Coffee lovers, rejoice! We’ve got exciting 7Café deals coming your way – we’re giving you a free cup of 7Café only on our 7Rewards loyalty app, plus the return of 50% off Hot Americano Mondays! That’s not all, we have an exclusive reward just for 7Rewards members. Read on to find out more!

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 12 March 2021 – Calling all coffee lovers! 7Café has got some new exclusive promotions to perk you up on those dreaded workdays.

#7ElevenSG #7Eleven #OwnBrand #7Cafe #7Rewards

Only on 7Rewards: Redeem a free hot 7Café with every 7 cups purchased!

7-Eleven is rolling out an updated 7Café Member Card so you can get your hands on a free cup of 7Café even more quickly and easily than before. One 7Café purchase on 7Rewards earns you a 7Café stamp – collect seven stamps and redeem a FREE hot 7Café!

Back by popular demand: 50% off Hot Americano Mondays!

For many of us, a cup of coffee gives that much-needed energy boost to get us through weekday mornings. And an even better cure for those Monday blues? Enjoy 50% off a hot Americano every Monday at only 75c (U.P. $1.50) up until 26 April!*

7Café is made using premium ingredients including our unique blend of 100% Arabica beans, quality fresh milk and cocoa powder. There is a wide variety on the 7Café menu – choose from an invigorating Hot Americano, milky Cappuccino, Latte, Mocha or silky smooth Hot Chocolate.

Avoid queues and long waiting times at coffeehouse chains – get yourself freshly made, quick and affordable coffee with prices starting from just $1.50 at 7-Eleven. 7Café is available at over 200 7-Eleven stores island-wide so you’re never far away from a freshly brewed cup of quality coffee.

For those looking for a quick and easy breakfast to complete your morning, pair your choice of 7Café with our all-new $3 and $4 Saver Combos (Breakfast) sets! For $3, choose between a Hot Latte, Mocha, Cappuccino or Chocolate to go with Taste Asia Chee Cheong Fun or our delectable 7-Select Scrambled Egg Burger with Chicken Sausage/Scrambled Egg with Chicken Ham Wrap. For more options, our $4 Saver Combo (Breakfast)’s got you covered with a wide range of options including our best-selling All-Day Chicken & Egg Muffin, Taste Asia Mee Siam and many more!

The full store list where 7Café is available can be downloaded here: https://www.7-eleven.com.sg/Offer

* Terms and conditions apply. This promotion cannot be used in conjunction with other existing promotions or offers.

7Rewards Member Exclusive: Refer a Friend and earn a free $2 eVoucher!

Share your love for the 7Rewards app with a friend (or more!) and earn a free $2 eVoucher each* with our new Referral Programme. Get your friends and family to download the 7Rewards app with your referral code, and after they make their first transaction of min. $5 on 7Rewards, a $2 eVoucher will be sent to both you and your friend which can be used at any 7-Eleven store. It’s that simple!

If you haven’t already done so, download the 7Rewards app now from the App Store or Google Play store. With the app, you earn one stamp for every $5 spent at any 7-Eleven store. Collect 10 stamps and you can redeem a $2 eVoucher for your next purchase. Earn 20 stamps and get yourself a $5 eVoucher!

Start collecting those stamps and earn even more rewards at 7-Eleven today.

* Terms and conditions apply.

More promotions and updates can always be found on the 7-Eleven Singapore Facebook page so stay tuned! Find your nearest 7-Eleven Store here.

About 7-Eleven

Established in Singapore in 1983, 7-Eleven has since expanded to more than 400 stores island wide to become the leading 24-hour convenience chain store. We take pride in serving the Singapore community 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. 7-Eleven emphasises convenience and value by offering a wide array of quality products, food and services to satisfy the needs of its customers. Think 7-Eleven and what comes to mind are the refreshing Slurpee, 7Café as well as a wide range of quality Ready Meals and sandwiches under 7-Select. 7-Eleven is also a 24/7 one-stop destination for customers who need to access bill payment services in their own time. Our services cover payment of utilities, courier services, and even cash withdrawal.

