Zero waste to landfill achieved at ABB’s Frosinone factory in Italy

16.09.2021

Zero production waste to landfill has been achieved at ABB Smart Power’s manufacturing unit in Frosinone, Italy — 14 years ahead of the European Union’s Circular Economy Package target of no more than 10 percent landfilling by 2035.

Driven by rapid urbanization and growing populations, global annual waste generation is expected to jump to 3.4 billion tons over the next 30 years, up from two billion tons in 2016. Some 37 percent of this global waste is disposed of in a landfill.

Landfills, long the default for waste removal across the world, are considered unsustainable. Space is running out and landfilling contributes to climate change through the high levels of methane and carbon dioxide generated by rotting rubbish that could otherwise be re-used.

Opened in 1969, ABB’s Frosinone factory represents a center of excellence in ABB for the development and manufacture of low-voltage circuit breakers. The 150,000 square-meter facility with 800 employees is highly automated and produces more than three million circuit breakers every year. A Lighthouse Plant, selected by the Italian government as a model for digital transformation and Industry 4.0 strategies, Frosinone promotes smart, digitalized, and connected operations, increasing efficiency across the full value chain. Achieving zero production waste to landfill was a whole-factory program.

ABB is steadily reducing its environmental footprint through waste reduction and recycling programs at its sites around the world, building on the 27 percent reduction in overall waste achieved over the 2013–2020 period. “Preserving resources is a key pillar of ABB’s Sustainability 2030 strategy, with zero waste to landfill – wherever local conditions allow – an explicit target,” said Theodor Swedjemark, Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, ABB. “The benchmark on zero production waste achieved at ABB’s Frosinone facility serves as a testament to fast, tangible progress on that strategy and on more circular operations, moving past the unsustainable ‘take, make, dispose’ model of production.”

Giampiero Frisio, President Smart Power Division, said: “We have proven at our Frosinone plant that with the right attitude and commitment from everyone across the business, zero waste to landfill is achievable. Since announcing our zero waste ambitions in 2017, this latest milestone signifies how we are leading positive change across our full production chain, delivering more sustainable solutions for all our stakeholders.”

Staff training was critical in educating, empowering and building the right attitude and culture for the zero-production waste to landfill initiative. Training topics included managing waste in accordance with current environmental legislation and the importance of waste separation. By getting the teams engaged, handling personnel became more involved in the correct management of the waste area.

Waste sorting and identification is set up at the place where waste originates. There are about 150 different labeled production waste containers and separated paper-cardboard and plastic waste containers in each workstation. The same amount of waste is coded as before, but with higher degrees of separation comes a higher percentage of waste recovery.

ABB Smart Power’s manufacturing unit in Frosinone is exploring more sustainable practices such as reduced CO₂ emissions by optimizing processes across the entire supply chain, a circular manufacturing process, reducing transportation and increasing plastics recovery.

Source: ABB

Water Management According To European Standards

15.09.2021

river-reka-voda — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Nathan Anderson)

The draft of the Water management plan on the territory of Serbia for the next six years is in the final stage. Its fundamental goal is the protection and improvement of water resources in our country. We asked Nataša Milić, the acting manager of the Republic Water Directorate, what this strategic framework brings us concerning water management,the irrigation plans, what measures we take to protect against floods, and how to stop water pollution.

EP: The preparation of the Strategy of irrigation of Serbia started last year. What has been done so far, and who will benefit from this Strategy?

Nataša Milić: The Republic of Serbia and the European Bank for reconstruction and development signed the Loan agreement in 2019, which included preparing the Strategy for irrigation, with a five-year Action plan, which the grant would finance. Strategy for irrigation is a base for construction and exploitation of the irrigation system in the Republic of Serbia that will provide for sustainable usage of natural resources and their quality improvement. The project involves the preparation of seven technical documents which will analyze different aspects of irrigation: the price of water for irrigation, availability of water resources in the country, irrigation management, etc. In the upcoming time, there is a plan for organizing several webinars and workshops about irrigation, aiming for the full inclusion of the public into the strategy preparation process. We expect the first draft of the Strategy in September, and after that, the five-year Action plan preparation will start.

In focus:

EP: What size is the land that is irrigated, and in what parts of Serbia? Is the construction of some irrigation system underway, and if so, where?

Nataša Milić: According to the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the irrigation systems cover 69,695 ha, with precisely 50,366 ha irrigated. Therefore, with the Loan Agreement, we created the legal frame for drawing 97 million dollars from the Abu Dhabi Development Fund to construct the water facilities for irrigation that are the public property of the Republic of Serbia. To proceed with the implementation of the Development of irrigation systems project – Stage I, in 2020, we concluded the agreements for construction, remediation, and refurbishment of the water facilities on the territory of Bačka, Banat, and Srem. This year’s plan includes the continuation of financing of the construction works. With ongoing construction, remediation, and refurbishment of the water facilities, the conditions are created to irrigate an additional 67,000 ha of agricultural land. Based on the Loan Agreement, during 2021 and 2020, the irrigation infrastructure’s construction and rehabilitation in Eastern Serbia (The Municipality of Negotin) and central Serbia (The Municipality of Svilajnac) will be financed with 15 million euro.

EP: Is the Water Management Plan ready, and what changes it actually brings?

Nataša Milić: The Water Management Plan is the fundamental instrument that allows the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive principles. It is the strategic frame for Integral water management. The Water Management Plan lays down the environmental goals for all water bodies on the surface and under surface waters. We need to achieve this by implementing water resources protection and improvement activities. That means that we will monitor the condition of every water body (watercourse segment) and take measures for maintaining its good condition, or provide for good condition by reducing or stopping further pollution. It is the first plan of the kind in our country, created according to all standards of EU legislation in the water sector and stipulations of domestic laws. The finalization of the Water Management Plan draft at the territory of the Republic of Serbia for 2021-2027 is underway. After that, we will go into the process of public inspection and public discussion.

