Net Zero Consultancy and Implicit Bias

I had a horrid time when I was shedding my baby teeth around the age of 10. I remembered holding ice cold water in my mouth to numb the pain, while waiting to see my dentist. If it was over a weekend or public holiday, I was holding ice cold water until I nod off at night, otherwise I cannot sleep due to the pain. My dentist diagnoses me as having permanent teeth that was too big for my jaw. Over a year, I had 4 teeth extracted to make room for my permanent adult teeth. Two on top, two on the bottom. Problem solved, or so I thought.

Unknown to me, the removal of four teeth, causes the gap between teeth to be wider. Food gets accumulated easily around these gaps. In the 70s and 80s, Malaysia is still very much a third world country. My parents were neither rich nor highly educated, I did not learn about flossing or the need to clean the gap between teeth. This eventually caused me to have gum disease (periodontitis) in my 40s.?

I was recommended by my general practitioner dentist to see a specialist dentist. She is an old lady, in her 60s, who taught me to use interdental brush after every meal. I had to keep my gums perfectly clean, to control the disease. I was told there was not much that I can do, as my gums were damaged/weaken, I must learn to live with it. This method worked for 10 years.

The last 2 years, the problem worsen. I lost another 2 teeth and finding it difficult to control bad breath despite all efforts put in. Worse still, my specialist dentist has retired, and I had to scout around for another specialist to help me, as the problem was worsening.?

I found a few specialists online and decided to pay a visit to three of them. The 1st specialist I went to is part of a big chain with a minimum of 30 clinics all over Malaysia. After doing initial check up on my teeth, this specialist tried to sell me a package of laser cleaning (a more intense type of dental scaling) and 3 months of supplement to strengthen my gums. They have pages and pages of such packages for me to choose from and the cheapest package would cost several thousands. The 2nd specialist clinic looks like a glamorous 6-star hotel. The cheapest package will also cost several thousands and may require a couple of surgical gum grafting procedure. The 3rd specialist took an x-ray and measured the depth of gap between the teeth and gum and found 2 areas where it was particularly deep.

The 3rd specialist explained that my gum disease is caused by my gum receding away from my teeth, creating deep crevices. Residual food finds its way into these crevices between the gum and teeth. Some of it forming tartars on the tooth well below the top level of the gum. Normal dental scaling is not able to reach these spaces. This specialist recommended me to do a procedure called LANAP.?LANAP stands for “Laser-Assisted New Attachment Procedure.”

This procedure basically involves using laser to burn/cut open the gum for access to clean the root of a tooth, freeing it from tartars and residuals. Then the bone at the bottom is punctured lightly to allow stem cells to flow out, allowing it to be mixed with my own blood. This mix of blood and stem cell will form gum tissues over 1-3 weeks, closing the crevices between the tooth and gum. The punctured bone will continue to grow into the newly formed gum tissue over the next 6 months to hold the gum firmly, permanently closing the crevice. This procedure only cost me RM 400 per area treated.

If only I have found this specialist sooner, I would have saved plenty of pain, heartache, and money. I have already spent a lot of money on my set of teeth, doing dental scaling every 6 month (often less because it acts up), and countless bottles of mouth rinse and interdental brushes. I even have extracted tooths that were still in great conditions, had expensive replacement implants, with the problem still worsening. I guess having found LANAP procedure now, I should be able to reduce the severity of my gum disease whenever it gets serious, helping me to keep my teeth in good health. ?

So, what does my gum disease have to do with Net Zero?

My experience with these different dental specialists revealed that not all dental specialists are the same. This is exactly like the appointment of a Net Zero consultant today. We can all claim to be doing the same thing and yet we are all very different in our belief and approach to solving a problem.

Although we are among the pioneers with actual experience working on Zero Carbon Buildings at the turn of the century (at a time when nobody was taking it seriously) and even had partaken a Zero Carbon Building Primer with the World Bank; we found out that we were already late in this game. To my surprise, many organizations are telling me that they have already appointed their Net Zero consultants. Who are these consultants? Big accounting firms like PwC, Deloitte, EY, and big international engineering firms like Mott Macdonald, Atkins, etc. To these CEOs, CFOs, and COOs, these big firms are fully equipped to help them achieve Net Zero by 2050, and there is no necessity for any further assistance. Furthermore, there is this bias perception is that big international firms are more capable than local SME firms.

