A business view on solutions Environmental Goods & Services Forum 15/10/2010 Lionel Platteuw.

A business view on solutions

Environmental Goods & Services Forum 15/10/2010 Lionel Platteuw

Content and Issues

• 2 case studies

• 8 proposals

• Initiatives on Resource & Energy efficiency

Think:

• Whose job is it? Aligning roles and responsibilities to rationalise actions

Case 1: Surface technology • Coating aluminium

– Electrostatic painting processes– Reducing losses from inaccurate paint spraying– Reduced use of chrome, nickel, zinc

• Surface Treatment – Reduce faults in painting– Nanocoatings

• Thinner coats, saves paint, saves waste water, (lower corrosion)

Heraeus Holding: c.5000 patents

• Platinum temperature sensors and measurement – Steel, Aluminium, foundries

• Quarz reflective coating QRC– Solar: energy efficient production of solar cell

– Plastics: Manufacture and Moulding of plastic parts

– Automotive paints: Drying of nano-paints

• Light sources in UV range– inactivation of micro organisms in drinking water or in

agricultural sector

Aluminium product cycle

Case 2: Eliminating N2O

• Reducing N2O Nitrous Oxide

– Very damaging releases for ozone and GHG• by-product of nitric acid plants

– Fertilisers, plastic, medicines • made using ammonia, air and water)

– Envinox® converts N2O to nitrogen, oxygen and water – made by Uhde Thyssenkrupp

Source: Green Production Technologies

8 proposals• Financing and risk management

• Research and dissemination

• Technology transfer

• Standardisation

• Procurement

• Promotion of environmental technologies

• Taxes and labelling

• Governance

Financing and risk management• Enlighten the private bank sector”

– how…

• Reform of capital investment depreciation conditions for capital goods– to achieve shorter investment cycles.

• International context of financing– today’s headline China Overseas Engineering Group – won motorway project in Poland – 1/3rd cheaper than best European competitor

• Engage with “SME Finance forum” – introduction of a grace period (SMEs to postpone payments of interest in case of

financial difficulties, use of credit mediator to assist businesses with their loan applications).

– Loan guarantees easier for SMEs

Research and dissemination

• Support for technology platforms, JTIs, European Patent...

• Market surveillance

• Fiscal promotion

• Role of dissemination – Practice what we preach Aquafit4Use, TESTNET,

TECHNEAU, AirTV, HEISST

• COMPETITION

Technology transfer

• Capacity building measures and collective research projects – EU and outside

• Promotional activities – to get more “environmentally friendly”

technologies in foreign markets.

• EU India Technology Centre – http://www.ebtc.eu

Standardisation

• Standards are crucial– Affect level of dissemination, market

penetration, and level of internationalisation.

• Best Available Technology– Time scale challenge, intensive exchanges

• Plea for standardisation to sufficiently take into account the interests of the industry concerned.

Procurement

• Private and public procurement is the main key to bring more environmental (friendly) technologies in the market.

– A main base to develop procurement is informing and improving the knowledge for potential clients.

– In this context one issue is Life-Cycle-Costing. EUCETSA suggests the EU to be more proactive in this field.

• Coherency with other existing and developing EU legislation – already contributing to “greening” private and public procurement.

– The Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC for example sets ambitious Ecodesign requirements for certain products.

– Thus public and private purchasers will not be able to buy products any more that do not fulfil the requirements

Promotion of environmental technologies

• A cautionary note: – this is up to industry; “the proper business of European supplier

associations, rather than European policy makers”.

• Demand for plant visits – Associations cooperate to organize special delegation trips for

foreign potential clients or governments.

– Trade fairs provide a good basis for promotion of technologies in general.