EP: According to official information, there is enough water in Serbia. But, do we know how to use it properly and, more importantly, to preserve it? How polluted are our rivers?

Nataša Milić: Water supply is satisfactory in the majority of the cities and municipalities in the Republic of Serbia. The modern systems for water supply cover more than 75 percent of the population. In contrast, the remaining percentage is supplied from smaller water systems that don’t belong to the public water supply system and carry out regular water quality control. Water pollution can be generally divided into two categories: from concentrated sources and diffuse sources. Concentrated sources mainly are discharge points at the sewage system and industrial facility. The diffused sources generate spatial pollutions coming from households that aren’t connected to the sewage systems, from improper farming, leaching from the forest and other areas, livestock, unsanitary solid waste landfills and garbage dump, and other human activities. The conversation shouldn’t be on how polluted our rivers are, so the focus should be on the measures we should take so that human activities don’t affect water. Those measures are: primarily collecting and treatment of communal wastewater and treatment of industrial wastewater, the implementation of the good agriculture practice, including systematic monitoring and control of the usage of fertilizers and plant protection products, sanitation, remediation, and closure of unsanitary landfills/dumps, which are situated in large number by the rivers’ bank. One of the most crucial and initial measures is bringing awareness in all participants, the general population included, on the importance and need of preservation and improvement of the water quality.

Interviewed by: Milica Radičević

Read the story in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine WATER RESOURCES.

Western Balkan municipalities kick off the development of Local Air Quality Plans

14.09.2021

pollution-zagađenje-vadzuh — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

After launching the Clean Air Regions Initiative (CARI) at the Just Transition Forum on 30 June 2021, representatives of the participating municipalities have come together for the first two-day workshop to kick off work on developing ambitious local air quality policies and measures in line with the aims of the CARI declaration.

During the first physical workshop held on 8-9 September 2021 in Szeged, Hungary, participating municipalities exchanged good practices and experience with their EU counterparts, attended trainings on the introduction of measures capable of reducing pollution into the air by addressing the most critical sources of pollution such as domestic heating, industry and traffic.

Furthermore, the workshop included presentations on topics such as data collection, public participation and air pollution measurement technologies.

With the knowledge gathered during the first workshop, participating municipalities can start the development of their Local Air Quality Action Plans. The Secretariat and the Western Balkans Green Center (Hungary) will continue to support this process through regular trainings, capacity building, knowledge sharing and networking events throughout 2021.

The pioneer signatories of the Clean Air Regions Initiative are the municipalities of Banovići, Kakanj, Lukavac, Maglaj and Tuzla from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Pljevlja from Montenegro, Bitola from North Macedonia and Niš and Novi Sad from Serbia.

Source: Energy Community

EBRD Calls for an Increase in Rail Investment in the Western Balkans

14.09.2021

voz-trains — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Silver Ringvee)

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Balazs Busznyak)

As one of the major multilateral investors in the Western Balkans, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has issued an appeal for more investment in the region’s railway sector to address the climate change emergency and improve connectivity.

“Rail not only plays a critical role in any well-balanced transport system, it is the lynchpin for a sustainable transport approach and has a key role to play in addressing today’s climate emergency,” Nandita Parshad, EBRD Managing Director, Sustainable Infrastructure Group, said in an opening address at the first Western Balkans Rail Summit in Belgrade today.

The event – jointly organised by the EBRD, the European Investment Bank and the Transport Community – was dedicated to enhancing the integration of the Western Balkans’ rail system with the European Union (EU)’s rail system. The aim was to advance the regional, European and global transport policy agenda to secure safer, more efficient, interoperable, digitalised, sustainable and green development of the rail transport system in the Western Balkans.

To date, the EBRD has invested almost EUR 1 billion in the Western Balkans’ railway sector and remains committed to accelerating the pace of its activities: “We are determined to step up our investments and mobilise private-sector participation,” Ms Parshad said. “And, of course, we will continue to provide policy and technical assistance support to advance the region’s rail sector.”

In order to secure and deepen the sector’s development, the EBRD executive identified three priorities:

Investments: Investments in the hundreds of millions of euros are needed for further electrification of the rail track and rolling stock as well as to expand infrastructure and improve signalling and digitalisation.

Markets: It is important to open up the railway market to ensure faster and more efficient cross-border traffic, and to work with governments to promote regulatory and legislative measures that facilitate market opening as well as interoperability. Exploring ways to promote private-sector participation in the modernisation and expansion of fleets as well as rail operations will help to deepen the role of the rail sector.

Capacity-building: Improving the governance and capacities of national railway companies is vital. Ambitious plans to improve service quality and speed in line with EU standards will require further strengthening of capacities to prepare and implement projects and essential reforms in the sector, improve corporate governance and enhance safety and maintenance.

Against the backdrop of the climate crisis, Ms Parshad called for urgent action: “Given that transport is responsible for approximately a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and that rail is substantially cleaner than road transport, a modal shift towards rail will have a hugely positive impact on emission reductions and air quality. This is a tremendous opportunity to decarbonise the transport sector and an opportunity we must not miss.”

Source: EBRD

The Role of Resource Extraction in a “Circular” World

13.09.2021

termoelektrane_ugalj_rudnik — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

If the latest major report on global warming makes one thing clear, it’s that humanity must transition to a low-carbon economy, and fast.

To do that, many countries are embracing what’s known as circularity, the idea that humanity should reuse things – from computer parts to clothes – instead of making them anew in factories.

But what does that mean for countries, especially those in the developing world, whose economies rely on resource extraction?

A new report from Canada’s Smart Prosperity Institute (SPI) explores that issue, finding that so-called primary material producers will need to better integrate themselves into the burgeoning circular economy.