For more information, visit www.7-eleven.com.sg

The M+ building, viewed from Victoria Harbour .

Photo: Virgile Simon Bertrand. © Virgile Simon Bertrand

Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron

HONG KONG – Media OutReach – 12 March 2021 – M+ has reached the important milestone marking the completion of construction of the museum building. With the Occupation Permit for the museum building obtained on 24 December 2020, M+ is set to open to the public at the end of 2021.

Designed by a global team of the world-renowned architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup, the M+ building is set to become a new addition to the global arts and cultural landscape and a new international architectural icon. Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District on the Victoria Harbour waterfront, it provides a permanent space for M+, the first global museum of contemporary visual culture in Asia dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries.

The commanding architectural form consists of monumental horizontal and vertical volumes–an expansive podium and a strikingly slender tower–reflecting the architects’ reading of the unique typologies of Hong Kong’s architectural landscape and their sensitivity to local urban conditions. Beneath the building site lie the MTR Airport Express and Tung Chung Line. While the pre-existing site condition presents a challenge to design and construction, it has also become a point of departure for the M+ building. The excavation around the railway tunnels produces a ‘found space’ that provides an anchor for the building for hosting dynamic and rotating installations.

The 65,000 square-metre M+ building houses 17,000 square metres of exhibition space across thirty-three galleries. It also includes three cinemas, a Mediatheque, a Learning Hub, a Research Centre, museum shops, restaurants, a tea and coffee bar, a Members Lounge, and office spaces, with a Roof Garden that commands spectacular views of Victoria Harbour. Most galleries are arranged on a large podium level on the second floor offering visitors a fluid, interconnected experience of the exhibitions. The tower defines a visual dialogue with the urban landscape of Hong Kong. The podium and tower are united as concrete structures clad in ceramic tiles that reflect the changing conditions of light and weather while standing out from nearby glass and steel skyscrapers.

Museum staff have moved into and started to activate the M+ building and the Conservation and Storage Facility (CSF). Preparations including environmental stabilisation, space fit-outs, the move of permanent collections, and the installation of collection works and objects have commenced with a view to opening the M+ to the public at the end of 2021.

Betty Fung, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, underscores the significance of the M+ building for both the West Kowloon Cultural District and Hong Kong. ‘I believe that M+ will become one of the most iconic architectural landmarks in Hong Kong and a must-visit cultural landmark for local residents and tourists in the future. The completion of M+, together with that of the Xiqu Centre, Freespace and the Art Park in 2019, marks an important milestone of the West Kowloon Cultural District project which is moving into an exciting new phase of development.’

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, emphasises the importance of the completion of M+’s construction journey. ‘This is a major milestone for the museum. As we mark the building completion, our opening preparations are in full swing. We have moved into our permanent home, and I am thrilled to be able to say we can soon welcome visitors from Hong Kong and beyond to M+.’

Jacques Herzog, Founding Partner, Herzog & de Meuron, articulates the ambition for the design and realisation of the M+ building. ‘M+ certainly has the potential to become the major visual culture museum in Asia. It best expresses where we should go as a world culture, where diversity, equality, and access to art of all kinds are expressed from the very beginning. This kind of diversity and broadness is part of the DNA of M+. This makes it a museum that is very much locally inspired, but at the same time universal and open; it is for the people and visitors across the world.’

Notable architectural features

1. Found Space

The MTR Airport Express and Tung Chung Line tunnels lie beneath the site of the M+ building. Excavations around the tunnels reveal a ‘found space’ that provides an anchor inside the building and can host dynamic rotating installations. In a remarkable feat of engineering, five mega-trusses–large steel elements encased in concrete frameworks–help support the massive structure and prevent it from bearing down on the tunnels.

