Bye 2012

Another year is gone and we are awaiting the arrival of New year, 2013. It is time now to share the endeavour of last one year. For the MBPJ OSC Unit, end of October must be a time to be remembered. The Unit moved to a new office after squatting in a highly congested space since its' inception in Year 2007. Early of 2013, the Unit will also welcome its' 3 new staff which is long over due. Such an amazing transformation is in waiting. The full force will hopefully gear the Unit forward in achieving targets set. With less manpower, however the staff has given all they can afford and managed to pull through a tall order on enhancing the efficiency, reputation and image of MBPJ and in particular the Unit. Thousand thanks also to the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Councillors and technical departments for realising the target set, e.g. OSC MBPJ: Pioneering the Gateway of Development. On the core business of OSC, it is also time for celebration as many innovations/activities were carried out. These include the achievemenet of 85% KPI compared to 84% last year. The publishing of policies and guidelines via the web site of MBPJ. The requirement for planning permission application for development project be submitted through the OSC Online system. The workshop amongst all technical departments resulting in better coordination. The inception of OSC Technical Committee Meeting to discuss technicalities of project before forwarded to the OSC Committee for discussion. The exemption of planning permission given to detached houses in the residential area with previous master plan approval. Starting from 1st January 2013, all submission for development will be done through the OSC Online and at the same time, lanscape plan approval will have to be submitted together with planning permission application. For low carbon green initiative, many were done and preparation for a hectic 2013 is anticipating. These include the implementation of Strategic Partnership with KeTTHA, the setting up of organic waste composting centre in Jalan Othman Market, Retrofiting HQ of MBPJ for green features, potential use of wastewater for landscaping purpose, organising the Green Tour, capacity building programme for kindergarten teachers and others ongoing programmes. Without initiatives and cooperation from other stakeholders especially the departments, I believe the achievement can be possibly meeting its target effectively. Green Assessment Rebate MBPJ's Efforts Are Commendable Recycle for Good Reason Going Green for CNY Cycleways LED Lighting for Backlanes Launching of 2012 Green Assessment Rebate Online Billing for Low Carbon Green Personality I thank you all. Happy New Year 2013.

School

After leaving school for more than 20 years, I was back to school again, the primary one. All this possible because of my daugther. She will enrol to Standard One this coming 2nd January 2013. Having a brief visit to the school, I realised that nowasday the students are so lucky with luxury of hard infrastructure. Every classroom is equipped with fans, pa system, LCD projector and big screen. The hall is air-conditioned. The basketball court is covered. The walkway from the main gate to the classroom is covered. However, it comes with a price, I think. The compound is hardly having a green space, let alone the footfield. Most of the available land have been concretised. Perhaps the present planning standard of allocating 30% of school land as green open space shall be amended as well with this current transformation of school buildings layout. Having said this, looking at the size of school bag and many of them having wheel trolley type of bag, I am a bit pity for the small kid. It is definitely of a burden for them to carry. Some, I saw even with the bag touching the ground. Why should they carry so much books and material? Why can't a cabinet allocated to them for storing? Or, better still to have the E-Learning and E-Submission of Home Work? Perhaps with the emerging of digital age, this should be looked into and accepted by the older generation as a way forward. The school is having 3600 pupils and more than 110 teachers. It is a community by itself and functioning from 6am to 6pm every weekday. While it is a place to produce the leaders of future and for the mankind, its' impact on environment is great. It consumes a lot of energy, water, and food as well as generating the waste and carbon. How wonderful if the school can turn into a Zero-Waste Emission establishment, in line with the 3R at source concept. I wish I could contribute towards achieving this objective.

