Last Friday, EKOenergy attended the RE-Users Summit in Tokyo, Japan. Merve Güngör gave a presentation about recent trends on the European renewable energy market. Thanks a lot to the Japanese Renewable Energy Institute and their partners for inviting us. Several speakers highlighted the importance of standardisation and mainstreaming, e.g. with regard to tracking of energy and avoidance of double counting. Currently there are several parallel Energy Attribute Certificate (EAC) systems in Japan, as explained in a recent article on our website. This confuses market players and is a burden for those who want to set ambitious standards. We remind that our EKOenergy label can be combined with any of the main EAC systems available in Japan. Together with the first supporters and consumers of EKOenergy in Japan, we are making a concrete and tangible contribution to a 100% renewable world.
2. New call for climate projects - deadline 29 February
EKOenergy's Climate Fund finances renewable electricity projects aimed at alleviating energy poverty in developing countries. These are usually small scale solar and wind energy projects. Last week, we opened a new call for projects. We are looking for 6 to 8 projects of 15,000 to 30,000 € each. We invite experienced non-profit organisations to submit project ideas by 29 February 2020. As always, we encourage EKOenergy licensees and consumers to participate in the selection process. Contact us for more information. Our previous call was in December 2019, in cooperation with the Siemenpuu Foundation. We are now about to finalise the selection process. Stay tuned!
"We proudly announce our commitment to the environment🌿. Thanks to ForGreen, our company takes another step towards the adoption of a sustainable lifestyle, using renewable and EKOenergy-labelled energy." Azienda Agricola Antoniazzi, on Facebook. Thanks for using EKOenergy!
3. No funding for fossil fuels!
Consumers of EKOenergy-labelled energy help us as an environmental initiative to promote climate friendly legislation. Last week we joined Climate Action Network and many other NGOs and businesses in a campaign focusing on bringing EU's funding policy in line with the commitments and targets of the Paris Agreement. Together we sent an open letter to the EU Council, Parliament and Commission, calling upon the EU to exclude fossil fuel investments from all financing. We also ask that 40% of all Cohesion Policy funding would be allocated to climate and environmental protection. We ask that the EU embeds climate neutrality compatibility in all spending plans. The ongoing negotiations on the 2021 - 2027 multiannual financial framework, including those around the Cohesion Policy, are vital in aligning EU funding with climate objectives.
4. Climate change is accelerating, let's scale up climate action too
In 2016 and 2017, Protect Our Winters Finland and EKOenergy organised a joint campaign to encourage consumers to switch to renewable energy. In the campaign video we featured Olympic snowboarder Enni Rukajärvi looking for snow in the 'snowless winter of 2020'. Three years have passed and many parts of northern Europe are now experiencing what Enni Rukajärvi feared: an exceptionally mild and snow-free winter. But that is, of course, peanuts compared to how global warming is scourging other parts of the world, as we see wildfires, plagues, heavy rains and record droughts... With every disaster, the call to put an end to fossil fuels and to accelerate the transition to 100% renewable energy sounds louder. Renewable energy was economically and technically possible three years ago. It is even more so today. Join us in our efforts to promote renewable energy worldwide. Switch to EKOenergy-labelled energy and use our ecolabel to communicate about your commitment. Together we can create a better future faster! Image: Better Future Faster video, by the We Mean Business coalition.
"You prove the renewability of the energy produced with green (renewable) electricity certificates. This helps consumers to act sustainably and to prove that they do so. The EKOenergy label takes it to the next level. Merve Güngör, EKOenergy, in an interview with Temiz Enerji, 20 January 2020.
5. Early bird registration for REC Market Meeting
We are a supporting organisation of the annual REC Market Meeting, taking place in Amsterdam on 31 March and 1 April this year. See the program here. What started out as a small meeting in 2011, to provide a platform for discussing Guarantees of Origin in Europe, has grown to become one of the largest conferences for experts in the development of Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) and demand-side choice for energy consumers around the world. A reminder to our licensees and partners: you are entitled to a special discount on the current early bird delegate rate. Contact us for more information. Also: note that the early bird fee expires on 10 February.
6. Now on YouTube: LEED green power videos
In 2015 and 2016, EKOenergy produced an online course for the US Green Building Council: Green power - buying renewable electricity for LEED and carbon accounting. Until now, the course was only available via the education platform of the Green Building Council. Now it has become publicly available and we have uploaded it to our YouTube channel, because it still contains a lot of valid and relevant information. The same course is available in French, German and Russian too and all these language versions are now on our YouTube channel. Don't hesitate to contact us for more information.
"For more than a month, temperatures in Helsinki have been 10 degrees (!) above average. And today, friends at the EKOenergy-team gave me a nice t-shirt, probably to help me keep my head cool. #Thanks #Winter2020 #Adaptation Steven Vanholme, EKOenergy, on LinkedIn
7. Delays to global climate action could halve the value of new oil projects
The longer nations put off acting on climate change, the greater the risk of stranded assets. This is the conclusion of Carbon Tracker's new report 'Handbrake Turn: The cost of failing to anticipate an Inevitable Policy Response to climate change', which was launched last Friday. Mounting public pressure — driven partly by an increase in alarming extreme weather events — and falling clean technology costs will eventually force lawmakers to act more decisively than they have so far and to impose far-reaching climate regulations. This is the so-called Inevitable Policy Response. Oil companies basing their investments on “business as usual” risk seeing the value of their new projects halved on such tougher policy. The report warns that investors should demand a higher rate of return to compensate for risk when companies pursue high-cost projects relying on higher oil prices. Of the oil majors, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron are those most exposed to price falls. Text and Picture: Carbon Tracker
We at EKOenergy are always looking to grow our network. If you want more information about becoming a partner of ours, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