2. Glazed ceramic facade

Glass-clad skyscrapers are ubiquitous in Hong Kong. Departing from this visual language but remaining in dialogue with it, the M+ building features ceramic components as a modular facade system. The dark green ceramic facade reflects conditions of light and weather in many different facets and shades –an ever-changing skin with a crafted and rich surface quality. Ceramics also provide a localised environmental solution for the M+ building, to protect it from the long-term corrosive effects of heat, humidity, and wind.

3. Fully integrated tower facade

The south facade of the tower is a dynamic, evolving media display screen. It is a visual amplification of M+ programmes and accentuates the museum’s connection with the urban landscape facing Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Island.

4. Lightwell

A lightwell inside the building, created by massive cutaways in the floor plates and the skylights, connects basement floors, the ground floor, and the podium level, while offering visitors an immersive experience of the architecture and the museum from above and below.

5. Multi-purpose spaces

Multi-purpose spaces of various sizes in the building offer curators and artists a range of possibilities for realising projects. The sweeping Grand Stair auditorium is a place for gathering, a flexible venue for lectures, screenings, and other events.

6. Learning Hub

The Learning Hub is a space for learning, interpretation, and inspiration set against the backdrop of Victoria Harbour. It houses a Forum, workshops, and seminar rooms hosting programmes for all ages and interest groups. The pitched roof of the Learning Hub also provides access to the Roof Garden.

7. Outdoor gathering spaces

The Roof Garden is located atop the podium. It is an outdoor space that directly connects with the Art Park of the West Kowloon Cultural District and offers sweeping vistas of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong Island, and outlying islands.

8. Locally inspired bamboo furniture

Furniture such as benches, reception desks, and ticketing counters are made from bamboo, recalling the informal structures found throughout Hong Kong.

9. A campus of buildings

The M+ building is part of a campus that also includes the CSF and the WKCDA Tower. The CSF is devoted to the conservation, restoration, archiving, and storage of the growing M+ Collections. The WKCDA Tower is a sixteen-storey building that will house the new head office of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority as well as retail, dining, and entertainment facilities.

Download appendix, high-resolution images and captions:

https://bit.ly/3cp1gb6

About M+

M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District

The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.

About Herzog & de Meuron

Established in Basel in 1978, Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron together with Senior Partners Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler, Stefan Marbach, Esther Zumsteg, and Jason Frantzen. An international team of nearly 500 collaborators including the two Founders, five Senior Partners, ten Partners, and 41 Associates work on projects across Europe, the Americas and Asia. The main office is in Basel with additional offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Berlin and Copenhagen.

The practice has designed a wide range of projects from the small scale of a private home to the large scale of urban design. Many projects are highly recognized public facilities, such as museums, stadiums, and hospitals, and they have completed distinguished private projects including offices, laboratories and apartment buildings. Awards received include the Pritzker Architecture Prize (USA) in 2001, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (UK), the Praemium Imperiale (Japan), both in 2007, and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (USA) in 2014.

About Arup

Arup is a global firm of more than 15,000 designers, engineers, architects, planners, consultants and technical specialists, working across over 90 disciplines, with projects in more than 140 countries.

We opened our Hong Kong office in 1976, and today our influence can be seen everywhere in the city, from its tallest building to its longest bridge, at the airport gateway and through a large share of its sophisticated railway networks, to designing sustainable buildings and planning the next-generation towns.

From the Sydney Opera House and the Centre Pompidou to our more recent work like the V&A Museum Shenzhen and Taipei Performing Arts Centre, Arup has played a defining role in the design and development of some of the world’s favourite cultural buildings.

Our multidisciplinary team offered total design services for M+ including civil, structural, geotechnical, MEP, facade and fire engineering with lighting, acoustics, landscape, security and transportation design and consultancy.