Level of Playing Field

Same level of playing field is always used either as an excuse or justification for failure or success. For example, if a team lossed in a competition, the team might want to find an excuse and the playing field is not equal was always quoted. When we want to help someone by creating criteria or category that will flavour to our prefered team, then this is called justification. After involving with many community development programmes on the grassroot level for many years, I could conclude that no level of playing field is the same. The nature of neighbourhood, the demographic profile of the community, the different of socio-economic status, the difference in upbringing path, education and even the living environment make it very difficult for having an identical neighbourhood. When this happened, to set a criteria that give upmost advantages to a particular neighbourhood is, to me very tough unless we tailored made it. Having said this, the very best can do for many who run a competition is to set criteria or standard that become norm and accepted to the majority. It is important these criteria to make known to everyone well in advance, to communicate effectively with everyone include the jury and prospective participants. More critically everyone should know in advance so that they are not caught off guard in making the preparation. If an international or national or city standard has been set, made known to everyone and has been accepted, are we going to lower our criteria so that the individual who cannot meet the standard can have a same level of playing field? Some might think so. For example, to lower the passing mark in an examiniation so that the passing rate can maintain or improve. Similarly if a quota to be met, perhaps it is not uncommon that the checking criteria be changed. However, in most of the occassion especially for a contest, it is not ethical to change the criteria to give advantages to the weaker teams, I presume.

Recognition

Such a wonderful feeling in the Day of Christmas that some media labelled me as one of the top personalities in Petaling Jaya for the Year of 2012. While it is an honour for this recognition, I strongly believe that others are also deserving the recognition due to them. In my humble opinion, everyone or any action with good deed to enhance the image and quality of living in Petaling Jaya or to make this city a liveable place deserves recognition and worth for merit mentioning. I attribute this honour to all who have contributed in making Petaling Jaya a Low Carbon Green City. These include the Mayor of PJ; Deputy Mayor; Councillor Khairul, Cynthia, Terrance, Richard and Ghazali; Head of Department e.g Sharipah, Hamidah, Zuraidah, Dr Citra, Sa'diyah; others such as Nordiana, Norhaizey, Azurah, Hanizah, Shukor, Azhar, Azizah, Zainun, Tengku, Norsita, Fadzila, Nurbaiti, Ku, Hazimi, Nurfadhilah, Mahmood, Nurizan, Azni, Firdaus, Sharinaz, Norasparani; and of course last but not least the staff of OSC Unit. Not forgetting also the external stakeholders whom extending their expertise, knowledges and time. http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2012/12/25/central/12501725&sec=central

Property Assessment Rate Rebate of PJ 2012

65 out of 71 applicants for assessment rate rebate scheme in Petaling Jaya was rewarded yesterday. They got the rebate ranging from 25% to 100% for doing good towards environment. The Scheme reward house owners that have retrofiting their house with green equipment, application or procurement of green technology products. More importantly the Scheme gave much recognition to the owners for their behavioural change on environment. For example, reduce their consumption on water and electricity usage as well as practicing the recycling concept. It is an easy gesture of getting discount for the prperty tax of your house. For instance, walking for all commuting to work and leisure place. The Scheme has made it easy for all owners regardless of their social status, type of properties or availability of infrastructure.

3R: What is the priority?

3R means reduced, reused and recycled. It is the progressive steps in the effective resource utilisation and waste management. For production line, it is hope of every manufacturers to use less resources but for higher yield and quality products. Of course to have less waste by product. For consumers, of course to consume less means they will have to pay less. Going to this arguement, by right everybody will observe principle of 3R because this will save their pocket and the waste to be managed should be reduced. However, the opposite is recorded as more and more waste are produced in the factories, houses and shops. What happen then? Is that because of economic reason that higher production as demanded by market resulted in more waste as by product? Or because of many technologies used are not resource optimisation friendly? Or because the high income and higher desire in life for the consumers that many of them can afford to spend more? This question will remain to be answered as long as economic, technological and social disparity exist between the rich and poor individual or nation. So, the question of reduced might have slipped away from everyone priority. Then, comes to the reused. Many do not mind to have second hand goods from the junk shops as long as these are useable and presentable. More so, if the valuable items are sourced from antique shops and of course many do not mind to get gorgeous clothes from the film star, I presume. However, if the new items are getting cheaper, then many will not mind to change to new items instead of getting the old items for repair. For example, the electrical home appliances are so affordable now basically nobody would like to keep the old one longer than its life span. For technology savvy people of groups pursuing fashionable items, changing handphones, hand bags, watches, shoes and luxury items are common. This, of course go against the purpose of reused. For producers, reused might not be too friendly to their business core value. That's why I believe many at this functure focusing on recycling because of the agenda as discoursed above. It serves the purpose of collecting the waste and turn into the resources for manufacturing use. It serves the purpose of using the goodness of products first before disposing it. It serves the purpose of producing more. The advantages can go further and more, I believe. For an effective 3R concept to be implemented, to me it comes down, and comes down hard to every individual. It is a matter of personal preference of doing good for the environment, and of course our own pocket. The accusses of not enoungh recycling bins, too cheap the water bill, everyone can afford to fly and buy, neccesity of having this or that and etc might not hold water any more...

