requested to come up with their own regulations for energy efficiency,” said Raja Mohd Fadhil. 

He further elaborated that EECA will regulate industrial and commercial users that consume 21,600 gigajoules of energy per annum. 

“In Malaysia, we have about 28,867 registered industries and from that only about 1,200 or about 4.3% will be affected under the EECA. This 4.3% consumes about 66% of the industry’s consumption. It's a very small number but the consumption is very big so we need to tackle this 66%’s consumption. 

“As for the commercial sector comprising office buildings, hotels and hospitals, out of 1.5 million consumers, only 0.04% will be affected under EECA. But this 0.04% consumes 21% of commercial energy consumption.” 

Raja Mohd Fadhil also revealed that the authorities will research and include the retail sector in the EECA in about five years from now. 

On the challenges of implementing the EECA, Raja Mohd Fadhil said, “We can foresee the challenges that we might see particularly is to transition from the previous regulation to EECA. Currently we have over 2,000 registered energy managers under the EECA. To address this, we created a transition programme for them.”

The third edition of GRESB Regional Insights 2024 with the theme “Building a Green Future: Exploring Sustainable Loans, Green Ratings and Regulatory Frameworks”, was held at Wisma Rehda. Previously known as the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, the organisation is now known as GRESB.

Organised by GRESB and co-hosted by its local partners Zerin Habitat Sdn Bhd and GreenRE Sdn Bhd, the conference provided industry insights with a focus on exploring sustainable loans, green ratings and regulatory frameworks. 

In his address at the conference, GreenRE executive director Ashwin Thurairajah said, “GreenRE has certified over 300 million sq ft of properties as of October, and have another 200 million sq ft of real estate in our portfolio to be certified. To catalyse the existing building stock, we introduced a new line of certification [in July] called the GreenRE Energy Certificate, which is aligned with EECA and is now recognised by GRESB.” 

The conference featured five presentations, namely the 2024 GRESB results by GRESB business development director of Asia Trey Archer, “Best practices for sustainability in Malaysia from Sunway REIT” by Sunway REIT CEO and non-independent executive director Clement Chen Kok Peng, “Best practices for sustainability in Malaysia from CapitaLand Malaysia” by CapitaLand Malaysia head of investor relations and sustainability Jasmine Loo, “New energy initiatives and Suruhanjaya Tenaga regulatory updates” by Energy Commission of Malaysia assistant director Raja Mohd Fadhil and “Sustainability-linked loans using GRESB and GreenRE” by CIMB Group head of sustainable finance business development Daniel Siew Ming Kit. 

There was also a panel discussion featuring Loo, Chen, Raja Mohd Fadhil, Siew and Zerin Habitat head of research and consultancy Roja Rani as speakers, and Archer as the moderator. 

From the real estate sector, Chen shared Sunway REIT’s latest sustainability initiatives and goals leading to the national net-zero carbon by 2050 target. 

Chen said, “As of end-2023, 34% of our gross floor area is already certified green. As a result of certifying our properties green, most of them also already meet the requirements of the EECA. For the year 2023, we generated 4,300MWh of electricity from our solar panels across all our properties. That constitutes about 2% of our total electricity consumption and we have bought another 6.37% via the green electricity tariff. 

“Our aim is by 2030 we will be able to locally generate 5% of our electricity requirements and or purchase another additional 35% from green sources like solar farms. We also aim to convert and certify at least two to three buildings every year.” 

During the panel discussion, Roja shared how companies can qualify themselves for sustainability loans. She listed four methods namely identifying the achievable key performance index, obtaining green certifications and aligning the loan’s terms with the company’s sustainability goals and future plans.