March 2025

04/13/25

March started off beautiful but ended off in an unexpected nightmare. 

I had the opportunity to fly to Hong Kong at the end of the month to attend the One Earth Summit 2025. It was a great platform for me to interact with Youths from ASEAN, Hong Kong SAR, and Mainland China. It is almost rare to have such collision of Eastern with the Southeast Asian perspectives. What I took away the most is for sure the connections that I have made from the Summit. This is one of the most diverse bunch of attendees, with highly ambitious and successful (I would say) individuals that are pretty much best-in-class in what they do in their own field. You can observe the sheer diligence and strength to continue what they are doing in some of them and that inspires me. I took the chance to meet up with one of our clients and developers - one that I would call my senior. I deeply respect the work that he does and what he stands for. I hope that one day I could embody the spirit of collaboration and "making things work".

The political instability and regulatory uncertainty sitting in some Asian countries have truly killed me. This risk stabbed me continuously - no break. I could point my fingers at anything but nothing at all. In hindsight, March is nothing as compared to April. I absolutely detest April already.

I realised how much life has been testing me lately. It has been throwing me lemons throughout since the start of the year until now. The degree of sadness I have been experiencing has reached rock bottom. But, it was when I realised that there is indeed hell below rock bottom - just when you though the lowest low couldn't get lower, it did.

Watching my team shrink to nothingness. Rebuilding the team, only to watch it all fall apart again. Holding on to fond memories of the brilliant soul I work closely with. Struggling with the miscellaneous projects that were left behind. All while maintaining my professionalism and exhibiting what I deem as the highest standards of advisory, in line or against the tides. Up-keeping my duties as a daughter, a role model to my brother, a strong pillar of support to my sister who is getting through her own transition. Keeping up with the progress and expansion of my start-up without loosening too much. Deep-seated struggles in crafting out what LSEA and creating something that would be relevant and helpful to these Youth Organizations. Not meeting expectations of clients/developers whom I have built strong ties with. Strong feeling of embarrassment and the shame that comes with the change in Group strategy. Burdened emotions of not being able to secure additional funding and off-take for WP.

I feel so emotionally burdened but am so seated at my own life drama. Like bring me my own set of popcorn and coke zero please.

Anyways, life sucks and I just need to be more resilient, to be a bit tougher than yesterday, and try to figure out my plan next and a strategy for every single piece of the pie. I just need to be clear about what I think is purposeful and the time and effort spent will be worth the beauty at the end.

I was excited for 2025, overly excited actually (in hindsight). But 4 months in, I think I need to re-evaluate lol.

I need an overdose of dopamine to get through the month of April, after being absolutely slayed by March.

Hui

February 2025

03/16/25

TLDR: A month full of celebrations and rushing for client deadlines, with occasional pockets of time to reconnect with old friends.

This month started with our annual Chinese New Year celebrations. This year was special because this was my first time giving my parents a red packet each, since I am finally working full-time. My family gathered for our annual hotpot reunion dinner during the eve. I took a night walk after a stomach-filling dinner (let's just say I really needed to walk off the calories gained). I called up my JC senior to join me in my walk. I have been meaning to catch-up with her. It has been roughly ~2 years since I last met her. We took a long ~3km walk around our neighbourhood and she shared with me her life as a nurse, her daily routine, her ambitions and aspirations to work as a nurse overseas. It was this conversation that reminded me that everyone has different sources of happiness and different definitions of work. For instance, I feel fulfilled, hence happy at work when I can value-add to my Client and advise them on their problems. But, she feels happy when she has time off-work to do what she wants. For context, she experienced ~1 year of constant OT-ing in a different department - the fast-paced life and extremely tight daily routine motivated her to change department. She craved for time that she could set aside for herself, though she loves her team so dearly. I think it is difficult sometimes to put ourselves first and I am really glad she did. I am still proud of her journey and how far she has come, especially her sacrifices as a front-line healthcare worker.

