GUYANA is headed in the right direction and is poised for much investment with its initiative to “go green”, according to Managing Partner of Arminius Partners, LLC, Herman Tribukait.

Tribukait on Monday delivered remarks at the “Forum on the Green Industrial Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities” held at the Savannah Suite of the Pegasus Hotel, sponsored by CGX Inc. The forum follows just after the hosting of the Green Guyana Expo and Small Business Summit, which ended last Saturday.

At the forum, Tribukait spoke on some of the myths surrounding clean energy, showing examples where a rise in the use of clean energy has been a benefit to all, and also spoke about the Clean Energy Materials Innovation Challenge – an initiative to accelerate the process of finding new high-performance and low-cost energy materials using machine learning robotics and supercomputing.

Also presenting at the forum was Gabriel de Alba, Managing Director and Partner of The Catalyst Capital Group Inc., a private equity firm specialising in investments. According to Tribukait, the idea that renewable energy is more expensive is not the case, the same goes for the idea that investing in renewable energy will affect the economy, or that using renewable energy would cause more blackouts.

Tribukait used the case of California as an example; he noted that California has already attained 33 per cent of its energy coming from renewable energy, while aiming to be 100 per cent by 2045.

Despite transitioning more and more to utilising renewable energy, California has empirically debunked most of the myths surrounding the use of clean energy. “And California wants to collaborate with the world, and share their experiences with the world,” Tribukait declared.

“We have to be as ambitious as we can be. Think differently, don’t buy into myths, and lead by example. Collaborate and communicate with the world.” According to Tribukait, the renewable energy industry is even helping to create jobs, creating more jobs than the conventional energy companies.

And he believes Guyana is poised to follow California with the right kind of investment backing. The “Go Green” initiative is one that Guyana has been behind for a number of years now.

And according to de Alba, Guyana is not going unnoticed by investment companies. “Guyana has the unique opportunity in history to become an example to the world on how to manage natural energy. Improving not only the natural resources but promoting a green economy,” de Alba remarked.

Though investing is important, de Alba stressed that emphasis has to be placed on giving back to the community, noting that whatever comes out of the investment every effort has to be made to ensure that local people gain their fair share of the benefits. For de Alba, transparency and honesty are key, and he believes Guyana is headed in the right direction.
During a Q&A segment at the end of the forum, the head table was questioned on Guyana’s oil and gas industry’s ability to run alongside its promotion of a green economy, and why should businesses continue to explore for fossil fuels if the world is going green. Tribukait reminded that fossil fuel is not only used as a means of fuel, but a lot of other products are also derived from the petroleum and there will always be a high market demand for such products.