We often think of massive overhauls and expensive tech when we talk about “going green”. For SMEs, this is more of a strategic marathon, and Lawrence Lim, founder of Prime Aces Limousine (PAL), is playing the long game.
He believes in building a solid knowledge foundation first, which was why he enrolled in UOB FinLab’s Sustainability Innovation Programme. By attending courses on carbon reporting and accounting under the programme, he has transitioned from general interest to technical understanding. Today, PAL is focused on steadily building internal knowledge to ensure that when they commit to global standards, they do so with precision and purpose.
Our focus has always been efficiency. Since 2017, we have operated with a remote team and a paperless system. We use digital tablets for airport greetings and issue all invoices electronically. By removing the need for a physical office and daily commutes, we significantly reduced our direct environmental footprint.
The courses were a deep dive into the fundamentals. They showed me that carbon reporting is a rigorous process typically managed by large corporate departments.
However, I learnt from the course tools on how SME such as ours can build our own internal tracking systems. It will be a long and tedious journey, but at least we now know how we can start to future-proof ourselves as sustainability continues to be high on the government’s priority list and likely the requirement of future corporate tenders.
We must balance environmental goals with service reliability. In our business, a flat battery during a multi-hour corporate charter is a critical risk. When you combine that with EV vehicle costs of up to $400,000, a full EV fleet is not yet a practical reality for our model. We currently use a managed network of hybrid and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles to reduce emissions without compromising on the reliability our clients expect.
I want my seven-year-old daughter to see the natural world as it exists today. This personal belief drives our ethics. My goal is to ensure the business contributes to a better future for the next generation through genuine, data-backed actions in a consistent manner.
The next priority is data maturity, a measurement of how advanced a company’s data analysis is.You cannot manage what you do not measure. We are currently exploring ways to track our emissions data accurately. This ensures that as we continue to engage with the UOB FinLab ecosystem, we have a solid, data-driven foundation to support our long-term sustainability goals.
PAL’s journey demonstrates that sustainability for SMEs is not about overnight transformation, but about making informed, practical decisions. By leveraging the expertise and ecosystem within UOB FinLab, PAL is proving that even in asset-heavy industries, a commitment to learning and data can pave the way for a more sustainable future.
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