Moreover, it is easily defendable to a board or during an AGM, “We have appointed the big boys with big names to guide us. No risk is taken.” Clearly, these are implicit biases that big international firms, are somehow smarter and more capable than local firms, even though, we as a local specialist has done more interesting work internationally and locally.

Latest psychological studies shows that everyone of us have biases. Explicit biases are easily seen and understood, such as underrepresentation of women, racial and ethnic minority. Implicit biases are more difficult to detect. Scientist has developed a way to measure implicit biases via a test called Implicit Association Test or IAT test. Developed in 1998, it measures our reaction time to associate two words/pictures/item together. For example, we assess the reaction time of people to associate white as good, and black as evil, then we switch it the other way round – associate white as evil, and black as good, and measure the time difference it takes to make these associations.

The research found everyone of us have implicit biases, even to kids as young as six. I guess all of us were already brainwashed with all those fairy tales of white knights (usually a male) in shinning amour, while the evil witch is always dressed in black (and usually a female). The good news is, on an individual level, we can circumvent these biases, especially if we are conscious about it. But on a society level, or even on a country level, these implicit biases are right smack in our face. For example, in countries where people have a strong implicit bias that girls are weak in math and science, the girls in these countries are generally weak in math and science.

Due to implicit bias, most of us associate international firms, especially those from white countries, as a smart and a safe choice, while a local firm as not so smart and an unsafe choice. Therefore, when a local specialist is being considered, there are a lot more questions – why we are appointing a local for this, are they truly capable, do they have the right expertise, experience, etc. But has anyone ever questioned any of these white international firms if they have done any Zero Carbon project beyond buying carbon offsets, before appointing them? Implicit bias already dictates that the bar is automatically set low for a white international firm, and high for a non-white local firm.

While the big boys are fully capable as a general practitioner of Net Zero, in my humble opinion, they do not have the necessary experiences to do this right, especially when it comes to implementation of details. More so in a tropical climate, where most whites have little to no experience. Without the necessary experience we are prone to believe all kind of pseudoscience out there. And there are many pseudoscience. Here is a short list I have encountered: ?

Tyres in Foundation

At one point, even researchers from universities believed in this. Old tyres were used as foundation to a building. It was claimed that these rubber tyres will magically absorb heat from a building. Unfortunately, the science of heat transfer that I learnt in school does not agree with such statements. The science that I have learnt is that heat moves from hot to cold, and the 1st law states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Therefore, there are no objects in the world that can magically absorb heat, and make it disappear. Moreover, tyres are insulators, not thermal mass material that can be used to store heat.

Solar Streetlighting

If you have read a previous post of mine, you know this is a dumb idea for a developed environment. Yet, many bought into this idea.

Solar streetlighting in a developed environment is a stupid idea because we already have the infrastructure to install normal streetlighting. Solar streetlighting is expensive for the small modules of PV and battery. It has more energy losses due to the change of energy from electricity to chemical (battery) and back to electricity, i.e., it is highly inefficient use of energy. It use the battery to power lights at night, when the cost of electricity and carbon emission is lower (at night, more efficient power plants are operated, producing less carbon per kWh consumed, compared to daytime).

It is simply better to install a large PV system without battery, feed-in directly into the grid or into your facility. One, it is cheaper (no battery). Two, it will reduce your electricity cost when it is at the highest tariff. Three, you are achieving actual higher carbon emissions reduction. The only time to consider energy storage, is when we have excess renewable energy that are wasted if not stored. Otherwise, it is simply a dumb idea to consider energy storage.

We are not a rich nation; therefore, I am strongly against throwing away good money like this.