BAT and waste prevention

• BAT• Fixing and describing best available technologies is a good way to get newest

technologies in the market. – Binding regulation for at least all EU member states hand in hand with implementation and market

surveillance is adequate to realize ambitious environmental policies. – The existing IPPC Directive sets for a wide range of technologies BAT standards. However EUCETSA

believes there are flaws in defining a European BAT level. Developing BAT is a very long and complicated process, which requires at least two years. This is hard to reconcile with the technology innovation cycle, which is much faster.

• Waste prevention and recycling standards• EUCETSA likes to stress the importance of recycling and rotation of resources. We

support the idea of high recycling standards and waste prevention if this means recyclable design of products and the use of secondary materials for products. When speaking about recycling, we also mean water and wastewater, as water efficiency is one of the major topics today and in the future.

•  

Examples of EUCETSA Projects 2002-2010:

- Techneau: www.techneau.org

- Testnet: www.est-testnet.net

- AirTV: www.airtv.eu/

- Water Platform: www.wsstp.org

- HEISTT – “High Efficiency In Situ Treatment Technology

for Contaminated Groundwater” (geo-textiles+chemicals)

- Aquafit for use

- PRO-EE

Other initiatives or partners: - EU India Business technology centre - Resource Efficiency Alliance www.epe.be- European Water Partnership www.ewp.eu

Taxes and labelling

• Tax on natural resources

There needs to be pricing for consuming environmental resources

Polluter principle, precautionary principle and sustainability substantiate the ecological axioms of economic order.

Key is to prevent rather than clean up

• Labelling

Market transparency and informed client choices

But labelling not a panacea, due to costsCapital goods sector not to be simply assimilated to consumer goods

the CE marking has already proven itself as an important product marking.

But complex and requires developing closely with sector

Governance capacity for eco-innovation

• Europe’s “Export achievement” in the field of environmental technologies and environmental regulations

• For this reason EUCETSA supports the idea of building governance capacity in this respect. Within the European Union good practice of twinning-projects etc. can be found. We quote our assistance in concrete projects with other states like China, India, and others.

• However we would like to mention that legal regulations and technical solutions are both sides of a medal – we see the urgent need of a narrow cooperation of the European Commission and the suppliers.

Resource and Energy Partnership

20

Resource + Energy position paper – www.eunited.net

21

Aquafit4Use www.AquaFit4Use.eu

Thank you

Lionel Platteuw

AirTV

• An international instrument to promote air emission technologies

• Market introduction and acceleration

• Shorten time between the initiation and development of Environmental sound Technologies

• Develop commonly recognized and transparent testing protocols, including methodology and operational procedures.

• www.airtv.eu

Obstacles to deployment of environmental technologies (ET)

- Fragmented industry and linking SMEs

- Time lag from research to markets (too long)

- Limited access to risk capital (specially for SME’s)

- Limited awareness / knowledge for ET as an instrument to improve productivity, and often inertia in procurement

- But also we don’t really know obstacles: - EU and national governments struggle to develop right

policies and can’t target “environmental technology”

Regulation and public policy drive solutions

• Policy and public concerns in the driving seat – European policy – Regulations and Directives

– National policy – e.g. Netherlands Transition Management (30-50 year visions)

– Public opinion re degradation of environment, depletion of resources, climate change

• Threat to jobs, quality of life etc

• Loss of control and growing awareness that solutions need to be global or discussed globally– e.g Co2 emissions

– system changes are inevitable

Regulatory & ‘other’ framework conditions

Types of conditions Items Leading actors

Regulatory conditions

National regulatory measuresNational and regional authorities

European Commission, industry & professional bodies

EU regulatory measures

Completion of internal market legislation

Industry and professional regulations and standards

‘Other’ framework conditions

Knowledge: R&D, innovation and product/service development

Industry, institutes and professional bodies

Labour force, knowledge and skills

Openness of international markets (trade and investment) European Commission, ASEAN

+other regional associations, World Trade Organisation, Governments

Competition policy issues

Exogenous conditions

Climate change

Technological innovation and deploymentGlobal structural changes: competition for resource and wealth distribution

Social and demographic change