Kuala Lumpur, 9 October 2019 – Winners of the 2019 Malaysian Dutch Business Council (MDBC) Innovation & Sustainability Awards (MISA) were crowned at the MISA Awards Ceremony & Dinner gala with VIP guest YB Yeo Bee Yin (Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change (MESTEC)). Held at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, the awards ceremony and dinner was the culmination of a hard fought contest in the following categories: Best Innovative Waste Management Program, Best Digital Green Tech, and Best Practice for Renewable Energy.
Invited by GreenTech Malaysia to be part of the IGEM program, shortlisted finalists had the opportunity to present their projects to a panel of judges and a general audience during the MISA Day Program held earlier today. The day program, which was open to all, served as the final round of judging and is the focus of MDBC’s awards program – a platform for the sharing of best practices. Ensuring transparency in the awards, judges and audience members had the opportunity to ask questions of the finalists regarding their projects, something that also ensured a learning experience for attendees.
Congratulations to the following Innovation & Sustainability Champions, as judged by the independent, expert panel of judges :
- Best Innovative Waste Management Program: Better – Bev
Project Title: Reusable cup serviceDescription: Better – Bev is a reusable, closed – loop, cup – as – a – service start – up aimed at engaging cafes, beverage retailers, and consumers to collectively work together to significantly reduce the number of single – use disposable cups wasted and sent to landfills each day in Malaysia. Our circular economy and tech based approach offers stakeholders the opportunity to opt – out of wasting and opt – in to reusing, by doing away with all of the fuss and hassle of having to remember, bring, and clean your own reusable cup.
- Best Digital Green Tech: Satelligence
Project Title: Satelligence Prioritized Deforestation Alerts PlatformDescription: Malaysia is a leading palm oil producer. This industry suffers from concerns over the environmental impact of production, as sustainability is now mission critical for businesses. Satelligence delivers an Artificial Intelligence and satellite data – driven sustainability risk platform that can help ensure the country’s palm oil is recognized as a sustainable commodity. We showcase, in real – time, those suppliers who are not involved in deforestation and other environmental damage, but produce responsibly and re – green the planet.
- Best Practice for Renewable Energy: Concord Group
Project Title: Lepar Hilir Biogas Power PlantDescription: The Lepar Hilir Power Plant is a waste – to – wealth project, conceptualized by Concord under the Build – Own – Operate (BOO) model. This plant treats palm oil mill effluent (POME), captures its biogas for power generation, and sells 1.5 MW of electricity to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), which is governed by the Renewable Energy Power Purchase Agreement (RePPA) under the Feed – in –Tariff (FiT) Scheme.
- Audience Award: Besi APAC
Project Title: Newly developed plating process improving efficiency of solar cellsDescription: Besi has developed a new plating process that is more cost efficient than the current processes used in solar cells, while improving the efficiency and output per solar cell. By replacing certain materials, the cells become more efficient while the cost per watt output is lower. The new materials used are more sustainable and are recyclable, adding several benefits in the total product life cycle of a solar cell.
For additional information on the shortlisted submissions, kindly refer to the attached MISA ’19 Shortlisted Finalists Projects Descriptions document.
All shortlisted finalists were also automatically eligible for the fourth MISA category – the MISA Audience Award. Video submission from the finalists were made available on the MDBC YouTube channel and were open to votes from Wednesday, 2 October 12 noon to Saturday, 5 October 6 pm Malaysian time. Leaders from this popular vote were invited to present their project with a one minute elevator pitch during the MISA Awards Ceremony & Dinner. Audience members at the dinner were then invited to vote live on the winner of that award category, adding an exciting and interactive element to the evening program.
MISA was judged by an independent, expert panel of judges led by the Chief Judge – H.E. Aart Jacobi (Ambassador, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands). For full information and bios on the panel of judges for MISA ’19, please visit https://www.mdbc.com.my/mdbc-awards-program/misa-judges.
Sponsored by Hibiscus Petroleum, Signify, Randstad, InvestKL, Sunway University, Arcadis, Invest Selangor, Pacques, Basis Bay, and MDEC, MISA ’19 continues to grow and evolve, proving itself an innovative and sustainable event in itself. MISA is a unique and innovative platform nurturing an accelerated development and understanding of these two topics, very much in line with the achievements and ongoing developments by both Malaysia and The Netherlands.
MDBC Executive Director Marco Winter shared, “We were happy to be invited by GreenTech Malaysia to include MISA as part of the IGEM program. Every year we broaden the MISA audience and we continue to evolve and innovate the program to ensure that it endures as a practical and effective platform for the sharing of best practices, providing an opportunity for knowledge and skills transfer between The Netherlands and Malaysia.”
Further information on the winners and the judges report will be made available in the MISA ’19 Supplement which will be published soon. Videos from each submitted finalist will continue to be available at
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2wgjLfs0mst7X7jhxaRpHcJHFqwHQLyD. This information will also be shared on the MDBC website (www.mdbc.com.my) as soon as it is available.
About MISA
MDBC’s unique and innovative Awards Program is a platform to showcase the best practices of companies in the areas of Innovation and Sustainability, recognizing them for their excellence and trailblazing spirit in these fields. Initiated in 2011 together with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Awards Program started out as the MDBC Sustainability Awards (MSA) and was recently expanded to the MDBC Innovation & Sustainability Awards (MISA). It has steadily grown and provides a way for companies to benchmark their efforts against leaders in these fields.
Now in its eighth edition, MISA continues to prove itself to be both innovative and sustainable with the continued growth and evolution of the awards program. The Awards give an ever growing range of companies the opportunity to participate and develop their own understanding of the topics.
In 2019, MDBC was invited by GreenTech Malaysia to organized its much lauded, signature awards program in conjunction with the 10th edition of the International GreenTech & Eco Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM). This tie in guarantees more excitement, a deeper knowledge pool to draw from for the competition, increased exposure, a bigger audience, and the attendance of YB Yeo Bee Yin (Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment & Climate Change) as the guest of honor at the MISA ’19 Awards Ceremony & Dinner. With the inclusion of MISA in the IGEM Program, the MISA Day Program will take place in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, while the MISA Awards Ceremony & Dinner will be held at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur.
The award categories for MISA ’19 are:
- Best Innovative Waste Management Project
Waste management contains the activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. Companies in this category manage their waste with an innovative program (new to market) and take into account the impact their waste is having on their environment. - Best Digital Green Tech
In this category, we will showcase digital technology used for achieving green and clean goals; tech that results in transformational innovation through data. Now, more than ever, achievements in green tech are necessary to address some of the most pressing issues brought about by problems such as climate change and food shortages. Recent advancements in digital tech, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G, and blockchain, mean that new and exciting solutions are appearing in green tech. As digital tech itself is not sustainable (consuming a lot of energy), the digital green tech innovation in this category needs to add value to conducting sustainable business. - Best Practice for Renewable Energy
In this category, we are looking for companies who implement and encourage a broad based innovative and sustainable use of renewable energy models. Renewable energy is energy from, but not limited to, renewable resources. For example: sunlight, movement, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat.
For more information on the MDBC Awards Program, please visit:
https://www.mdbc.com.my/mdbc-awards-program/
For more information on the MISA Awards Criteria & Assessment, please visit:
https://www.mdbc.com.my/mdbc-awards-program/misa-assessment-criteria/
