The Sus­tain­able and Re­new­able En­er­gy In­cu­ba­tor Project launched by the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI-ALJGSB) in part­ner­ship with Citibank (T&T) Lim­it­ed and The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC), will re­duce en­er­gy con­sump­tion and costs in the re­gion by train­ing in­di­vid­u­als to be­come En­er­gy Ef­fi­cien­cy Cer­ti­fiers and pro­vid­ing busi­ness sup­port, tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer and fa­cil­i­ta­tion of ac­cess to mar­kets, fi­nance and part­ner­ships to small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) op­er­at­ing in the emerg­ing re­new­able en­er­gy sec­tor.

It is first of its kind for T&T and the Caribbean, the fa­cil­i­ty was of­fi­cial­ly launched on Wednes­day.The Caribbean has a large and un­sus­tain­able en­er­gy bill due to lack of an en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy cul­ture, poli­cies, and reg­u­la­tions, lack of a de­vel­oped al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy sec­tor and no clear sus­tain­able and sys­tem­at­ic so­lu­tion to tack­le the chal­lenge of re­duc­ing the en­er­gy ex­pen­di­ture. This In­cu­ba­tor Project will en­sure the crit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the Caribbean en­er­gy ar­chi­tec­ture to­wards eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

T&T's hy­dro­car­bon in­dus­try is well de­vel­oped and in its ma­ture phase. How­ev­er, glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns have placed a pri­or­i­ty on de­vel­op­ing al­ter­na­tive sources of en­er­gy that are en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. In ad­di­tion, the high en­er­gy costs of T&T and the re­gion lim­it their abil­i­ty to be com­pet­i­tive, es­pe­cial­ly in sec­tors crit­i­cal to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment such as lo­gis­tics, man­u­fac­tur­ing and tourism. There is there­fore a need to in­tro­duce a sus­tain­able en­er­gy strat­e­gy that re­sponds to these glob­al chal­lenges.

UWI-ALJGSB's new In­cu­ba­tor Project will act as a cat­a­lyst for the en­tire re­gion to re­duce its de­pen­dence on fos­sil, low­er its en­er­gy costs and in­crease the qual­i­ty of life in gen­er­al.With­in its 1st year, the new Sus­tain­able and Re­new­able En­er­gy In­cu­ba­tor Project will dri­ve the de­vel­op­ment of the sus­tain­able re­new­able en­er­gy in­dus­try by:

�2 Pro­vid­ing the skills, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, men­tor­ing and re­sources to SMEs in the emerg­ing re­new­able en­er­gy in­dus­try to help them bring their tech­nolo­gies to mar­ket;

�2 Re­duc­ing the en­er­gy bill of SMEs which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease their com­pet­i­tive­ness and sur­vival rates;

�2 In­clud­ing green en­er­gy fea­tures and de­sign el­e­ments in af­ford­able hous­es with­in the re­gion;

�2 Pro­mot­ing re­new­able en­er­gy leg­is­la­tion in the Caribbean which will dri­ve best prac­tices for en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy across the re­gion, es­pe­cial­ly at the SME lev­el

�2 Train­ing in­di­vid­u­als to be­come En­er­gy Ef­fi­cien­cy Cer­ti­fiers for both fa­cil­i­ties and busi­ness op­er­a­tions

�2 Cer­ti­fy­ing SME fa­cil­i­ties / busi­ness op­er­a­tions as En­er­gy Ef­fi­cient firms.

Pro­fes­sor Miguel Car­ril­lo, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and pro­fes­sor of Strat­e­gy, UWI-ALJGSB said at the launch cer­e­mo­ny: "We are very ex­cit­ed to have de­vel­oped this in­cu­ba­tor project in part­ner­ship with Citi Foun­da­tion and The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are ex­pect­ing oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al donors to part­ner with us in this es­sen­tial project in the near fu­ture.

"UWI-ALJGSB of­fers our AM­BA ac­cred­it­ed MBA in Sus­tain­able En­er­gy Man­age­ment. Whilst the pro­gramme es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for the de­vel­op­ment of the pro­fes­sion­als in this area, this project aims to re­duce en­er­gy con­sump­tion and en­er­gy costs in the re­gion in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways and will aide us in achiev­ing a vi­tal ob­jec­tive of grow­ing and nur­tur­ing com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing with­in the emerg­ing re­new­able en­er­gy sec­tor. We be­lieve that this two-pronged ap­proach will lay a good foun­da­tion for the fu­ture in the re­gion."

Catali­na Her­rera Ro­ca, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and Citi Coun­try Of­fi­cer (CCO) of Citibank (T&T) Lim­it­ed ex­plained the bank's in­volve­ment in the project.

"Citi Foun­da­tion works to pro­mote eco­nom­ic progress in com­mu­ni­ties around the world so we are pleased to part­ner with the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness through the Sus­tain­able Re­new­able En­er­gy Busi­ness In­cu­ba­tor project by means of the Citi Foun­da­tion grant, which will as­sist the pro­gramme's ob­jec­tive to re­duce en­er­gy cost for low in­come fam­i­lies and pro­mote job cre­ation through the ex­pan­sion of en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy busi­ness­es," she said.

"We con­grat­u­late the school for em­bark­ing on such a ground break­ing ini­tia­tive and we al­so look for­ward to pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al sup­port to the project through men­tor­ing and train­ing pro­grammes."

In­dar Ma­haraj, pres­i­dent of NGC elab­o­rat­ed on the rea­son his com­pa­ny chose to be­come a part­ner on the project.He said: "This pro­gramme speaks to three crit­i­cal is­sues that are deeply aligned to NGC's busi­ness val­ue propo­si­tion–sus­tain­abil­i­ty, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and lo­cal busi­ness par­tic­i­pa­tion. As a re­sult, NGC con­sid­ers this an es­sen­tial ad­di­tion to the na­tion­al eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment agen­da as we seek to ex­pand the role of the in­dige­nous pri­vate sec­tor in the en­er­gy sec­tor."

The new Citi Foun­da­tion and The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go grant-fund­ed Sus­tain­able and Re­new­able En­er­gy In­cu­ba­tor Project is UWI-ALJGSB's sec­ond busi­ness in­cu­ba­tor. Launched in April 2013, the first Com­mer­cial Busi­ness In­cu­ba­tor pro­vides in­no­v­a­tive start ups and ex­ist­ing com­pa­nies with a wide range of fi­nan­cial and non-fi­nan­cial ser­vices to in­crease the long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of these new com­pa­nies.

In­di­vid­u­als in­ter­est­ed in ap­ply­ing to the Sus­tain­able and Re­new­able En­er­gy In­cu­ba­tor Project or the Com­mer­cial Busi­ness In­cu­ba­tor may con­tact the UWI-ALJGSB at 645-6700 ext 191 or vis­it the Web site at http://www.lok­jack­gsb.edu.tt/ for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.