The report, Primary Materials in the Emerging Circular Economy, also says that more research is needed to develop policies and practices that support resource-producing countries.

“Our current understanding of approaches to increase circularly has largely been led by resource importers, such as the European Union or Japan,” said Geoff McCarney, SPI Senior Director of Research and the report’s lead author. “But for many other places, improving circularity is likely to have deep and different implications for the existing economy. We need to improve our understanding of how this transition will impact the entire value chain, while ensuring we transition equitably and pay attention to impacts on workers’ livelihoods.”

The path to a circular economy

A circular economic model aims to reuse, refurbish and recycle products instead of taking virgin materials from the ground. Proponents say that’s crucial to combating climate change, reducing pollution and heading off mass extinctions, which are imperiling humanity’s long-term survival.

The SPI report found that over the next several decades, the world will need to use more raw materials to satisfy the needs of a fast-growing population and create the underpinnings of a low-carbon economy. (Minerals and metals are key components in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels.)

The report, which was completed with support from the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) North America Office, focused on the mining industry. Resource extraction is an economic driver in 81 countries but leads to greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, biodiversity loss, and in some cases, conflict. The report found that there were several barriers to promoting circularity in the industry. Interviewees said that in many places recycled materials often cost more than virgin ones. And businesses that recover waste, including from mining operations, often see low margins, hampering efforts to promote circularity.

“There is a real need for more research and policy guidance in the extractives industry, which is why we commissioned the report,” says Barbara Hendrie, Director of the UNEP North America Office.

SPI’s McCarney said countries need to consider smart incentives for circular innovation both at the mine site and along the entire value chain. This requires improved data at the mine site, as well as increasing integration between primary material producers and designers and manufacturers for better efficiency and innovation.

“That will help us provide more sustainably-sourced primary and secondary commodities,” McCarney says. “It will also push downstream end-users to design products and demand materials that are more recoverable, recyclable, and traceable, to demonstrate values of sustainability and circularity in product markets.”

Unexpected benefits

McCarney and his co-authors said the broad implementation of the circular economy will bring challenges but also opportunities in resource-producing economies. The circular economy could unlock USD 4.5 trillion of economic growth and create 6 million new jobs through activities like recycling, repair and remanufacturing.

It could also bring benefits to the mining industry, which is increasingly the target of public opposition. By adopting greener, more circular standards, firms can improve their public standing, the report found.

As the global population rises and the middle class grows, the report finds that, even if recycling and reprocessing rates grow faster than the extractive sectors, economies will continue to rely on new materials in the short to medium term.

But the SPI report found that there was a growing appetite, including in the corporate world, for increasing industrial efficiency through recycling and recovery. The right incentives, tools, and data can bolster this movement, the report found.

Source: UNEP

Indigenous Peoples launch self-determined agenda at IUCN World Conservation Congress

12.09.2021

IUCN’s Indigenous Peoples Member Organisations today called for the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights and governance over their lands and resources. The call is part of a global agenda of Indigenous priorities for conservation action that was presented during the IUCN World Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nature, held at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille.

“Our global goals to protect the earth and conserve biodiversity cannot succeed without the leadership, support and partnership of Indigenous Peoples,” said Dr Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General. “The landmark Global Indigenous Agenda presented today breaks ground on Indigenous self-determined nature conservation and natural resource governance. It was made possible by IUCN’s unique convening power as a union of Indigenous peoples, governments and civil society.”

The Global Indigenous Agenda for the Governance of Indigenous Lands, Territories, Waters, Coastal Seas and Natural Resources was developed by IUCN’s Indigenous Peoples Organiztion Members spanning six continents and presented at the IUCN World Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nature – a first-ever event of its kind set within the context of the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

The Global Indigenous Agenda calls for the secure recognition and respect for collective indigenous rights and governance of lands, territories, waters, costal seas and natural resources. It also calls upon the global community – from states to the private sector, NGO conservation community, conservation finance and academia – to engage in specific joint efforts to support the realisation of the Agenda, such as co-designing initiatives and collaborating on investment opportunities. In total, the Global Indigenous Agenda lays out 10 high-level proposals and outcomes relating to five themes: Indigenous governance; biodiversity conservation; climate action; post-COVID 19 recovery efforts and food security; and global policy setting.

“Today, IUCN’s Indigenous Peoples Organization Members have taken an important step in developing a Global Indigenous Agenda,” says Ramiro Batzin, IUCN Councillor and Director of Sotz’il. “This Agenda becomes a strategic instrument that will allow Indigenous Peoples and international organisations, including IUCN, to direct their actions from the ground up to advance the rights, needs and realities of Indigenous Peoples.”

The Summit and Global Indigenous Agenda is a milestone on a five-year journey, from the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawai’i to this year’s Congress in Marseille. In 2016, IUCN Members made the landmark decision to alter its membership structure for the first time in 60 years by creating an Indigenous Peoples Organisation category – making IUCN the first intergovernmental organisation to recognise and include Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations as a distinct membership constituency. Indigenous leaders have also participated in IUCN’s governing Council, and IUCN works in conjunction with its Indigenous Members and partners to promote and establish Indigenous-led conservation programming.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Sébastien Goldberg)

“IUCN provides a unique opportunity for Indigenous Peoples. It is a space where we can engage and influence the global conservation agenda as we have a decision-making status that does not exist in other spaces,” says John Cheechoo, a representative from the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

This Congress also marks the first time in IUCN’s history where Indigenous Peoples Organisations have put forward or sponsored motions to help set IUCN’s international conservation agenda specifically as Indigenous Peoples’ Organization Members. In the coming years, IUCN expects the Global Indigenous Agenda to inform inclusive conservation initiatives, continue to contribute to advancing Indigenous Peoples rights and to grow and strengthen the platform of its Indigenous Membership.

