Author: Phyllis Goh

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Investing and greenwashing: how committed is the world to use and produce clean energy?

Air pollution is produced during the production and consumption of energy. The burning of fossil fuels contributes to 89% of global CO2 emissions. However, 300 of the top companies control that the majority of fossil fuel production and reserves are publicly listed companies. This calls into question who supplies their operations and what are their motivations. 

Turning to investor relations is key to understanding the central issue of environmental pollution. From 2016 to 2018, indices run by the 10 largest asset management groups increased from 20% to 120%. 2 Degrees Investing attributed that the increase in investors looking for indexes contributed to this rise. Nonetheless, during the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, oil and gas prices immediate trended upwards, with the prices of oil reaching almost $140 — the high of 2018.

COVID-19 and the prospect of money reveals a harsh truth — investors are more concerned about money than achieving and contributing to environmental goals. Greenwashing is a tactic used by companies to appear as if ESG goals are central to their management. 

Accusations of greenwashing will inevitably surface as the oil and gas industry attempts to re-establish trust with the now more environmentally conscious population. For instance, oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil was called out for spreading falsehoods so as to encourage continued support for natural gas. The 350 advertisements in New York alleged the high costs of replacing gas-powered appliances with electric ones; in contrast, it highlighted its efforts to sustain wind energy in Canada. 

Of course not all business strategies will be as blatant. Others will practice greenwashing tactically and float under environmentalists’ radars. These will be more difficult to uncover but hopefully investors and shareholders will hold their public listed companies accountable. 

Hopefully, the environmentalist agenda raised during the onset of the pandemic will continue to hold strong in the years to come. Combating air pollution requires long term commitment. Looking at investors and publicly listed companies shows the partnership needed to combat air pollution and find more sustainable practices in the usage and production of energy. 

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Reflecting on the effects of air pollution on the spread of COVID-19

Thomas Bourdrel et al. (2021) published a paper during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic reflecting on the role of air pollutants in spreading the COVID-19 virus. 

Their central thesis argues that a double-faceted mechanism — the initial responses of our bodies to the dirty air environment, and air particulates as vectors — contribute to the spread of COVID-19. They argue that PM and gaseous pollutants may decrease immune responses as evident by increased mucus production and difficulty breathing. Fine particles may also serve as vectors for other airborne viruses, provided the exposure to heat and UV radiation has not denatured the viral proteins. Short term and long term exposures to the natural environment may thus open up individuals to the virus.

Air pollutants/virus interaction according to atmospheric conditions (Bourdrel et al., 2021)

Indeed, pollutants were significantly reduced when lockdowns, travel restrictions and fear of the unknown deterred people from venturing beyond their neighbourhoods. The decrease in air pollutants could have played a role in reducing the spread of the more deadly SARS-COV-2 Alpha variant. 

However, now that vaccines and less deadly variants have emerged, air pollution is also increasing in tandem with increased mobility. It could therefore be argued that the high infection rate of the Delta and Omicron variants are in part perpetuated by increased air pollutant particles.

This could explain the resurgence of Delta and Omicron variants in China where the air quality has deteriorated post-lockdown. Heavily polluted Shanghai is now considering an additional lockdown at the time of this writing. 

As Bourdrel et al. (2021) argues, “We cannot ignore that our surrounding environment may be exacerbating not only chronic disease, but infectious disease as well”. Industries polluting the air not only increase the difficulty of breathing directly, but also the increased vulnerability to COVID-19 may induce further difficulties for bodies unable to develop a strong response. 

Is this evidence for a COVID-19 X Air Pollution double whammy? I think so. 

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COVID-19 and the move to stronger environmentally-friendly strategies

Continuing on the positives of the COVID-19 pandemic on air pollution, a survey conducted by Bain Consulting Group in 2020 showed that after the onset of the pandemic, 70% of people are more aware that human activity threatens the climate. Air pollution was also ranked as the second most important issue.

Corporations also recognised the importance of strengthening their environmental agenda. Consulting firm Accenture researched on “Conscious Consumerism” which looks into how consumers alter their purchase decisions by seriously considering the possible environmental and societal impacts. They found that since the pandemic, 65% of consumers believed governments should support this Conscious Consumerism movement, 66% desired for more information to go about  sustainable shopping, and 23% were less brand loyal — especially for those aged 18-24 years old. From this research, it is clear that consumers wanted to understand how the production aspect of supply chains had an impact on the environment, air pollution included. 

For Singapore, the pandemic also opened the eyes of policymakers to the importance of reducing greenhouse gasses. Singapore strengthened its greenhouse reduction goals by reducing emissions by 36 per cent by 2030, using 2005 as a baseline. The Singapore Government also dished out a rather bold deadline which was to ban the sale of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles by 2030 and completely phase out ICE vehicles by 2040. 

