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Add to Preferred SourcesTogether with the UNFCCC Secretariat, UNIDO and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) organized three sessions for the Technical Expert Meetings on Mitigation (TEMs-M) during the UN’s Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany. During the three sessions, numerous experts from the public and the private sector as well as from academia and the civil society shared experiences, policy options, technological innovations, and best practices on circular economies.
The meetings thus allowed for the identification of necessary actions to be taken by Parties, non-Party stakeholders and organizations on waste-to-energy and supply chain re-design solutions to achieve emission reductions and to generate sustainable development benefits. Moreover, this year’s TEM-M aligned with the three questions of the Talanoa Dialogue, namely: “Where are we?”, “Where do we want to be?”, and “How do we get there?”
The first session focused on policy options, technological innovations and best practices on waste-to-energy. Jenitha Badul from the South African Department of Environmental Affairs spoke about the policy aspects related to waste-to-energy projects, while Le Viet Vinh from Vietnamese manufacturer Viet Hien described the benefits of the pyrolysis technology. Other participants included Espen Ronneburg from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Heinz Sturm from the German Climate Technology Centre and Uttam Saha from Bangladesh’s Practical Action.
Maria Jose Gonzales from the Biovalor project in Uruguay said: “Appropriate technologies have to be transferred to develop a sustainable, low-emission system that will reduce greenhouse gases”. She added: “The circular economy is a new way of creating value, and ultimately prosperity. The goal is to retain as much value as possible from resources, products, parts, and materials to create a system that allows for long life, optimal reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recyclings. Within this context, new business models such as products as services, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling also help create new jobs.”
The other session took place on 2 May and focused on replicating and upscaling innovations and best practices on waste-to-energy and circular economy. Panelists included Sira Saccani from Climate-KIC, Alex Sidorec from Holcim Technology, CTCN’S Jukka Uosukainen and the GEF’s Aoki Takemoto.
UNIDO’s Alois Mhlanga said: “Circular economy is about helping industries closing the loop. We support a systemic shift towards industries that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits. We support greater replication and upscaling by facilitating dialogues and cross-fertilization of ideas, concepts, best practices, successful business models on circular economy; by helping countries develop policies, regulations, etc.; and by piloting projects to demonstrate concepts/business models on circular economy”.
Original source: UNIDO
Published on 1 May 2018