Source: IUCN

Hybrid Power Plants & Flexibility — The Future Of The Grid

11.09.2021

windfarm_vetroelektrana — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Imagine an electric grid powered by clean, renewable energy. Now imagine that this grid provides all the comfort and convenience consumers have come to expect as well as grid reliability and resiliency services that are similar to—or better than—conventional plants. That is the promise of the FlexPower project.

With support from the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, FlexPower brings National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers together with other National Laboratories to develop a colocated variable hybrid generation power plant enhanced with energy storage at NREL’s Flatirons Campus. Participants include the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia).

As renewables displace conventional generation, hybrid renewable power plants combined with energy storage can transform variable resources such as wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) into fully dispatchable and flexible energy sources. These hybridized power plants will be capable of operating in day-ahead and real-time energy markets and providing essential reliability and resiliency services to the grid.

Rethinking Renewables

“This research will help accelerate the adoption of utility-scale variable wind and PV resources by demonstrating how hybridization can smooth the transition to clean energy,” said NREL Chief Engineer Vahan Gevorgian. “For the power grid to economically and reliably integrate large amounts of variable renewable generation, it will require robust energy storage capabilities and a rethinking of the value renewable energy assets bring to the grid.”

To support this transformation, researchers will test a variety of energy storage systems, including pumped storage hydropower, battery, hydrogen, flow battery, kinetic, and ultracapacitor energy storage. In addition, the project will focus on advanced control strategies and resource forecast techniques.

Sophisticated controls can improve the dispatchability and availability of variable generation by taking advantage of the complementary nature of wind and PV resources and increasing capacity factors for renewable projects with minimum or, in some cases, no additional transmission buildup. Improved forecasting allows hybrid plants to participate in energy and ancillary services markets in the same way conventional generation plants do.

By combining generation, storage, advanced controls, and improved forecasting in hybrid plants, operators can achieve economies of scale by sharing infrastructure as well as siting and permitting costs. These plants can also provide the full spectrum of existing essential reliability services as well as new, evolving grid reliability services. For example, hybrid plants can provide self-black starts as well as power system black starts, can operate in islanded mode, and can participate in power system restoration schemes. And hybrid plants are scalable, ranging from small microgrids to large, interconnected power systems.

You can read the whole article HERE.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy

Floating Solar Plus Wave Energy Smackdown For Fossil Fuels

09.09.2021

Everybody is talking about a new EU clean power project that pairs floating solar with offshore wind turbines, but they’re missing half the story. Wave energy is also part of the project.

The wave part is not getting much attention, probably because wave-to-electricity conversion has fallen behind wind and solar in the renewable energy race. Nevertheless, if all goes according to plan, the waters of the EU will be peppered with wave conversion devices as well as floating solar panels.

More Offshore Solar & Wind Turbines With Wave Energy, Too

The EU project is tackling the problem of how to make room for new offshore energy industries in busy coastal waters. Finding sites for new offshore wind farms can be a tough row to hoe, as offshore wind fans in the US can testify.

The new project is called EU-SCORES for “European SCalable Offshore Renewable Energy Sources.” The idea is to pair wind turbines with other clean power systems, with the aim of reducing the overall footprint of marine energy development.

EU-SCORES comes under the umbrella of the Dutch Marine Energy Centre, which will assess two sites for hybrid marine energy systems. One is a solar-plus-wind site in Belgium, which has been getting a lot of attention, and rightfully so. Floating solar is a relatively new idea that has been catching on fast for application to inland water bodies including reservoirs as well as natural lakes and ponds. The idea of setting solar panels afloat in the open sea poses new technology challenges.

In that regard, EU-SCORES shares some similarities with the CrossWind offshore wind project under way in the Netherlands, which is also on track to receive floating solar panels.

However, EU-SCORES seems to be taking a much more aggressive approach to hybridizing offshore wind farms. As DMEC describes it, the “full-scale demonstrations are intended to prove how the increased power output and capacity installed per km2 will reduce the amount of marine space needed, thereby leaving more space for aquaculture, fisheries, shipping routes and environmentally protected zones.”

“Additional benefits achieved by co-using critical electrical infrastructures and exploring advanced operation and maintenance methodologies supported by innovative autonomous systems should lower the costs per MWh,” DMEC adds.

You can read the whole article HERE.

Source: Clean Technica

RES for Our Health and Survival

08.09.2021

sheep_windpark_windtubines_vetrenjače_vetroelektrana_ovce — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

The Association Renewable Energy Sources of Serbia (RES Serbia) has taken only three months to become a significant factor in Serbia’s green market and be acknowledged as a regional player.

It is a business association formed to connect economic entities interested in improving the business environment, legal regulations, and private-public dialogue in the renewable energy resources (RES) sector. In addition, particular attention will be given to educate and inform citizens, namely to bring awareness on the relevance of green energy for people’s health, environment, energy sector, and economy.

We talked with Danijela Isailović, the manager of RES Serbia, about the Association founded with the support of the European Bank for reconstruction and development (EBRD) and about the investment environment in Serbia.

EP: In three months, you have managed to draw the attention of the public and experts?

Danijela Isailović: We caught the attention because Serbia needed this kind of Association in Serbia for a long time. The timing was good as we were established at the same time when the Law on renewable energy sources was adopted. The founders are licensed producers of electric power, and the support of The European Bank for reconstruction and development has been of great importance. These are all our references. Still, the sound energy that we contribute to renewable energy is something that helps us stand out. We are open to everyone. We try to reply to all requests and to be available to all media requests too. We pay complete respect to local communities and media. Although this is a business association, renewable energy sources are mainly a concern of ordinary people whose health and survival are reasons for stopping climate change.

In Focus:

EP: Who are the members, besides the biggest wind parks, who are the Association founders?