A more committed drive towards EVs and hydrogen alternatives would also help to significantly reduce carbon emitted during transportation. Hydrogen-fuelled cars produce zero emissions and hydrogen is more economical in terms production and fuel economy as compared to electricity. The drawback is the massive revamp of the fuel ecosystem as new infrastructure is needed to store hydrogen fuel and hydrogen fuel stations. But the Singapore Government has strategically devoted hydrogen to mass transport such as busses and heavy vehicles where the economics are more sound. For a small country like Singapore, it is certainly punching above its weight by making strong commitments to reducing air pollution and protecting the environment. 

Nonetheless, maybe the air won’t be as clean in the near future. It remains somewhat unclear as to the global timeline for mass change in corporations environmental strategies and the adoption of hydrogen as a petrol alternatives. I am also aware that Singapore’s production of energy uses natural gas and is still not ‘clean’ compared to nuclear or solar power.

But hopefully starting from 2040, I can run alongside roads and not feel like I am gasping for oxygen among carbon emissions.

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COVID-19 and the move to stronger environmentally-friendly strategies

Continuing on the positives of the COVID-19 pandemic on air pollution, a survey conducted by Bain Consulting Group in 2020 showed that after the onset of the pandemic, 70% of people are more aware that human activity threatens the climate. Air pollution was also ranked as the second most important issue.

Corporations also recognised the importance of strengthening their environmental agenda. Consulting firm Accenture researched on “Conscious Consumerism” which looks into how consumers alter their purchase decisions by seriously considering the possible environmental and societal impacts. They found that since the pandemic, 65% of consumers believed governments should support this Conscious Consumerism movement, 66% desired for more information to go about sustainable shopping, and 23% were less brand loyal — especially for those aged 18-24 years old. From this research, it is clear that consumers wanted to understand how the production aspect of supply chains had an impact on the environment, air pollution included.

For Singapore, the pandemic also opened the eyes of policymakers to the importance of reducing greenhouse gasses. Singapore strengthened its greenhouse reduction goals by reducing emissions by 36 per cent by 2030, using 2005 as a baseline. The Singapore Government also dished out a rather bold deadline which was to ban the sale of Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles by 2030 and completely phase out ICE vehicles by 2040.

A more committed drive towards EVs and hydrogen alternatives would also help to significantly reduce carbon emitted during transportation. Hydrogen-fuelled cars produce zero emissions and hydrogen is more economical in terms production and fuel economy as compared to electricity. The drawback is the massive revamp of the fuel ecosystem as new infrastructure is needed to store hydrogen fuel and hydrogen fuel stations. But the Singapore Government has strategically devoted hydrogen to mass transport such as busses and heavy vehicles where the economics are more sound. For a small country like Singapore, it is certainly punching above its weight by making strong commitments to reducing air pollution and protecting the environment.

Nonetheless, maybe the air won’t be as clean in the near future. It remains somewhat unclear as to the global timeline for mass change in corporations environmental strategies and the adoption of hydrogen as a petrol alternatives. I am also aware that Singapore’s production of energy uses natural gas and is still not ‘clean’ compared to nuclear or solar power.

But hopefully starting from 2040, I can run alongside roads and not feel like I am gasping for oxygen among carbon emissions.

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Air Pollution and Transportation

Air pollution from the use of private-hire vehicles and taxis reduced.

Data from Singapore’s Land Transport Authority reveals that after the COVID-19 dip in April 2020, ridership remains lower than pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, demand forecasts by major PHV companies such as Grab have issued statements suggesting that ridership will remain 80% of pre-pandemic levels.

In more promising news, there is also a fall in the number of PHV and taxi drivers, approximately 88 per cent and 81 per cent respectively of pre-pandemic levels

Why might this be the case?

Perhaps it is due to decentralisation and the work-from-home phenomenon.

What the work-from-home phenomenon and endemic status of the COVID-19 may mean for the environment is perhaps cleaner air.

Pandemic induced retrenchments could also be seeing a reversal as employees in the gig economy have re-skilled and/or up-skilled, while companies have reorganised themselves to take in new hires.

The endemic status of the COVID-19 virus could also be faced with changing perceptions. Vaccines, booster shots and less severe symptoms are likely to have boosted the psychological resilience against what was once a deadly virus. This could have increased the ridership count for public transportation. As I noticed, office workers remain jostled up in the close confines of MRT cabins and continue to lower their masks while at work.

Coupled together, these two scenarios speak to the reduction in carbon emissions from traffic. As traffic constitutes one of Singapore’s larger source of greenhouse gasses, it could be said that the pandemic was beneficial for the environment, albeit a more reduced impact since vehicle ridership has increased since the ridership lows of April 2020.