LED Lighting

The stupidest thing to do is to change a compact fluorescent bulb in a ‘milo tin’ downlighter to a LED bulb. And yet, we have seen this mistake everywhere. These ‘milo tin’ downlighter loses 70% of the lights before it gets out of the tin. Google or ask an AI about Light Output Ratio (LOR), if you are in the dark about this. We should replace the entire downlight fitting with a LED fitting, not just the bulb in these downlighters. A complete change of a downlight fitting to LED fitting will reduce this loss to 10% or less. Combined with the advantage of a higher efficiency LED compared to a compact fluorescent, energy consumption is reduced up to 80% for the same brightness.

It pains us to see such mistakes in many existing buildings. Millions have been wasted this way.

There are many more such stupid practices because general practitioners are generally not aware of the details.

If we do not get the details right, we may end up with an environment that is bad for our health and wellbeing, including a drop in productivity. Do you know that excessive glare from lights can cause headache and productivity loss? Well, we are saving the world with lower carbon emission, therefore, it is worth it, right? No, it is not. 1% loss in human productivity is more than 100% cost of energy. And no amount of money, or reduced carbon emission can worth our reduced lifespan due to a poor environmental condition, which led me to next subject…

Thermal Comfort and Air Quality

Many have recommend increasing the air temperature or close the fresh air intake to improve energy efficiency. Many studies have shown that human productivity is highest at a slightly cooler environment, and at higher fresh air intake. It is just not worth it, if Net Zero comes at the expense of our productivity. Productivity, health and wellness must be prioritise before Net Zero.

Air-Conditioning System

The complexity of an air-conditioning system is a monster. Therefore, general practitioner will always recommend us to go to an expert. Unfortunately, I have met hundreds of engineers who have designed such system their entire life, and yet do not have a clear understanding of the sciences behind it. You see, all these years, engineers spend their time ensuring that the installed system will work at the end of the day. They will oversize everything just to be safe, as under-sizing is a nightmare no engineers ever want to have. The priority was to get it to work 1st. Efficiency comes 2nd. This attitude has caused us the problem we face today where our buildings are highly inefficient.

Yet we expect these same people to fix the mess they have created in the 1st place. Frankly, my experience with many of these big engineering firms is that they have grown too big. All they cared about is financial numbers. I found them constantly talking about cash flow, maximise profitability, and image building. Engineering excellency comes last. I do not blame them though; such a huge company needed the cash flow to survive 1st before they can embark on engineering excellency.

I do enjoy watching big engineering firm do their presentations. Their obsession with showcasing simulation studies is simply fun to watch. They use such colourful pictures to display their engineering prowess – showing off their big dick energy. But half the time, these simulation studies were incorrectly done. I have witnessed a professor from the most prestigious university in this region, getting chastise from an audience of experts for his flawed simulation study. Worse still, his study was implemented. It was accepted by the local authority as absolute gospel because the nation most powerful computers were used to conduct this study, and it was done by a professor. ?

The trouble with these big engineering firm doing simulation studies is because they are big, they cannot afford to keep their expensive, experienced staff working on such time-consuming work. Young graduates, fresh out of school, more computer savvy, are the ones used do this kind of time-consuming work. Meanwhile, the older and more experienced employees do not have a chance to build up experiences in simulation studies. Without the necessary time spent, they were not able to fully comprehend the entirety of building energy flow. They accept the results as long as it matches their rule of thumbs. For example, it is a common practice in this industry for a cooling load computation to be tweaked until it matches their rule of thumb, instead of truly calculating it based on the design – just ask any HVAC engineers for their honest opinion.

Very often, we have seen design that does not match the science. When questioned until they realised that they have gotten it wrong, and cannot defend the design any longer, we were told to keep our mouth shut and stay away from commenting on their design. At the end of the day, their design will work (it was way oversized anyway), but inefficiently and at the wrong environmental conditions (too humid/too dry/too cold/too high air flow/etc.). Their inability to understand how everything comes together, limits their ability to drive energy efficiency to the limit. Again, I do not blame them, because an air-conditioning system is a complex beast.

