SWITCH-Asia

The Challenge

Malaysia produces a minimum of 168 million tonnes of biomass annually from oil palm, timber, rice, fish processing and other agricultural industries. The promotion of biomass products will spur the green technology sector and help mitigate global climate change. Already, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are turning this biomass into various value-added products, such as bio-chemicals, bio-fuels, bio-feedstock (raw materials) and bio-resources. However, SMEs still face challenges in the biomass business. They lack access to green financing facilities and do not comply with environmental standards. Raw material is not always available for larger-scale biomass commercialisation projects and proven affordable industrial-scale conversion technologies are not accessible or available for SMEs.

The Objectives

The project aimed to:

• Facilitate Malaysian family-owned SMEs to implement sustainable production models in the biomass industry;
• Improve biomass supply chains in Malaysia by promoting collaboration between industry, research institutions and universities;
• Reduce industrial emissions by improving the production process of biomass commercialisation projects;
• Create an enabling environment for improving policy cohesiveness for developing sustainable production in the biomass industry

The Way Forward

• Capacity Building and Coaching
• Outreach and Dissemination
• Plans for Policy-makers
• Creation of Industry-wide Network
• Enabling Growth by Linking to Financial Institutions
• Commercialising Biomass Business through a
• Multi-stakeholder Consultative Approach