Year End Meetings

Coming to the year end, so many meetings or seminars or outings are on the pipeline rushing through before the festive season. Some might be doing so for them to free themselves from all mind bothering events. Some might be doing so due to the meeting of deadline or target of the year. Some might be doing so because it is school holiday and thy have the committment with their children and family. Many have done so because all in seldom they realise that so much resources to spare before the account closed. This, might be due to oversight or too conservative of spending at the beginning of the year. Some, I believe are working hard to plan their activities for next year. This is the busy time of refreshing what have been achieved for the last one whole year and to set the target for next year. Whatever the reason is, the conference rooms at the hotels especially the resort type are fully booked now.

Green Technology Policy

The Workshop on Green Technology Policies Between Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA) with Stakeholders held recently, to me is a success. Apart from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government who used to have dialogue sessions and consultation with the local authorities, very few or none at all agencies or ministries at the Federal level have engaged local government to discuss challenges and issues about national policies. Well done, KeTTHA. The Workshop enlightened the participants on policies set for helping the Country to achieve 40% pre GDP of GHG reduction by Year 2020. Strategies by sectors are also highlighted. Some Initiatives derived from energy management, waste water management, waste management were shared by implementing agencies. It was, however the sharing of action plans by repesctive State Government of Penang and Negeri Sembilan impressed me the most. It is heartening to notice that the State Governments have started the pursuing of low carbon society and green technology vigorously. Mechanisme and governance system apart from target setting are well in placed. I do hope that other State Government will do so. Having said this, the missing link identified during the Workshop was vertical communication between different level of governance is insufficient. Most of the time we witness top down policies without much input from the grassroot or users or beneficiary being implemented and might not have met the desired objective. I believe more meaningful and constructive engagement with all stakeholders must be carried out. The policies for effective implementation must be inclusive and able to create the sense of ownership for all parties.

Stage of LA 21

I was invited to talk on Post Rio+20 and The Way Forwards for Local Authorities recently. My audience was the officers from local authorities throughout Malaysia. Under the 10th Malaysia Plan, by right all local authorities have implemented the Local Agenda 21 Initiative. However, it proved me wrong as many who have attended the Talk seem not to understand or even to know about the Initiative. I am speechless to talk about Rio+20 because even Rio Earth Summit was not awared. I am not very sure is this because of apathy or too many other programmes that distract people attention and focus on LA 21. Perhaps it is time to relook and revisit the original objectives of Agenda 21 at local level and its roles in furthering sustainability for Local Government. During my recent visit to Rio+20 Summit and ICLEI World Congress in Brazil. I heard about how other local governments worldwide have eagerly pursuing sustainability and addressing challenges of climate change. So many good initiatives were shared and to be learnt. Looking at what others have done, I realised that although Petaling Jaya City Council has done numerous initiatives, much more can be and have to be done. Many Local Government showed their committment towards climate change mitigation and adapatation measures, But again here in Malaysia, many of us might not heard about the differences between mitigation and adapatation, I presume.