Unfortunately, the most financially rewarding Net Zero future require us to drive efficiency to the limit, with near zero wastages. Without the ability to put everything together, to see the science of physics and engineering working hand-in-hand to provide cooling and dehumidification, mistakes will be made again and again.

We are experts in this because we have spent nearly 30 years conducting simulation studies and working on actual buildings. We got ourselves so in-depth into simulation that we can write the code to run simulation on a shoe-box model, and we did, on Excel (a tool that we provided free to the Malaysian industry via ACEM, GBI and BSEEP). I personally have spent 2 full years, matching my simulation model with an actual facility, gaining a complete understanding of energy flow that is applicable to any facility.

Today, when I look at any piece of HVAC equipment, I see numbers in my eyes. I see by-pass factor, on-coil and off-coil temperatures, supply air temperature, humidity level, moisture content, frictional losses, heat gain, flow rates, convection, radiation, conduction, and more, at every point in a system. Those who have worked with me knows that I train them to see these numbers too. There is simply no shortcut to gaining such experience. It is a lot of time spent. ?

Yet, due to implicit bias, big international firms are the safer bet to be appointed, even though they do not have the necessary experience, more so in a tropical climate.

In another example, last year, we stopped a retrofit of a cooling tower that would have cost?> RM 1 million. An ESCO (energy services company) engineer came up with a report to my client that this retrofit will save tons of money for them because it will improve chiller efficiency. The cooling tower infills were damaged, spilling water out. Visually, the damage does looks troubling. However, a temporary fix using plastic sheets strategically placed by the FM, brings the water back into the cooling tower, with near zero water spillage out of the cooling tower. We then measured the return water temperature from the cooling tower to the chiller and compared it to the ambient wet bulb temperature to check the performance of the cooling tower. This number was verified again at the chiller’s control panel to confirm our findings. The measured numbers told to us that the performance of the cooling tower was unimpacted by the damaged infills – replacing the infills will not reduce the temperature further to gain efficiency from the chillers. Somehow the engineer employed some kind of voodoo science to claim huge savings from an imaginary improved chiller efficiency, to justify the replacement of the infills. Since there were other immediate repairs that can give higher returns, we channeled this money to better use.

We may think that all Net Zero consultants are the same, but we are not. It was the same experience I had in finding a specialist dentist for my gum disease. The biggest and the most glamorous are not necessarily the best choice. It is the one that make the most sense when they explain things in the simplest language allowing us to understand complex matters easily. These are the most reliable and trustworthy consultants to be appointed.

Therefore, be vary of Mat Jargon, or in English, Pseudoprofundity gurus. These people may hold big titles, look glamourous, and tend to spill lots of deep and meaningful sounding words and sentences but are actually empty inside. Do read up on the link provided here on Pseudoprofundity. It is a fun read, and you may even start to recognise some within our family members, friends and colleagues.

Every Net Zero consultants’ approach and solutions may be generically the same (this where ChatGPT can do as decent job as anyone), but the detailed implementations can be vastly different. And it is in the details where we will succeed or fail in achieving Net Zero at the best financial returns. This road to Net Zero is largely uncharted, we can spend minimum with the right advice, or we can spend a lot of money again and again, trying to get it right with the wrong advice.

Implicit bias tends to sway us to appoint a white international firm instead of an experienced local firm to embark on this journey of Net Zero for us. Without recognizing this implicit bias, we may fail to make appropriate and sound judgement to benefit our organization and nation.

“Research on “implicit bias” suggests that we can act on the basis of prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so.” – Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

Most importantly, this is not a Zero-Sum game. The safest approach may be to appoint both, so that it is easily justifiable to the board that a white international firm is appointed to lead the way on Net Zero (because there is an implicit bias that locals are dumber), while a local specialist can be appointed to make sure that the details are done right, to get the best out of both worlds, without having to fight the implicit bias of a board. Because Net Zero done right, can easily finance all these costs.

By the way, it is an implicit bias to think that Singaporean firms are better than Malaysian firms too. I would just say, we are different, both having different strengths and weaknesses. So do evaluate us fairly based on your needs. All we ask for is to be treated on equal terms, with minimum bias.