I started on a new project this month and it was an extremely demanding project. But it was this project that awakened my dormant business acumen. I did not realise how much I missed building businesses, growing businesses, and running analyses to support strategic decisions. It was precisely because of how challenging the client was, I managed to learn a lot from them and it became a mutual learning and sharing knowledge space. With tightened relationship also comes with greater expectation to need to deliver even better quality work. This project was a short-sprint of ~1.5 months and by now (mid-March), it has ended. I tried my best and I think that's all that matters. I hope I would have more opportunities to develop the commercial side of me further. 

Let's see what's next.

Rookie for Life,
Hui

January 2025

01/30/25

TLDR: A month filled with new lessons and beginnings. I started working with a new team at work and started adapting to their new ways of working. I had multiple gatherings with friends to catch-up on their lives and to reconnect with my life in Singapore.

This month started off the year at a high note. I kick-started the month with a meaningful conference (7 - 8 Jan): Investments into Forestry & Biodiversity Summit, hosted by CE-EM. It was a moment to take in when I saw my school mates at the conference. It dawned on me that all of us are moving on to another phase of our lives together. It was a bittersweet realisation. Besides that, I had a lot of takeaways from this conference and I had some time to share some of my findings during our team's weekly meeting. Some of them are as below. And my own personal opinion in one-liner? Generally, not enough spotlight on diverse conservation funding models, which is misleading.

1. Massive challenge surrounding securing long-term land ownership or leases for long-term forestry contracts, where benefit-sharing does not seem to satisfy the aboriginal owners of the land
2. Both additionality and permanence remains as clear struggles of the forestry carbon business as short-medium term carbon storage is what defines forestry business and additionality for carbon projects should go beyond emission reductions but also include co-benefits such as improving the livelihood of the vulnerable communities
3. An emerging convergence of social impact assessment concepts (e.g., theory of change) becomes an increasingly important cornerstone of any forestry carbon projects – stemming from the understanding that the commitment from local communities will ensure project longevity and integrity
4. The role of insurance companies is increasingly more defined: as a market player - providing insurance coverage for carbon projects or as a project beneficiary - providing revenue flows for carbon projects diverted from project premiums
5. Contentious point on making biodiversity credits tradeable is an external reflection of a market power play versus the intrinsic value of biodiversity
6. Biodiversity credits market is positioned as a scalable mechanism that could be suited to close up the short-term conservation funding gap
7. Clear trend of forestry business owners in SEA actively considering a business transformation to diversify their portfolio to include carbon credits generation from forestry (incl. ARR, IFM)
8. Forestry-related carbon credits could be isolated from global standards and frameworks including Article 6.4 methodologies and CORSIA – hence, there is still a strong consensus for the need of VCM; there is clear displeasure from project developers on the diverging methodologies and is calling for standardisation instead
9. Blue carbon projects face significant operational hurdles at the onset, but thereafter the challenges are significantly reduced as the local communities become more experienced with managing mangroves and knowing what works (i.e., reduction in OPEX costs is expected

I had ~4 gatherings with friends this month, roughly once per week. It is pretty surreal to think that I was just in BKK in the entire month of December. And before I realised, I am back in Singapore - as though nothing has changed since I left. My Thai friend, P'Namwaa, came to Singapore for a visit and I caught up with her over dinner at Pasir Panjang Hawker Centre and sent her to the airport afterwards. We had a conversation on how volatile the political environment is and how it feels like sustainability professionals like ourselves would lose our relevance anytime. Truth be told, doing the work that I am doing is a dream come true.  The issue is really the fact that we are in pursuit of a greater good that is seemingly worthless to certain groups of the global population. But who is to blame when everyone is living different realities and have different perspectives of what is ultimately important to them? Who am I to say that what I hope for the world is more important than another girl in the United States who needs cheaper electricity just to get by. The energy trilemma is as real as it gets. Ultimately, the long-term upsides will always be blindsided by the short-term downsides. All of us are just trying to get by, fighting for something that means something or anything to us. 