• Seven key actions enable a sustainable energy future
• Carbon-neutrality is paramount for the long-term economic prosperity of the region
• Event partners included German Chambers of Commerce Abroad, Asia-Pacific Hydrogen Association, Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit, Masdar, and Siemens Gamesa
• More than 2,500 participants joined in the virtual discussions over two days.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 12 March 2021 – Regional and global business leaders, policy makers and government representatives throughout the energy sector convened at the Asia Pacific Energy Week to discuss regional challenges and opportunities. Themed ‘Shaping the Energy of Tomorrow’, the 2-day virtual event held from March 9 to 10, 2021 saw more than 2,500 participants actively engage in the discussions, opinion polls and questions. The primary objective focused on fostering an ecosystem of collaboration and co-creation between stakeholders to help meet the world’s sustainability goals, boost economic growth, create new jobs and industries, improve human welfare and attain carbon neutrality by 2050.

Over the two days, the thought leaders in diverse panel sessions deliberated and arrived at 7 key trends for a successful transition towards a sustainable energy future.

1. Access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy supply is a necessity for economic growth
2. Ramp up the contribution of renewable energy for long-term sustainability
3. Utilize technology for efficient and cleaner use of energy
4. Embrace emerging and cleaner energy resources like Green Hydrogen
5. Digitalization and AI-driven technologies will form the core of a future-proof and efficient transmission system
6. Access to sustainable, competitive capital will accelerate the energy transformation journey
7. Collaboration among stakeholders is imperative for the transformation of the energy landscape

“As the world’s fastest growing economic region today, Asia Pacific is witnessing increasing urbanization, rising population and monumental energy needs. With Asia Pacific accounting for more than half of global energy consumption, and with 10% of the population still lacking access to basic electricity, the question is how to bridge into an affordable, reliable and sustainable power supply, while improving energy access,” said Christian Bruch, President and CEO, Siemens Energy.

With prices of renewables declining and with grid stabilization technology advancing, ramping up the contribution of renewable sources makes economic sense and will also drive long-term sustainability for the region. Governments can contribute with policies and regulations driving this change, and the industry could translate emerging business strategies into practical busines models, develop reliable projects and drive technological innovations. To accelerate the energy transition, all stakeholders must join forces and work towards the transformation.

Audience engagement also revealed some vital insights on energy transition:

• More than 45% of the participants indicated that cost was a major hurdle followed by willingness for energy transition at nearly 25%
• Over 66% identified renewable integration as the most impactful decarbonization element
• 48% voted that a breakthrough in energy storage will accelerate energy transition
• 75% of participants would be willing to pay a premium for CO2 free energy, and
• Policy and regulation will be a key motivator.

The event was organized in collaboration with the German Chambers of Commerce Abroad (AHK); the Asia-Pacific Hydrogen Association; the Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit (GMIS); Masdar – a global leader in renewable energy and sustainable urban development which is wholly-owned by the Abu Dhabi government’s Mubadala Investment Company, and Siemens Gamesa.

Recordings of the sessions can be accessed by registered accounts here: https://live.apweek.siemens-energy-events.com

This press release and further material is available at https://press.siemens-energy.com/global/en/pressrelease/asia-pacific-energy-leaders-identify-seven-key-trends-sustainable-energy-future

Follow us on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/siemens_energy

Seven key trends for a sustainable energy future

1. Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy supply is a necessity for economic growth

“In the Philippines, about 95% of society is energized. The biggest issue for us is the affordability of tariffs followed by concerns of energy security as our energy infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector. Therefore, we need to find the balance between accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. As regards to our country’s sustainable future, we have issued a moratorium for green power plants. We have also signed various MoUs to develop Hydrogen solutions and are looking at the electrolysis technology for power generation.”

H.E. Alfonso G. Cusi

Energy Secretary, Department of Energy (Philippines)

2. Ramp up the contribution of renewables for long-term sustainability

“Under our National Grand Energy Strategy, we hope to bring more renewable into the energy system of about 23% of the energy mix by 2025, its equivalent to additional 38GW renewable powerplant by 2035. We have a lot of resources that are fossil-based such as coal deposits, oil and natural gas as well as enormous renewable potential are our primary energy sources. In the next 10 years, we want to leverage on technology to build up capacity and infrastructure including 18 priority transmissions, 7 smart grid projects and renewable energy. Another program to reduce petroleum consumption, we have about 5,200 diesel power plants right now scattered across 2,130 locations in Indonesia and we are serious on the journey of converting diesel plants to renewable energy to possibly reduce up to 0.7mil tonnes of carbon emissions.”

