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Steering Committee and RECP Centre’s Outcomes 2019

The sixth Steering Committee Meeting held within Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute on 26 February 2020, was the last within the overall Project lifecycle (the UNIDO Project “Promoting the Adaptation and Adoption of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) through the Establishment and Operation of a Cleaner Production Centre (CPC) in Ukraine”). Since it has been the final SC Meeting this year and within the whole Project, the donors (Swiss Confederation and the UNIDO) and the stakeholders (Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute) were interested mainly in the key 2019 cumulative results.

The SC meeting attended: Petra Schwager, Senior Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO; Branko Dunjić, UNIDO Project Chief Technical Advisor; Nicolas Guigas, Deputy Director and Ganna Kuznietsova, National Project Coordinator (both representing the Swiss Cooperation Office in Ukraine); Andrii Vorfolomeiev, the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre Director; Liudmyla Musina, UNIDO Focal Point in Ukraine etc. Rector Michael Zgurovsky and Vice-Rector of research and educational activities (foreign affairs) Sergiy Sydorenko represented Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.

Michael Zgurovsky delivered the welcome speech first and marked positive trends in the Centre’s activities in Ukraine and its cooperation with Igor Sikorsky KPI. Then Nicolas Guigas in his speech thanked the Centre for fruitful long-term work and noted that the Centre played the crucial role in improving the environment and enhancing the resource efficiency in Ukraine. Petra Schwager expressed gratitude to both the Project donors and the founders of the Center and emphasized on positive progress made by the Centre in Ukraine, its achieved results by now.

Following the welcome part of the meeting, Andrii Vorfolomeiev reported on the Centre’s 2019 achievements focusing mainly on the energy audits at Ukrainian enterprises (according to the UNIDO RECP methodology) and familiarized the participants with the Centre’s work plan 2020.

The SC participants warmly and approvingly listened to the Director’s two interesting PPTs with data and progress made. Afterwards the QA session started. Petra Schwager reacted positively to the fact that the Centre actively cooperated with national universities, which have already integrated the RECP and chemical leasing in their curricula. She suggested not resting on laurels and continuing to get institutes and universities involved in, so that RECP and CL courses also appear in the schedule of other higher technical schools.

Except for cooperation with universities, Petra Schwager also emphasized on the idea of sharing the Centre’s own positive experience with Ukrainian industrial enterprises on how other companies receive loans on favorable terms for RECP implementation. This will certainly contribute to reducing the level of distrust the national companies demonstrate towards financial institutions and provided services. But, above all, Petra Schwager stressed on gender equality and equal opportunities for women and men both at the Centre and in Ukraine.

Nicolas Guigas in his comments marked, ’The Centre should pay more attention to the implementation of energy audits and RECP assessments on a paid basis, which will for sure strengthen the Centre’s financial independence and contribute to its sustainable development in the future’.

Michael Zgurovsky addressed the Centre with an initiative “to go on the tradition of arranging Olympiads for KPI students”, where solid RECP knowledge will be one of the evaluation criteria. Finally, the Rector invited the Centre to join the annual Sikorskyi Challenge October Fest.

Among other comments, the following were worth being documented: (1) organizing regular information events to develop the Centre’s HR capacity; (2) independently drawing up strategic development plans for 5 or 10 years, indicating the goals and means to achieve them. All these will help the Centre continue its activities in resource efficiency, sound chemicals management, applying chemical leasing in Ukrainian industry and, thus, mitigating the environmental footprint.

The Steering Committee approved the Centre’s Report 2019 and Work Plan 2020 with comments and advice. With the support of Swiss partners and national stakeholders, the Centre has become a self-sustaining organization throughout the life of the Project to help Ukrainian industry become more resource efficient and environmentally friendly.