With that being said, it is true that I do need to be able to build a sustainable niche in sustainability. And I need to figure this out somehow. If I take Ms RY as an example, she cares so deeply for the world and the impact of her portfolio on the environment and communities, but she still needs to manage the day-to-day demands of her work. I am sure it is difficult for her to strike that balance between realism and idealism, but it is fascinating how she navigates it. Question is always how to integrate and build a business that matters and lasts. She is an inspiration for me. To be honest, infrastructure investment and designing business models fascinate me. That is one area of work that I would love to explore more further in the future.

Your life, Hui, no one else. 

2-4 September

09/08/24 03:13 p.m.

Just back a few days ago and to say the least, the first three days have been extremely tiring. I enjoyed my solitude, I was meeting people of different levels and enjoying conversations with diverse people from diverse backgrounds. I think I am slowly discovering different pathways or versions of my future could look like. This is super exciting because I think I am meeting interesting people who would be able to chart that way for me and share with me how that future could look like. 

Key takeaways from my conference:

1. Current investments into LNG and related infrastructure might lead to an impending oversupply of LNG, facing the forecasted fall in demand of LNG in leading Asian countries such as South Korea, Japan. Japan's LNG faltering demand will be driven by an increased focus in nuclear and ammonia co-firing. And South Korea's expected fall in demand is largely driven by the comeback of nuclear energy. Unless the replacement of liquid fuel with LNG (i.e., city gas with LNG or diesel with LNG) in China takes off, demand of LNG will continue to fall in these LNG-heavy developed countries. Given the rise of EVs in China and the precaution required for city gas pipeline networks, effects are expected to be muted. There is an expected high risk of stranded LNG assets and critics are touting that any oversupply of LNG will just be routed to Southeast Asian countries. South Korea's shipbuilding industry is still rolling out LNG carriers and need to start changing their mindset away from short-term growth and prioritize long-term growth of the LNG industry. To read more: link.
2. Indonesia and Thailand are seemingly laggards in renewable energy engagement with corporations and are set to miss out on a huge opportunity, following the "fight" to attract data centres and AI-related and semi-conductor industries onshore. Indonesia is still supportive of corporate-driven renewable energy efforts and there are significant barriers to implement and execute solutions such as onsite solar. Net metering is still not available for corporations. Though there is significant national interest to develop the RE manufacturing capabilities and capacity of the country, there needs to be incentives to support and enable RE growth, which could be enabled by the private sector. Current oversupply of electricity in the country makes it difficult for further renewable energy to be injected to the grid. On the other hand, Thailand's EGAT is finding foot in staying relevant within the changing landscape. While it explores innovative business models via the ERC Sandbox, there needs to be a well-carved out position for EGAT, especially with the current pricing model (fixed price + fuel tariff adjustments). Even with the roll-out of the pilot of 2,000MW for data centres, or Utility Grid Tariff, EGAT has still a huge role to play, i.e., providing usage of the public transmission grid and grid-connecting the RE assets from the ERC RE auctions that were launched. Furthermore, with EGAT having the foresight to take on the role as the national issuer of I-RECs years ago, this already solidifies EGAT's position and interests in the changing national energy landscape. Last, EGAT's focus seems to be on the combo of hydroelectric dam + floating solar farm + BESS (i.e., 24MW floating hydro-solar hybrid project at Ubol Ratana Dam in Khon Kaen province). One of the many projects - part of the 16 floating solar projects with a cumulative capacity of 2,725MW. To read more: link.
3. The Philippines has extremely stronghold in its renewable energy regulations and policies, however execution and implementation seems to be an obstacle that many power players are facing. Grid stability studies, undertaken by the government is taking a long lead time to be conducted and completed, delaying the COD of RE assets. While coal assets are in the midst of phasing out, there are indications that LNG will be more than just a transitory solution for the country. Given that the power industry in Philippines is 100% liberalised, there is zero to no incentive for gencos to be lowering their cost of electricity generation, as all costs would be passed on to the end-consumers eventually (which explains why electricity tariff rates in the Philippines is second to Singapore in ASEAN, and third to Singapore and Japan in the entirety of Asia). But there is a bigger problem for the biodiversity in the seas, i.e., Verde Island Passage in the Philippines. LNG shipping and the risk of spills would threaten the biodiverse coal ecosystem in the country. Back in February 2023, 800,000 litres of industrial oil was spilled due to the sinking of MT Prince Empress, affecting up to 36,000 hectares of coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass. Energy transition is a long marathon, sure, but at what cost? To read more: link. Another interesting topic to look at in the Philippines is ACEN's pilot scheme of transition credits with Genzero and Keppel. This would likely go live on a G2G, bilateral Article 6 transaction level, in which Singapore companies are able to purchase these carbon avoidance credits to offset up to 5% of its carbon tax obligations. Ongoing conversations seem to be very positive, but ultimately, we do have to understand better the offtaker commitments, which hopefully would make the news soon. To read more: link