H.E. Arifin Tasrif

Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources (Indonesia)

3. Utilize technology for efficient and cleaner use of energy

“Asia Pacific is not only the fastest growing region but also the fastest transforming market. With more than 50% of our portfolio based on decarbonized technology and over 20% revenue generated from Asia Pacific, Siemens Energy has been — and will be — committed to supporting countries on their individual paths toward decarbonization. We drive the shift from nuclear and coal to gas and provide grid technologies to support the integration of renewables.”

Dr Jochen Eickholt

Member of the Executive Board, Siemens Energy AG

4. Embrace emerging and cleaner energy resources like Green Hydrogen

“We see green hydrogen as a key means to achieving this ambition (of wanting to export our renewable energy to the world) and firmly believe that South Australia can become a hydrogen supplier of choice to the Asia-Pacific region. We have been a leader within Australia with our vision to become a world-class hydrogen supplier – as the first Australian jurisdiction to showcase our hydrogen vision through the 2017 Hydrogen Roadmap, and which was reinforced by the release of our Hydrogen Action Plan in 2019. The action plan outlines 20 specific actions across five important themes, with the objective of scaling-up renewable hydrogen production for domestic consumption and international export.”

Hon Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP
South Australian Minister for Energy and Mining

5. Digitalization and AI-driven intelligence will form the core of a future-proof and efficient transmission system

“Digitalization is the definition of the future. Utilities will stand to gain exponential benefits from digital solutions. On our end, digitalization helped us to maximize our asset management and performance especially during the pandemic, to support decision-making and analytics in addressing the changing loads of our distribution transformers. There are ample technical solutions that we can ride on but these require capital investment that requires regulatory approvals, and close collaboration with stakeholders on what projects to pursue and prioritize. In order to drive execution to become much cheaper, we will need the strong support from regulators and the government, as well as a close collaboration within the energy sector. The power to make Mother Earth a better place is in our hands.”

Ronnie L. Aperocho

Senior Vice President, Networks Meralco Philippines

6. Access to capital at reasonable costs will accelerate the energy transition journey

“To successfully drive the transformation of energy systems worldwide, sufficient financial resources are needed. Take Europe, where we need an estimated €30 trillion by 2050 to decarbonize all our systems. To accomplish this mammoth task, private capital is needed, as well as the appropriate political framework conditions. Again, it’s all about collaboration. The good news here — this is growing enormously.”

Christian Bruch

President and CEO, Siemens Energy AG

“In my view, achieving any nett zero carbon goals will require a complete supply chain of understanding, collaboration and agreement between the different parties, namely, legislators, government and consumers. The conversion from fossil fuel to renewable energy requires political will, legislations and policies in place, the willingness to push for change and agreement of consumers to pay a higher premium (with renewables). For power generators like TNB, we are more than happy to support and transform if there is some subsidy to defray the costs of our investment. As the audience poll suggested, more than 70% of popular opinion believes that policies and regulations provide the most impact to decarbonization. For Malaysia, solar will be the most sought -after renewable source followed by wind power, while battery storage will be the game changer of the energy of the future.”

Dato’ Nor Azman bin Mufti,

Managing Director, TNB Power Generation

7. Collaboration among stakeholders is imperative for transformation of the energy landscape

“To get to a sustainable energy future we have to join forces. Public sector and private sector must work in tandem for two main reasons. First, private sector capital will accelerate investment and there is a need for more public-private partnerships. Second, companies will translate emerging business strategies into viable business models, developing bankable projects and driving technological innovations. IRENA continues working with all stakeholders to accelerate energy transitions around the world.”

Francesco La Camera

Director General, The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)