Environmental impact offset by Salkhit Wind Farm
More than 2,000 participants are expected at the 2017 EBRD Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Nicosia this week. Many of them will arrive by aircraft and attend to their business in air-conditioned rooms.
These are but two examples of the environmental impact of the event for which the EBRD is compensating this year with offsets from the Salkhit Wind Farm in Mongolia.
To make the Annual Meeting carbon neutral the EBRD engaged the consultancy First Climate which calculated the carbon footprint of the event. This takes into account emissions related to travel, stay and energy consumed in buildings used during the event by the participants. The result is compensated for with the purchase of offsets in line with these calculations.
The Salkhit Wind Farm was the first renewable energy project in Mongolia and the first private electricity producer in the country. The plant has a total capacity of 50 MW generated by 31 turbines. The EBRD provided debt and equity financing to the project, which was successfully connected to the grid in 2013 and today is generating about three per cent of the country’s electricity needs. Mongolia is seeking to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels by increasing the share of renewables in power generation.
The Salkhit – meaning “Windy Mountain” in Mongolian – Wind Farm is registered under the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism. Not only is it the largest renewable energy project in Mongolia to date, it is also the first developed under the auspices of private investors.
The EBRD has consistently offset greenhouse gas emissions related to its Annual Meetings in Istanbul (2013), Warsaw (2014), Tbilisi (2015) and London (2016).
In the spirit of the Bank’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach, the Bank seeks to minimise its environmental impact where possible. For example, the EBRD is actively seeking to reduce the amount of waste produced in the run-up and during the Annual Meeting and Business Forum.
There is also a strong emphasis on waste recycling, reducing the use of plastic bottles and sourcing environmentally friendly merchandise.
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