NEWS | Wednesday, 02 March 2008

‘Greening’ business

Mark Causon talks to ECO Group managing director Louis Borg

Louis started out with a vision, ideas on how to make Malta more energy efficient and having worked and studied on energy he taught he could contribute to being part of the change and believed that going into politics would be an ideal platform to launch his vision for the future of this country, to be in a position where change could be implemented and part of local policies. After his short span in politics with the green party ‘Alternattiva Demokratika’ and having failed to be elected, Louis Borg embarked on putting all his energies and ideas into setting up his own Energy saving consultancy, so in 2000 he set up working by visiting various institutes and furthering his studies in France, Italy and Australia to get first hand knowledge on energy saving. What he did not manage to do through politics Louis did through his new venture doing studies on energy saving, electric power, thermal energy, chilled airflows and much more for businesses and households.
It was IPSE chairman Mr G Borg who gave him his first job, by commissioning him to do a study and implement works to reduce his energy consumption at his factory VF Clothing. A feat which started the ball rolling for Louis who managed to reduce energy consumption by 30%, working on a sustainable way, considering that no businessman would be ready to invest unless this involves a pay back period of 4 years, considering depreciation factors. His work involved power factor correction, air-conditioning, air loss/pressure loss, lighting reduction and noise factor pollution decrease.
Mr Louis Borg explained that this first job leads him to more clients who could now understand his work and the benefits derived. His next clients would be more factories, commercial outlets, hotels etc., he also went into energy conservation in houses, but as Louis explained, it is important to start preparing at the building phase rather then on ready finished houses.
His next project was heating by solar and this was in 2002/3 and following his visits to Germany, France, Italy and Britain where the mean average sunshine is much less then in Malta he realised that the potential here was much bigger, so he embarked on trying to find the reasons and solutions which lead to the Maltese not to consider solar heating. One major issue was that research is not part of our accounting mentality. His business contacts kept growing by having kept a network of clients who still wanted Louis for their fault finding problems in their plants, a job which Louis stills keeps as his Saturday sic part time work, to keep adjourned on latest machinery and to keep his passion going and through this, his main energy saving consultancy company kept growing.
His latest baby is his new factory in Bluebel industrial estate, where he will have a CO2 emission free plant, powered by a wind turbine, solar PV, Cooling/Heating by solar, geo thermal; a huge amount of products with very low consumption and energy saving equipment to make machinery consume less energy. Mr Borg’s face can show all his excitement in this new plant, but also shows his angst that some people hinder further development by delaying issuing of permits when it comes to research and development projects, creating all sort of delays which also make him lose out on EU funding schemes. He believes that there is a need for more co-ordination between all the actors and business people who want to invest and exploit our human resources to the full. He says that our markets are in the Arab world, Libya, Dubai as 2 examples, but we also need to have good foreign relations going so that Maltese business will have an easier way to do business.
Come this April, Louis Borg will be joined by new partners since he decided that the only way to grow is to have a bigger partner which will give ECO group more time to develop new ideas and growth. He will give his ideas, while his new partners
F. Schembri Holdings which will bring their business acumen so the company can further implement their ideas and make Malta a more energy efficient society.