Energy and Environmental Management Seminar at UP ISSI

Caring for mother earth is everyone’s responsibility. This is done by judicious use of resources and engaging in activities that have a positive impact on the environment. They say that increasing industrial activity is one of the main culprits behind environmental degradation. During the manufacturing process, a company releases direct emissions in its use of fossil fuels, energy, and water to produce, and the effluent and waste it generates in the process. In addition, indirect emissions are released during the input, output, and distribution activities. (UP ISSI. 2010. Proceedings of the Symposium on Climate Change. Unpublished. 11 pages)

 

According to the National Statistics Coordination Board, there were 151,000 total manufacturing establishments in 2010. Fairly recent data of the Dept. of Trade and Industry show that micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) engaged in manufacturing numbered close to 112,000 establishments in 2011. Given the size of industrial consumers of energy, and the number doesn’t even include those in services, one can easily determine the extent of emissions and waste that goes into the atmosphere and the physical environment we inhabit.

 

This situation warrants the need to properly manage one very important resource — energy. While several large companies are already into it, it is never too late for all the other business establishments, including MSMEs, to manage their energy usage. Managing energy use and finding ways to save electrical energy should be a major concern. Energy management deals with many aspects, including: people behavior and occupancy, the building, type of energy used (whether gas, solid fuels, oil, electricity, or solar), load control, and equipment installed. 

 

How exactly does a business establishment audit its energy consumption and determine measures to become more energy-efficient and still maintain its comfort levels in offices and production rates? 

 

The GLEEM Project

 

Get your answers by attending the seminar, Greening and Leaning through Energy and Environmental Management or GLEEM, being offered by the UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries (UP ISSI). The fifth run of this seminar will be held at UP ISSI from February 13 – 15, 2013. GLEEM seeks to enable participants to conduct energy audit and assess energy-intensive activities, processes, and equipment; and identify opportunities for saving energy. They are expected to come out with an energy and environmental management action plan that will be critiqued by a panel.

 

The previous runs were held in UP ISSI and Davao City, with participants representing the furniture, metals, leather bags, and academic sectors. A special course, Start your own business, was conducted in Kalibo, Aklan at the request of the Project sponsor. In attendance were micro and small entrepreneurs engaged in pińa cloth production, hotel and restaurant and food business, and vendors’ associations. They were joined by municipal planners and staff of Congressman Haresco.

 

The sixth and last run of GLEEM will be conducted also at UP ISSI on March 20 – 22, 2013. Resource persons come from the UP College of Engineering, MERALCO, Dept. of Science and Technology, and UP ISSI. 

 

This seminar-series is a commitment of UP ISSI to Ang Kasangga Party List Congressman Teodorico T. Haresco who allocated P1.5 million from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).  -- Ditas Esguerra, UP ISSI Press release from UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries (UP ISSI)