Shell Assists St. Teresa’s Hospital to Meet Its Sustainability Goal with Biodiesel and Nature-Based Solutions

Shell Hong Kong Limited (“Shell”) strives to be a trusted partner to its business customers and satisfy evolving energy needs of businesses across different industries. Shell has recently collaborated with St. Teresa’s Hospital by providing Shell biodiesel and follow-up technical consultation to reduce the Hospital’s carbon emission. The Hospital’s remaining emissions from fuel consumption are compensated1 through Shell’s Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). This collaboration marks an important step on the Hospital’s sustainability journey.

Shellʼs approach to carbon reduction is based on the principle of “Avoid, Reduce and Compensate”, helping customers to avoid CO₂ emissions in their operations where possible, reduce the emissions that remain and compensate unavoidable emissions. To address St. Teresa’s Hospital’s aspiration for decarbonisation, Shell introduced Shell B5 biodiesel to power its boilers. The boilers produce steam for medical equipment sterilisation and for hot water supply. Shellʼs experts were also on hand to help the Hospital set up a close monitoring protocol during the fuel transition period, inspecting the filters on a weekly basis for any clogging from deposits. Considering the high solvency property of biodiesel, they also advised the Hospital on the cleaning frequency of filters. The fuel transition completed successfully without any impact to the boilers or the Hospitalʼs operations.

B5 Biodiesel includes 5% of biodiesel and 95% diesel. Biodiesel, recognised by the Hong Kong SAR Government as a form of renewable energy, is mainly produced from locally collected waste cooking oil and grease trap oil. St. Teresa’s Hospital collected the used cooking oil at the Hospital’s canteen and passed to the biodiesel manufacturer. Apart from providing a reliable supply source of feedstock to biodiesel users in Hong Kong including the Hospital itself, this recycling act also strengthened the Hospital’s vision in sustainability. Biodiesel can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by helping reduce the overall CO₂ emissions on a well-to-wheel basis2, compared with using conventional regular diesel.

Besides using Shell biodiesel to reduce its CO₂ emissions, the Hospital also purchased carbon credits through two Shell’s NBS projects to compensate its unavoidable emissions. They are Katingan Mentaya, a wildlife and conservation project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia and Qianxinan Afforestation project in Guizhou Province, China. All carbon offsets in the projects are independently audited according to the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), and Climate Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standards. All emission reductions and removals can be proven to have genuinely taken place.

Mr Gilbert Ho, Head of Estate Department of St. Teresa’s Hospital, said: “We are glad to help tackle climate change by using high-quality biodiesel and nature-based carbon credits from Shell. By doing so, we are using carbon-neutral fuels to operate our boilers, which is a big milestone on our sustainability journey.”

Media enquiries:

Shell Hong Kong Limited
Assistant Communications Manager
Charles Cheung
Tel: 2506 7046

_{¹ The terms “Carbon Neutral”, “Carbon Off-set” or “Carbon off-set compensation” are applied in a non-technical way to indicate that Shell has engaged in a transaction to ensure that an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to that associated with the production, delivery and usage of the fuel has been removed from the atmosphere through a nature-based process or emissions saved through avoided deforestation.}

_{² Well-to-wheel CO2 emissions include the CO2 emitted over the product lifecycle. For biofuels this will typically include production of the feedstock (planting, harvesting, effects from converting land before planting), converting it into a biofuel, distributing it to the tank of the car or truck and burning it in the engine.}