If anything, one thing to note about the Asia Pacific's market is that things are everchanging and extremely fast-moving. There are still so much uncertainty that I am trying to figure out and obviously I am hoping to be able to plug in all of these knowledge gaps as I go along.

Cheers to more learning!

And as always...

Rookie for life,

Hui

Tired

 08/18/24 01:24 p.m.

I think I need to be patient and be clear of the goals I have in mind.

I don't think I am burnt out per se, I think I am seeing a very bleak near-term future. Perhaps, this is why it is causing me much anxiety - that I don't see progress or that the progress is impeded in the future. I don't know how I can take action when it is a cycle or otherwise timing issue. That the people here are not ready for what is to come. How can we accelerate that? How can we move the hands on the clock arbitrarily? Maybe in my first 5 years, I could focus on, as much as I hate it, science-based communications or perhaps more like engineering-based communications. Without an engineering background, I need learn double harder or more than others who have a background in energy systems, for instance. Maybe it will be this communications that would move the needle? The "I will say it first". And I have a lot of "I will say it first" moments. But I guess I will end up with the same narrative. There are so many papers, so many publications out there, writing another one will just contribute to the noise or if someone picks this up 10 years down. I don't know... who lives, who dies, who tells your story... I guess the only difference that I am pursuing for is not honour but for action. I don't know how long do I need to see something. Am I even doing anything? Am I doing anything helpful? Am I doing something important? What is the vision? What are the goals? WHAT AM I DOING?

This hurts. But I am frustrated. What am I trying to achieve? How long do I need? Why do I feel so confused, bleak, and negative? I woke up today, feeling hopeful that perhaps I just need to stay optimistic and hopeful. But it really did not take a few waking hours, for me to fall back into my constant loop of frustration and uselessness.

 I know I just need to stay positive and optimistic. But I think I can't be just mindlessly positive and optimistic. There must be reasonable grounds why I think there is still hope. That there is still a reason to fight for. And I have to find this reason fast. I need to get out of this rut very soon. 

June 2024

04/23/24 12:55 p.m.

It has been wild. I started back at work on May 6 and it is already June 23. It has been close to 8 weeks, 2 months of my time with EI. I have already staffed on 3 different natured projects - worked on ESG-related matters, GHG accounting for an interesting industry, RE strategy for a client spanning 10 countries (5 new countries, in which I was really unfamiliar with), and BD for a global implementation project. Safe to say that this > duality has clearly highlighted my areas for improvement and my desire to become more "technical" in RE (i.e., understanding the nitty gritty of the grid balancing, RE capacity injections, and financial modelling for different markets).