If an average car emits 4.7 metric tonnes of carbon emissions annually, the reduction in ridership produces the equivalent of the removal of 345 cars for each month. Even though this figure makes a small dent in the 839,000 cars in Singapore in 2021, perhaps it signals towards a greater tendency for residents to use public transport for cross-island travel and alternative transportation modes to access their decentralised town hubs.

In some sense, you could say that because of COVID-19, I can breathe just a little better 🙂

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Does COVID-19 really decrease air pollution?

It is expected by now that COVID-19 and the lockdowns have drastically decreased pollution levels in countries imposing them. The relationship between human activities and decreased primary pollution has been established.

However, a notable study by Huang et. al (2021) seemed to have differing views. The study raised questions and challenged this relationship after noting that despite generally decreasing levels of primary pollution, there were still several periods of heavy haze pollution in the Eastern part of China. 

It was then revealed that the haze was caused by secondary sources of pollution. 

Notably, a relationship was derived that due to the large decrease in nitrogen oxides from reduced transportation emissions, the ozone and nighttime nitrogen oxide radically formed. To simply the science, this increase in atmospheric oxidising capacity actually facilitated the formation of secondary particulate matter, contributing to further air pollution.

 

 

Essentially, the secondary particulate formation offsets the reduction in primary pollution caused from reduced human activity. This would completely negate the initial sentiments the the lockdown was a blessing in disguise. 

In China, haze and ozone pollution are two of the main air quality challenges that the country faces. It affects dozens of millions of lives and their health and livelihood.

Indeed, while it seems that COVID-19 was a step towards cleaner air; it could in fact turn out to be a double whammy.

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The Impact of Air Pollution on our Greens

I was browsing through news on COVID-19 and air pollution when this particular article caught my attention. The article by South China Morning Post talked about how COVID-19 had not only reduce air pollution in the short-term, but also extended the beneficial link to improved vegetation growth for the country.

At first glance, the link seemed tenuous.

But upon deeper research, it seemed like COVID-19 could have longer lasting impacts on climate change that we had initially thought.

According to a scientist research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, the reduction of human activity during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions resulted in an increase of a whopping 17% of the country’s leaf area coverage.

These numbers are pretty significant considering that the data was merely compared to the past 5 years.

According to them, the reduction in human activity and its concomitant reduction in air pollutants and particles forming a blockage allowed more radiation energy to reach the canopy. This then allowed vegetation growth to boom. 

Moreover on top of that, atmospheric pollutants also do have negative effects  on vegetation. They are toxic for the plants and can largely impact the rate of photosynthesis.

With lesser human-induced pollutants, this has become less of a problem and the greens have now taken over.

What does this then mean for climate change and for us?

Vegetation plays an incredibly crucial role in air quality management. They purify the air of toxic pollutants. Particularly, they reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide – which is a greenhouse gas – through the natural process of photosynthesis. In essence, vegetation is a huge part of our natural carbon storage that serves to regulate the world’s air quality. It seems to have created a positive feedback loop; where decreased air pollution increased vegetation cover which then further decreased air pollution and improve air quality.

Indeed, while the effects of COVID-19 have been argued to be short-lived and only temporary, its long-term effects as described above have yet to be thoroughly studied. 

Who knows? The unexpected saviour for the world’s air pollution woes could very well be our greens.

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The Lockdown Worked?

The world started going on emergency lockdowns to reduce as many potential deaths from the pandemic as possible. Ironic as it may sound, at a similar time, news started coming up on headlines that the lockdowns have improved air qualities around the globe, potentially saving hundreds of lives. 

It was to the extent that a study on China reported that the number of lives that cleaner air quality has saved outweighs that of the number that COVID-19 has claimed.

That is astounding news. 

Three main pollutants were studied: nitrogen dioxide, ozone and PM2.5. These are the smallest pollution particles which are capable of penetrating deep into the lungs and cause severe damage to the lung and respiratory system. These pollution numbers were then used to determine the health effects based on a formula.

The study estimated a potential 12,125 deaths prevented vis-a-vis 4,633 lives lost to the pandemic as of 4 May 2020. 

That would be almost three-fold!

Watch this video on how China’s skies have seen remarkable improvement since the onset of the pandemic:

https://youtu.be/9654d4dwVmw

 

While it is recognised that around the world, responses and severity of the pandemic, as well as air pollution levels vary, it was agreed upon that the pandemic did reduce air pollution levels to a positive effect. India for instance, also estimated 5,300 lives spared in 2 weeks from their country’s lockdown.

So did the lockdown work?