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RGE attended the G20 Business Summit 2022 on 13/ 14 November 2022 in Bali, Indonesia. The two-day event brought together more than 2,000 global business leaders to discuss topics on health issues, supply-chain constraints and building sustainable economic growth. Speaking at the event, Anderson Tanoto, Managing Director at RGE, addressed a wide range of topics including the installation of solar panels to meet RGE’s energy needs, commitment to best practices in greenhouse gas accounting, and forest conservation project, Restorasi Ekosistem Riau (RER).
Anderson Tanoto, Managing Director, RGE speaking at the B20 Summit in Bali.
Anderson spoke on a panel titled, ‘Creating a Sustainable Resilient Economy through Innovation’. Moderated by Hans Paul Burkner, Boston Consulting Group, other speakers who joined the conversation included: Jennifer Westacott, Business Council of Australia; Jon Moore, BloombergNEF; Michal Kurtyka, COP24 President; Shobana Kamineni, Apollo Hospitals; and Zhou Yuan, Virtue Dragon N.
He began by discussing RGE’s investment in solar panels to meet the company’s current and future energy needs, as part of its commitment to sustainability. “You don’t need the most advanced innovation to actually implement sustainability. Practical solutions already in existence, brought together with private sector companies like us, can actually make a meaningful difference. We believe that sustainable development does not have to be ground-breaking. There are proven solutions in the market that we can easily adopt.”
“We’re in the plantation business. At COP 21, in Paris, seven years ago, we pledged a unique concept called one-for-one. For every hectare of plantation, we committed one hectare of conservation. We strongly believe the private sector has a critically important role to play in nature-based solutions to reduce emissions. RGE has a major commitment to drive positive impacts on the conservation of native vegetation and forest in Indonesia and Brazil. RGE drives work to prevent and fight forest fires, deforestation and the theft of native wood, and the prevention of illegal hunting of wild animals,” he said.
RGE has also established the Restorasi Ekosistem Riau project to restore and conserve 150,000 hectares of ecologically important, high conservation areas on Indonesia’s Kampar Peninsula and Padang Island in the Province of Riau, Sumatra. RGE’s plans include a US$100 million commitment for the support of long-term conservation and restoration initiatives.
Anderson was also interviewed by Bloomberg News at the B20 Summit to address renewable energy, sustainability-linked loans and the strategic priorities of RGE.
“A lot of renewable sources for energy are economically viable now. In our manufacturing facilities, we’ve installed over 25MW of solar panels. We’ve been able to reduce emissions by 7%. It’s a huge move on our part. 85% of our energy sources are already renewable,” said Anderson, as he shared insights about driving decarbonisation through the use of solar energy. “It used to take eleven years to break-even our investment in solar panels, but at the current fuel prices, we can break-even in six years.”
With regards to ESG financing, Anderson said: “Last year, we issued US$1.65 billion of sustainability-linked loans. These loans effectively align KPIs with interest rates, so this is a very important move for us, to align the interests of the banks and the companies to achieve sustainability-linked targets. RGE is a firm believer in sustainability-linked loans and is committed to ESG financing as one of the primary sources of fund moving forward.”