Danijela Isailović: Serbia’s biggest solar energy producers, such as the MT-KOMEX and Solaris Energy companies, lawyers, consultants, construction and installation companies, have joined in. Soon, at our regular session of the Management Board, we will accept few more members.

EP: You have signed the cooperation agreement with the Ministry of mining and energy. What is the content of the contract, and has the implementation already begun? Were there positive reactions to the Association establishment also from other state authorities?

Danijela Isailović: RES Serbia and the Ministry of mining and energy share the same values and goals – we want more clean, green energy. Accordingly, we can take steps together to create regulations, organize workshops, conferences, and promote the idea of green Serbia. The agreement implementation has already begun. We have become members of Workgroup for subsidiary laws. I believe that epidemic measures will allow a big RES conference to be held in September. Upon establishing the Association, the most significant public companies for us, such as Elektroprivreda Srbije EPS and Elektromreža Srbije EMS, have positively responded. With both, we have agreed on cooperation. The Provincial Government of Vojvodina institutions that issued permits for all wind parks built so far have expressed positive views towards the Association, just like other state authorities. We have sent a letter to the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia. We said our wish to improve cooperation and achieve our interests through the Chamber. Our members have been very active so far in the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, and they have been giving legitimacy and green recognition to the Association of Energy at the Chamber. Having founded RES Serbia, the members who pay a relatively high membership fee at the Chamber of Commerce haven’t refused their right or obligation at the Chamber. With this new option, they want to contribute to the RES industry in Serbia.

EP: The new Law on renewable energy sources has been adopted. But will it result in an investment boom?

Danijela Isailović: The Law is a clear message that Serbia decided to take a green path. After the Law, the following steps are decrees, the introduction of auction model and commercial agreement on electric energy purchase. Then we will see who are big investors, what projects are good, who can buy wind turbines, solar panels, and who has the means and skills to get financed by a bank. No state is a wishing well that provides everything to everyone. The rule of Law and bankable regulations are things that the state should provide. Investors have to take certain risks if they want and have projects.

Interviewed by: Nevena Đukić

Read the story in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine WATER RESOURCES.

Threats to Crop Wild Relatives Compromising Food Security and Livelihoods

07.09.2021

polje_pšenice — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Tomasz Filipek)

Over 70 wild relatives of some of the world’s most important crops are threatened with extinction, according to a new IUCN co-authored study launched today at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille. These plants, native to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, provide genetic resources that are necessary to breed crops worldwide with greater resilience to climate change, pests and diseases, as well as to improve yields.

“In today’s fast-changing world, genetic diversity is crucial to making our crops resilient to climate change. We need biodiversity to ensure sustainable livelihoods and food security for the world’s growing population, as this study shows,” said IUCN Director General Dr Bruno Oberle. “These results also highlight the urgent need for a strong global biodiversity conservation framework that sets measurable, science-based goals, to ensure a resilient future.”

The paper, published in the journal Plants, People, Planet, analysed 224 plants closely related to maize, potato, bean, squash, chilli pepper, vanilla, avocado, husk tomato and cotton crops. The study found that 35 percent of these wild species are threatened with extinction, as wild habitats have been converted for human use, combined with the shift from traditional agricultural systems to mechanisation and widespread use of herbicides and pesticides. Invasive species and pests, contamination from genetically-modified crops, over-collection and logging pose further threats.

The wild plant groups at highest risk of extinction are Vanilla with all eight species in the region listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (TM), followed by 92 percent of cotton (Gossypium) and 60 percent of avocado (Persea) species found to be threatened. Two groups related to maize, Zea and Tripsacum, are 44 percent and 33 percent threatened respectively. Thirty-one per cent of bean species, one out of four chilli pepper species, 23 of potato species, 12 percent of husk tomato species, and 9 percent of squash species are further threatened with extinction.

To date, at least sixteen crop wild relatives included in this study have been used to breed food crops that are more resilient to the changing climate, extreme weather and other threats. These include breeding squashes to withstand cold, maize capable of producing higher yields and potatoes resistant to drought as well as to late blight disease, which historically devastated potato crops in Europe.

“These findings have potentially critical implications for livelihoods and food security. It is imperative that conservation and agricultural sectors work together to safeguard Mesoamerica’s crop wild relatives, while supporting rural economies and livelihoods,” said Dr Bárbara Goettsch, Chair of the IUCN SSC Cactus and Succulent Plant Specialist Group and lead author of this Darwin Initiative-funded study. “These species must be protected on the ground through sustainable and diverse agricultural production. At the same time, the genetic diversity of crop wild relatives must be better represented in gene banks.”

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Maarten van den Heuvel)

“Given Mesoamerica is a centre of origin and domestication of major crops, it is of worldwide importance in the context of global warming that we preserve the region’s crop wild relatives and their genetic diversity, as these plants have evolved in varied environmental conditions,” said Dr José Sarukhán, National Coordinator of Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO). “Local people traditionally use these diverse species as food and medicine, and numerous cultural groups have key roles to play in their preservation. Understanding the extinction risk of crop wild relatives is fundamental to develop local, national and regional conservation strategies.”

This study is the result of a collaboration between IUCN and seven partners, including CONABIO, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Agrícolas (ICTA), Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Forestal “Enrique Álvarez Córdova” (CENTA) and the University of Birmingham. All 224 crop wild relatives assessed in the study are now published on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (TM).

The results reported here are not limited to the region. Other wild relatives of food crops such as banana, apple, prunes and ginger are also threatened, according to the IUCN Red List.

Source: IUCN

IUCN and German government support post-COVID recovery through sustainable tourism initiative

06.09.2021

hanover_city_germany — Photo Ilustration: Pixabay

At the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, IUCN and the German development agency GIZ on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) today announced a new programme to strengthen the resilience of community-based tourism in and around protected and conserved areas worldwide. Through the programme, the German government is investing up to 17 million Euros to boost the recovery from the impacts of COVID-19 on people and nature.

