As part of its corporate social responsibility, Bumi Armada Bhd has sponsored RM107,000 for a carbon offset conservation programme with the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM), a first of its kind in the country.
The contribution will cover the carbon credits from the conservation of carbon stored at Field 11, a 5.6ha forest site within FRIM’s campus, for the next five years. Field 11 has the capacity to store 3,938.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually.
Bumi Armada chief executive Hassan Basma said oil & gas outfits were usually seen as heavy carbon-emitting businesses and that this was a way to alleviate the carbon footprint. “In the oil & gas industry, we are allegedly accused of heavy carbon emissions whether from the floating production, storage and offloading vessels or the refineries,” he said at the signing of a collaborative agreement with FRIM here yesterday.
Present at the signing were FRIM director-general Datuk Abdul Latif Mohmod and Malaysian Forestry Research and Development Board chairperson Hajah Nancy Shukri.
Hassan said that apart from making the environment cleaner and greener, such initiatives also created jobs making them worthwhile projects.
Among the other Bumi Armada environmental intiatives are tree-planting, fuel efficiency in its operations and using low-emission sulphur fuels and liquefied natural gas.
Carbon offset programmes allow individuals, corporations or countries to reduce their carbon emissions by offsetting, reducing or displacing carbon dioxide in another place.
