The Philippines is a regional leader in terms of establishing legal frameworks that protect the environment. Laws related to sustainable consumption and production (SCP) in the country include the Clean Air Act, Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Water Act, Biofuels Act and the Renewable Energy Act. Because SCP is a cross cutting issue, the implementation of SCP has remained challenging. The main objective of this EU-SWITCH project has been to support the government in implementing SCP related policy instruments including SCP related laws.
This project aimed to promote SCP in the country (i.e. environmentally and socially equitable development decoupling growth from resource use and pollution) and strengthen national and regional policy frameworks to promote the shift towards more SCP patterns and resource efficiency. ASSIST provided project management, visibility, communications, capacity building and technical assistance to the Department of Energy and other relevant agencies on renewable energy, energy efficiency and green procurement. ASSIST supported the development of an Energy Efficiency Roadmap, the DTI Green Public Procurement Action Plan, Life Cycle Assessment and a National Energy Efficiency Action Plan for the Philippines.
China is one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and a significant contributor to global warming, owing to the rapid growth of the industrial sector. Energy efficiency measures can help in reducing air pollution and generate economic benefits—thus, making it attractive to investors and energy consumers. Creating a better basis for increasing energy efficiency would help the Chinese government meet its 2020 commitment of advancing a more environment-friendly economy.
ASSIST, together with TUV Nord and DEG, developed the ACE initiative with the aim to contribute to advancing a carbon-neutral economy. The project targeted energy-intensive enterprises in four cities in China – namely Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Chongqing. These four locations are among the top most industrialized cities in the country, where resource-intensive industries are concentrated.
To achieve this, the key interventions include 1) conducting a multistakeholder forum; 2) creating an awareness session to highlight the alarming levels of carbon emissions in China and the practices that companies can adopt to curb this amount; 3) developing an online assessment tool for carbon footprint calculation; 4) developing training materials; 5) conducting a Train-the-Trainer workshop; 6) identifying at least 5 carbon-intensive companies and providing technical assistance to become a Carbon Neutral Company; 7) developing a case study report and; 8) conducting a best practices forum.
The Indonesian manufacturing sector is one of the nation’s largest sources of fossil-fuel derived greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Overall, manufacturing is responsible for over 50 percent of Indonesia’s fossil-fuel emissions (including electricity use within manufacturing) and is continuing to grow at the rate of 6–7 % each year. Most of these sub-sectors are key to the current or future Indonesian economy as measured by a variety of statistics including their value added (textile, garments, transportation equipment, food and beverage), annual growth rate (auto parts, non-metallic minerals) and economic multipliers (food and beverage, textiles).
Jointly funded and implemented by PT TÜV NORD I and DEG, “LEAP – Leapfrog towards Efficiency And Progress through Low Carbon Economy in Indonesia” aimed to reduce GHG emissions in the major industries of the manufacturing sector, achieve energy and material efficiency among participating companies and contribute to poverty reduction by minimizing the impacts of climate change and promoting sustainable development. The project worked towards initiating a low carbon economy in Indonesia through awareness raising and capacity building activities.
The project has reached a number of milestones upon its culmination. It successfully raised awareness on climate change-related topics in the public and private sectors, generated interest among local companies to adopt energy management systems benchmarking ISO 14064 and ISO 50001 (towards reducing their GHG emissions and contribute to the switch towards a low–carbon economy), build local capacity through Training of Trainer Workshops, development of an e-learning kit, e-newsletter, web portal and Best Practices Exchange Forum. Fifteen selected companies also received technical assistance in the form of energy audits and assessment conducted by local trainers and technical experts.
