Link al comunicato pdf:  2014_07_09_Press_Release ITA; 2014_07_09_Press_Release EN

MR Energy Systems and Greenhouse Gas Management Institute cooperate to expand reach of carbon management education to Italy

e-learning courses on GHG monitoring, reporting and verification

Venezia, Italy (9th July 2014)

MR Energy Systems (MR Energy), the leading provider of consulting engineering in the field of sustainability, and the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, the leading trainer on greenhouse gas accounting and verification, are delighted to announce that they will be cooperating to expand carbon management education to Italy.

Many countries and regions are establishing policies, including the creation of carbon markets, designed to cut the emissions that cause climate change. An increasing number of companies are establishing GHG emission reduction targets, both in reaction to such policies, and voluntarily, as a strategic response to the risks associate to climate change.  An effective and credible GHG management system is a cornerstone for the success of any such initiative. To support this process in Italy, MR Energy will now be delivering GHG Management Institute courses to Italian students, practitioners, and leaders. This collaboration will provide Italian government, industry, and academia with a comprehensive overview of carbon management —from the background and principles of carbon accounting and monitoring, to detailed specifics of GHG reporting and verification.

Commenting on the collaboration, Mauro Roglieri, MR Energy’s General Manager, said, “Our e-learning platform, MR Energy Academy, reflects our commitment to provide the market with effective services and tools to support the transition to a sustainable economy. We believe that knowledge is always the first and main driver for change. This is why we’re really proud to announce the Partnership with GHG Management Institute, surely a high quality standard guarantee for Italian operators.”
Michael Gillenwater, Dean of the GHG Management Institute, said, “The Institute is delighted to be partnering with MR Energy to expand its training curriculum and grow the community of greenhouse gas experts around the world, which we believe is essential to addressing climate change.“

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About MR Energy Systems

MR Energy Systems is an Italian Consulting Engineering company, with many years of experience in the field of carbon & energy management and other services related with climate change mitigation. MR Energy Systems supports public and private organizations to lower their energy and environmental impacts towards a sustainable economy. MR Energy Academy is an on-line education platform, created by MR Energy Systems to share its experience and know-how with a wide range of professionals.

For more information, go to http://academy.mrenergy.it/en/ 

Watch a short video here: http://youtu.be/k1dGI7fQ3o4

About the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute

The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute is a nonprofit organization focused on training and education. The Institute’s mission is to train and develop a global community of experts with the highest standards of professional practice in measuring, accounting, auditing, and managing greenhouse gas emissions; meeting the needs of governments, corporations, and organizations large and small.

For more information, go to www.ghginstitute.org

The contribution of the Environmental Ministry to the growth plan being discussed in these days by the Government after the summer holidays, has been published last week on the Ministry official website.

The framework described in the document is quite comprehensive and confirms the effort to put Italy back in track with the decarbonization of the economy addressed by several EU Directives. Various policies are already in place, but suffered in the past months of many delays in their actuation, due to conflicts of competences between different Governmental departments.The current technical Government could effectively help to solve several impasses.

For more information about the contribution (in Italian): http://www.minambiente.it/home_it/showitem.html?item=/documenti/comunicati/comunicato_0438.html&lang=it

“This is a big step ahead: for the very first time we have legally binding energy efficiency measures. Europe is now much better placed to achieve its 20% energy efficiency target for 2020”, Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger stated.

“The measures will reduce our energy bill while generating further growth and jobs. They stimulate investments and make our energy using products more efficient.”

“The European Parliament and the Council have played a constructive role in finding a compromise. It also shows Europe’s ability to act in difficult economic times.”

Yesterday evening, the European Parliament, the Council and the EU Commission reached a political agreement on the Energy Efficiency Directive. Today, Coreper endorsed the agreement. European Parliament and the Council still need to give their approval.

To read the complete memo from the EC, click here.

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]

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

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]

Bruxelles: “The EU Climate Policy Tracker (EU CPT – www.climatepolicytracker.eu) 2011, a newly updated and revised version of the 2010 study, reveals that despite improvements by nine Member States over the past year, some have achieved a worse score than last year.” “The average scoring remains low, warning that EU climate and energy policy is failing to put the EU on a course to 2050 decarbonisation.”