“Protected areas play a crucial role in maintaining the health of the planet and our health as a species, and are critically important in conserving biodiversity, ecosystem services and mitigating impacts of natural disasters and climate change. Through this project, IUCN provides a lifeline to local communities who are unable to finance their vital nature conservation operations after decades of reliance on ecotourism ventures to supplement meagre budgets,” says James Hardcastle, Associate Director, Global Protected Areas Programme, IUCN.

The programme, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and includes implementing partners such as UNESCO and the WWF, will use tourism as an instrument to contribute to sustainable development in developing and emerging countries.

To pilot the initiative, IUCN will work with two World Heritage sites and five other protected areas in Peru and Vietnam to increase the resilience of the community-based tourism sector to future disruptions. This will include engaging local communities and indigenous peoples in developing community-based ecotourism action plans, and revising site management plans to include detailed tourism destination and visitor management protocols and guidance.

Through a dedicated ‘cash for work’ scheme under the initiative, local people who are dependent on nature tourism will be able to earn a supplementary income as their community prepares for the return of tourists, e.g. by restoring trails or other infrastructure or by collecting marine plastic. IUCN will also provide training for protected area managers and local entrepreneurs on tourism recovery measures, One Health principles, safeguards and strategies post-COVID-19, itinerary and product development and promotion for small-scale visitor management.

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Macau Photo Agency)

Experiences gathered in the pilot sites will then inform further action for community-based tourism solutions and the role of community-based tourism in pandemic recovery and prevention in an around protected areas on a global scale.

“The Corona-Tourism-Package of the German Federal Government aims to retain the structures of the tourism sector and to empower local actors to offer products and services in tourism. In the spirit of “build back better”, the aim is also to improve the ecological and social aspects of tourism and to achieve improved resilience. The measures are closely tailored to the needs of the local people. The entire program addresses 26 countries that are particularly badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Lucia De Carlo, Head of the Division for the Cooperation with the Private Sector and Sustainable Economic Policy at the BMZ, which supports the project.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global crash in international tourism, especially to remote and wild places that rely on tourism revenues to support local livelihoods. As around one in ten employees in the world has a job directly related to this sector, economic losses due to the drying up of tourism have been forecast to be in the trillions, with developing countries being hit the hardest.

Source: IUCN

Hot Rock Energy Storage Will Soon Be A Reality In Denmark’s Electricity Grid

05.09.2021

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Andreas Gucklhorn)

The Danish company Stiesdal, which is behind the TetraSpar full-scale demonstration project of the world’s first industrialized offshore foundation manufacturing and deployment system for wind turbines, is now realizing the first commercial demonstration energy storage system based on heating up rocks in big tanks on the island of Lolland in cooperation with neighboring island Falster.

The obvious strength of the system is its scalability. Test projects in development at DTU in March 2019 have since shown that the approach of using rocks to store energy as heat is in fact feasible.

The energy and fibre-optic group Andel has decided to place a new energy storage facility at Rodby, an ideal location when it comes to removing the barriers to the green transition.

Rodby can look forward to becoming the home of a new energy storage facility, which has the potential to remove one of the most difficult obstacles to a future 100 percent green electricity supply.

The facility will be able to store electricity from renewables at times when the wind blows and the sun shines, for later use. The new storage system, called GridScale, stores energy in large tanks filled with crushed stones the size of peas stored in insulated steel tanks. When there is excess supply of electricity in the electricity grid, the storage is charged using a specially designed heat pump system, which moves heat energy from one set of tanks to another.

The stones get colder in the tanks, from which the energy is taken, while they get a lot hotter in the tanks that receive the heat, as hot as approx. 600 degrees C.

The GridScale storage facility at Rodby will be a demonstration facility intended for at least 10 — 15 years use. The construction of the facility will begin as soon as the required planning permissions have been obtained. Andel expects construction to start in the fall with the facility ready to receive energy from sun and wind in approximately one year from now.

You can read the whole article HERE.

Source: Clean Technica

New Magnesium EV Batteries For The Zero Emission Ride Of The Future

04.09.2021

mesto_za_električni_auto — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Michael Marais)

Photo-illustration: Unsplash (Chuttersnap)

The EV batteries of today are pretty good, but apparently you ain’t seen nothing yet. Researchers are eyeballing magnesium to take over from lithium, which so far has been the workhorse of the EV revolution. There’s just one little problem, or two, or a bunch of them.

Why EV Batteries Need To Do Better

Lithium-ion technology is the gold standard for rechargeable EV batteries and other devices, and it just keeps getting better. However, that doesn’t mean some other materials could do even better. It’s just a matter of working out the kinks.

Also, battery performance is just one element in the sustainable mobility field. With millions of EVs set to take the roads, waterways, and airways in the coming years, the many-headed Hydra of the lithium supply chain has been catching attention, and not always in a good way.

Environmental and social justice concerns also factor in. The global supply of lithium seems ample enough, but securing a domestic supply in the US is fraught with pitfalls and impacts, as it is in other parts of the world.

There is no such thing as impact-free clean tech, but subbing in magnesium for lithium could result in better-performing EV batteries while also opening up a broader range of domestic supply options in the US and other parts of the world, helping to avoid sensitive environmental, cultural, and social issues.

Here, let’s have the US Geological Survey explain:

“Magnesium (Mg) is the eighth most abundant element and constitutes about 2 percent of the Earth’s crust, and it is the third most plentiful element dissolved in seawater…Magnesium and other magnesium compounds are also produced from seawater, well and lake brines and bitterns.”

Bitterns, now that’s interesting. Bitterns are small marsh-dwelling birds known for their ability to keep a secret, and apparently magnesium is one of them, though USGS is probably referring to the solution left over from evaporating brines and seawater.

