New green power initiatives could reduce Sri Lanka’s greenhouse gas emissions by almost 20 percent by 2020, Sri Lanka’s Industry and Commerce Minister stated, referring to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) latest assessment on carbon footprint. “This is no less than a strong reduction potential of 5.6 million tonnes of carbon,” Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen said.

Minister Bathiudeen made these comments addressing the occasion to mark the institutionalization of the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) as an autonomous body.

“Today, we mark the third phase of the NCPC project under the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), transforming and institutionalizing it as a guarantee company,” he said.

The partners of the newly born ‘NCPC Guarantee Ltd’ are the National Chamber of Exporters and Ceylon National Chamber of Industries. Of the nine board members, four are from the partner agencies and five are drawn from the public sector.

“The NCPC helped our industries immensely by improving their resource efficiency and environmental performance as well as chemical usage. It also helps us in securing sustainability,” the minister noted.

He pointed out that the new legal structure of the NCPC will better position the institution to work closely with industries and other enterprises to deliver their services more efficiently.

Meanwhile, Petra Schwager of Environmental Management Branch of the UNIDO in Vienna stated that as Sri Lanka has now become a high performance economy along with its industries, it will need more energy, green power technologies as well as energy and material efficiency.

“For the industries to keep growing, it is important that they use the energies more efficiently. Therefore, it is very important for industries to receive support on energy efficiency and green power technologies,” Schwager said.

She went on to state that the NCPC is a specialised team on green initiatives and has become a national level operation centre.

The NCPC was established in 2002 by the UNIDO under the Industry and Commerce Ministry to assist enterprises in adopting cleaner production and reduce negative environmental impacts in the country.