Archives April 2012

Si inaugura VEGAIncube: nasce a Marghera una nuova generazione di imprese, VEGA 2 maggio 2012.

VEGAinCUBE will be launched the 2nd of May 2012 @ 12 a.m. at VEGA PARK. VEGAin CUBe is a ‘incubator’ of start-up, among which MR Energy Systems s.r.l. hosted for the coming three years thanks to a public competition and a selection of the best 21 business plans.

For more information (IT):

• Comunicato stampa di Vega Park e programma dell’evento 
• Articolo Corriere dell’Innovazione del 24 Aprile 2012
• Articolo La Nuova di Venezia del 24 aprile 2012
• Pagina Facebook di VegaInCUBE

GBC Italia took part to the meeting organized by UNECE on the 4th of April 2012;  The delegation of GBC Italia was composed by Mauro Roglieri and Francesco Bedeschi, both members of the Executive Board of GBC Italia.

The participation to this prestigious meeting matches very well with GBC Italia’s mission of diffusing the knowledge of Green Building Rating Systems in the relevant National and International authorities, to support the promotion and diffusion of usage of protocols as a tool to drive building market transformation towards sustainability.

The objective of this seminar was to discuss cost-efficient and “green” solutions, which can make the housing sector more sustainable. These include improvements to energy efficiency, environmental performance (water and waste management), and resilience to climate change. Greening homes is a part of the green economy concept, which is in turn at the heart of renewed efforts to integrate environmental and social considerations within the mainstream of economic decision-making in the run-up to Rio+20 and beyond.

The seminar has being organized back to back with a meeting of the UNECE Working Group to discuss a possible framework convention on sustainable housing. More than 70 UNECE member state representatives attended the working group meeting. More than 30 participated to the seminar, which facilitated the identification of priorities for the preparation of the September 2013 Ministerial Conference on Housing and Land Management.

GBC Italia presented the ‘bottom-up’ role that Green Rating Systems such as GBC Home or LEED® can have as an accelerator of change.

Access to the UNECE event page: UNECE – Greening Homes

Download presentation: GBC Italia: how rating systems can drive the change

[Sources: UNECE, GBC Italia, MR Energy]

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Last days for EU-ETS plants to surrender 2011 emissions to their national registries. Final deadline is April 30th 2012.

The Carbon market situation remains very uncertain, with EUA 08-12 Spot trading at around 7,19 €/t (EUA-08-12, Bluenext, 18/04/2012), as economic crisis has reduced significantly the emissions of EU plants (together with an increase of production of renewable energy). The attached graph shows verified emissions of the last four years: total EU-27 ETS emissions have decreased in 2011 by 12,5% compared to 2008 levels (14,4% for Italy), clearly showing an average reduction in the need to cover short positions, and therefore reducing the demand on the trading platforms.

The news introduced by EC from 2013, like the absence of free allocations for power production plants for instance, have not yet sorted the effects of maintaining a reasonable price level which can justify and really enforce investments in energy efficiency.

Is the pricing really reflecting already the new 2013 regime? Will the third period bring an improvement to the mechanism? Please send us your comments, or do contact us for more information.

EU ETS verified_emissions_2011_en

Tomorrow, 20th April 2012, at Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore (Venezia) an important event to know more about one of the consequences of greenhouse gas effect, with the participation of Sergio Castellari, National Focal Point of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and Jaroslav Mysiak, distinguished and experienced researcher in water economics and governance, climate risk and adaptation. Start at h.4. p.m.

The Italian Minister for the Environment, Dr. Corrado Clini, presented yesterday the National GHG reduction plan for 2020 to the inter-ministerial committee for economic planning (CIPE). The plan is based on the EU targets and decarbonization strategy at 2050.
The measures include the creation of a ‘catalogue’ of technologies, systems and products for the decarbonization of the National economy; the introduction of a carbon tax (bringing resources to the Kyoto rotation fund); energy efficiency, distributed energy generation and development of smart grids and smart cities; green building and extension of the 55% tax credit for low carbon investments; the management of forests as carbon sinks and as a resource of biomass and bio-fuels.

These objectives “are aligned with technological innovation – explained Clini – and with the need of renovation of the production chains, and give to the European economy the opportunity to compete with that of US, India, China and Brasil, Countries which are heavily investing in new and low carbon technologies”.
The proposals fall into the scope of the National plan for the reduction of GHG emissions which Italy needs to implement in order to reach the targets identified by the EU energy and climate package (20-20-20).

[Source: Minambiente; Translation: MR Energy]