Where were we? Oh right, domestic supply of magnesium for EV batteries. If US policy makers want to build up the magnesium supply chain in the US, they better start cracking. Only a handful of companies currently produce magnesium from brine in the US, and back in 2018 the Elko Daily published a long form story about the only magnesium mine operating in the US, which is even more interesting than the mystery of the bitterns.

You can read the whole article here.

Source: Clean Technica

From waste to energy: Turkey looks to biomass to achieve “green growth”

03.09.2021

biomass-leaves — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Currently, Turkey relies heavily on imported fossil fuels to meet its domestic energy demand. But by embracing the massive growth of its renewable energy market – including biomass and circular waste-free approaches – Turkey can achieve its long-term sustainability and energy security goals.

Turkey has one of the world’s fastest growing economies in the world and ranks second in natural gas and electricity demand growth after China. Projections show that Turkey’s energy demand will continue to rise.

Reducing external energy dependency in the electricity market with renewables is a relatively common approach in the global energy market. But, it is challenging when it comes to replacing fossil fuel use in the energy market with renewables. Biomass however offers a unique opportunity from other renewable energy sources as it can play a fundamental role in producing both electricity and heat (and even cooling in tri-generation systems) at the same time, contributing to sustainability measures in multiple dimensions.

Creating a market for biomass and industrial energy efficiency

Turkey’s untapped biomass sector presents huge opportunities to generate heat and electricity from agricultural waste. Although these opportunities appear attractive, there remains a lot of uncertainty in terms of costs, supply and aggregation, technology and scale.

A United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) project in cooperation with TAGEM (Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry General Directorate of Agricultural Research and Policies) aims to demonstrate and re-purpose agricultural residues in the production of energy.

Turkish farmers typically burn these residues which emit harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. But by fostering and promoting an environmentally sound bioenergy industry, Turkey can decrease its dependence on imported coal, oil and natural gas, and also mitigate harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition to showcasing modern and environmentally safe bioenergy technologies and processes, the project is working to simultaneously promote the benefits of industrial energy efficiency through awareness-raising and demonstrate various energy efficiency technology applications in selected small and medium enterprise (SME) sub-sectors. Particular focus will be given to the potential of waste-heat recovery in Turkish industrial plants.

You can read the whole article HERE.

Source: UNIDO

How Personalizing Sustainable Investments can Shape the Future of Finance

02.09.2021

drvo sadnica ekologija — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Noah Buscher)

This is one of a series of articles written by Young Global Leaders with action-oriented ideas to improve the state of the world by 2030.

Sustainable finance could become the most material innovation in capitalism since the revival of the US economy after the Great Depression of 1929. It is growing quickly, in terms of interest, adoption, and assets. But the sprouting of sustainable investments, focused on allocating capital with the intention to address social and environmental challenges, can only reach its true potential if they become intelligible for retail investors.

With approximately 30 percent of the market trading volume attributable to private investor orders (around 50 percent in the US), retail investing has the power to move the needle. Yet a recent CFA report showed 69 percent of retail investors were interested in sustainable investment, but only 10 percent have actually invested their money in this manner.

Why the lack of interest in sustainable investment?

There are several reasons for this material discrepancy. The first relates to lack of simplicity. While for institutional investors the more data the better – and they possess the strengths to navigate large pools of complex information streams – for retail investors, the more simplified and user-friendly data, the better. Yet, there is nothing simple about sustainable investments today, with the industry marked by complexity, confusion in terminology, and lack of standardization in terms of practices.

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and its 169 targets are simply hard for retail investors to understand. It is also difficult for every company to contribute to every goal based on their different sectors and regions of operation. And while retail investors aim for personalized portfolios, sustainable products are often an aggregate of environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores, hiding away the particularities and impacts of each company from the retail investor.

A pool of ongoing initiatives to “organize” the sustainable finance market are underway, ranging from the IFRS Foundation’s intent to develop international sustainability reporting standards; the work by the European Union around the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD)/Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and the taxonomy, which aim at generating more and better disclosures of sustainable practices and activities; and the British government’s work, supported by the British Standards Institution and industry players, to develop a prescriptive standard for “sustainable” and “responsible” investment funds.

And while the lack of correlation between ESG ratings from traditional providers is still a major issue, additional resources are being allocated into this space and new fintech players are designing new tools powered by smarter algorithms and machine learning, which will likely take ESG data to a new level of reliability in the coming years.

But for retail investors to openly embrace sustainable investments, the market should move towards a new simple, consistent, and personalized sustainability approach.

What’s the solution?

Different people care about different things. To reach its true potential, sustainable investing needs to personalize its approach for retail investors, focusing on the topics they each most care about. In traditional investing, retail investors typically look at a subset of price to earnings, dividend yield, leverage, and/or expected growth measures based on if they have value, growth, or income preferences. Similarly, packaged food consumers are provided with standardised, consistent tables including calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, and salt.

Typically not all of these are considered by each consumer, but one or more are considered when comparing two similar food items. For example, a body builder might focus on protein, a person on a diet on calories and fat, and a person with heart disease on cholesterol and sodium.

A similar approach should be adopted in sustainable investment. Retail investors can focus on 5-10 standardised, understandable metrics which their investment capital impact. And the “Key Sustainability Components”, see Table 2 below, could be shown for every investible public and private company.

The requirements for this to occur are interestingly not particularly complicated or taxing. The key change is just that all companies, private and public, report the same 5-10 pieces of data. In July 2021, more than 130 countries agreed to support an OECD tax reform framework to impose a global corporate minimum tax on large multinational corporations’ overseas profits. This could follow the same process, with countries together just requiring companies operating in their territories to report these data points in easily understandable tables. Like many countries, including China, the EU, and the US, have already done this with the simple, regulatation-required dietary tables on packaged food.