Key Areas for Improvement:

1. More detailed-oriented - to come with a fresh pair of eyes, so I can highlight self-made mistakes early on before it goes for review. This is rather important for me, because sometimes, we only one chance to make an impression to the client and when time is tight, review cycles might not be able to come back in time. Ensuring that my end deliverable is already client-ready is essential.
2. Knowledge building - to keep amassing industry, market, and operational details so that I can explain to others in a layman's way. I have been refining this skill of simplifying complex knowledge and synthesizing research materials to clear, bite-sized, insights-driven outputs. But before I can even synthesis anything, there is a need for me to go into the research with a "base load" and this is what I feel is missing for really complex technical topics. Key topics: grid capacity, electricity pricing markets (e.g., forward, futures trading), and project financing (e.g., bank guarantees and legal regulatory issues surrounding onsite solar systems).
3. External Communication - already had multiple client meetings and AG told me that I provided quality insights, good knowledge of the market, and a structured approach in helping our client out. I think what I really want to improve on is being a stronger and more confident advisor for them. And explaining or making my point across to them in a clear approach. Eventually, they need to know what is the 1, 2, and 3. 

Moving forward for July and August, I would want to refine these 3 soft and hard skills. The end destination I hope to be is like how I am after 6 months of doing sustainable logistics in BLX. All the market information is at my fingertips and I know clearly what matters most for certain markets, more specifically, India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines - okay, if I go on, I am literally gonna start listing all countries in Asia LOL.

On a side note, though hectic, I had a lot of fun this month at work, deep diving into multiple countries and I had the chance with multiple RE developers across the region as well, in Myanmar, Japan, Thailand, Pakistan. It was really super cool. Also, I had a really cool AMEA knowledge session with a construction director, who was and still is managing an end-to-end wind farm project in Egypt. The operational side of me was really tingling, I miss managing supply chain-related projects, from sourcing of solutions, commercializing and running project financial and environmental modelling, pitching, piloting, writing SOPs and then going live.

And of course, just to stay balanced, I am also aiming to get exposure to decarb projects, more on the solutions-side of things. That would probably bring me the closest to what I was doing previously. I miss having a corporate playground.

Next month would be slightly hectic - I will be going to a conference in Bali (I can really take that time to up my game for area of improvement #2), an offsite, and SMU commencement ceremony would take place then. In the meantime, we are wrapping up on our open letter on the oil spill incident (Marine HONOUR and Vox MAXIMA) and I have to get back into the carbon market and biodiversity financing conversation thread in my headspace, haha.

Met up with 2 of my friend groups and to say the least, I absolutely missed them. One brought back memories in JC and how driven I was then and I can't help but to compare how I am now. The other group brought back fond memories of my time in Thailand. It is still hands-down one of the best part of my life and it will really take a lot to change that fact. I have been meaning to find time to reconnect with old pals, but the procrastination is real - I suppose I don't want to open up threads that I know I cannot continue at that point in time. I would reserve to open those up when I have the capacity to  P'Mook, Hang, Edwin.

I think it really works best for me when I am very self-aware of my capacity - be it mental or physical. It helps me to better manage expectations and to ensure that I do give in my all for people and topics around me. But to communicate this concept of capacity, it is difficult because not everyone understands. Until I can find a better way to explain this, it will likely take a backseat.

June is always a month of reflection and healing for me. I have one last week to bring everything altogether, before my next birth year starts all again. 

Rookie for life.

Heart strong, mind stronger,

Hui

Jetlag

 04/17/24 02:02 p.m.

"I love the land more than my country. I love the earth more than the flag." Jetlag - Luke Wallace

I don't know this country enough but why do I feel a sense of belonging? There is an inherent want for me to understand this country, the land, and the people better. I am not sure why but I can feel it within my bones.

Maybe one day I want to put myself and root myself in this Southeast Asian land, it doesn't matter where exactly I am but somewhere here or there. To me, the borders and boundaries are not as distinct as we see on maps.

Regardless, this is an interesting thought. I think it is time for me to connect with like-minded individuals beyond where I am, starting with my birth country. It could be an interesting back-to-my-roots journey.

Rookie for life,

Hui