But it would allow the easy development of a new range of credible sustainable investments that appeal to a much wider range of retail investors that utilise this simple, consistent, and personalized data, creating even more incentives for businesses, both public and private, to improve their performance across all these core sustainable investing aspects.

Mass “personalized” advisory implementations, covering bonds and equities, could combine each individual investor’s preferences across all 5-10 standardised, simplified measures.

Applying no weight in the personalized rating for measures indicated by the individual as a low preference/priority, 1x weight for medium priorities, and 2x weight for high priorities suggests a company rated as neutral by current aggregated ESG ratings at 52nd percentile of all companies would, in reality, be attractive for person 1 (76th percentile of all companies) and unattractive for person 2 (only 29th percentile). This could also be applied to government debt.

This data could also help determine the passive, mutual, and private equity funds retail investors allocate their money towards. While certain thematic funds currently exist, provision of “Key Sustainability Components” tables by all companies would provide a significant improvement in the simplicity, consistency, and true personalization of the investment instruments available for retail investors.

For example, funds could consider to include only publically listed companies in the top 25 percent of each sector on a particular measure. Similarly, the provision of these tables by private companies would provide a significant improvement in the range of available private equity thematic funds for (larger) retail investors. Funds could specifically be measured by a) investments’ comparable ratings and/or b) investments’ rating improvement during ownership.

What does the future hold?

If sustainable investment products cater to retail investors’ specific personal interests, significantly more money in aggregate will enter the space. And businesses will be further encouraged to improve on all the ESG aspects people care about, and start putting their money behind improving them. This would be a significant improvement on the typical situation today, which is that most companies ignore ESG improvements in their core day-to-day businesses due to the lack of real retail investor participation in sustainable investment.

Source: World Economic Forum

The Ražanj Municipality – Oasis of Ecology

01.09.2021

Srbija — Foto-ilustracija: Unsplash (Valentin Salja)

Photo: Office of the President of the Municipality

Clean streets and well-arranged public spaces, empty garbage cans, recycling dumpster set up, special containers for medical waste … Benches at parks invite visitors to have a break and enjoy in carefully designed greenery—the same story in the surrounding villages: neat and beautiful environment. There is no sign of unsanitary landfills that pop up throughout Serbia overnight, quicker than any other culture, whatever way you happen to sow it. Instead, everything reminds of some charming borough in Europe, far away from Serbia.

However, this lovely place is situated in the region of Niš. We talk about the municipality of Ražanj whose residents work every day on this crucial task. They are determined to make their borough better so that it becomes a green, ecological municipality. They take care of all green spaces in an efficient way, particularly parks and neighboring woods. We talked with Dobrica Stojković , the President of this municipality, about ideas and plans on turning their municipality into the cleanest community and the most recognizable precisely for it.

EP: How do you plan to become the first ecological municipality in Serbia?

Dobrica Stojković: For a start, we spontaneously organized activities to get Ražanj and all villages neat and tidy. Initially, we defined the methodology for landscaping of public areas by placing the required number of dumpsters, selecting environmental attendants, and organizing the work of communal police in two shifts. We haven’t awarded the determination of ecological municipality to ourselves. It is the way others see us when they come for a visit, probably having compared the situation in our community with the circumstances in other municipalities.

In focus:

We have done everything we possibly could with our staff and available resources. We have developed the Strategy for waste management. There, we specified the exact level of development and set the goals for the future. Unfortunately, we lack funds for equipping the Recycling center, waste collection vehicles sufficient for the whole municipality area and the landfill organization. Our target is to dispose only of 15 percent of solid waste to the landfill by intensive recycling and recyclates production.

When it comes to wastewater treatment, the project has been developed, and we expect it to be implemented this year. The funds are provided through the project financed by The Ministry for environmental protection.

EP: How did you solve the problem of illegal waste dumps?

Dobrica Stojković: We are genuinely trying to prevent illegal waste disposal. Still, if dumps as such emerge, we remove them as soon as possible. The communal police are in charge of monitoring on the spot. We frequently get support from ecological patrols organized by the Green oasis association. Also, all settlements have an outlined area for temporary garbage disposal. This way, waste is collected at one place, and it doesn’t get dissipated around the environment. Along the regional and main municipal roads, we have put trash cans emptied on fixed intervals. Thanks to this system, you will have a hard time finding any garbage along our streets.

EP: Due to the coronavirus epidemic, the whole world has faced using masks and gloves disposal. You have solved that issue relatively efficiently.

Dobrica Stojković: We have dealt with used masks and gloves as dangerous waste, and we provided special containers for their disposal. We empty the containers in cooperation with the local medical center, which is obligated to handle hazardous medical waste. After placing the containers, it was apparent that precisely there ended up the majority of used masks and gloves.

EP: What would you single out as the vital activity in arranging and cleaning streets, parks, and other public areas?

Dobrica Stojković: To provide immaculately clean public spaces, you need to hold all available offices at the municipality responsible, as well as to come to a particular agreement with the public utility company. Therefore, during a meeting with the communal police, the public utility company management, and the Center for Social work heads, we outlined each entity’s precise obligations. As a result, we organized the work of the communal police in two shifts, the intervals for public space cleaning and container emptying were determined. It was agreed that the social assistance beneficiaries would be engaged in cleaning all public spaces in the whole municipality, with appropriate compensation allowed. We have intensified the communal police controls at the whole municipality territory.

We have authorized the communal police to penalize offenders who haven’t taken appropriate measures after the warning. On account of the engagement of all staff, there has been a change in the way the municipality looks in a short time. We have given special attention to the public spaces at the heart of the municipality. The streets and parks have been landscaped. We decided to cover benches at the parks in case of precipitation. Therefore the benches are completely well-kept.

Prepared by: Milica Radičević

Read the story in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine WATER RESOURCES.

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