Industrial Resource Efficiency in Western Region
The Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre held an online event “Industrial Resource Efficiency in Western Region” on November 5, 2020.
Volodymyr Popovych, regional RECP Centre’s coordinator in Western Ukraine successfully moderated the whole event.
Stepan Kuibida, the director of the Economy Department at Lviv Oblast State Administration delivered a welcoming speech, noted that the topic of the meeting was vital, and top urgent. On behalf of himself and the Chairman of the Lviv Oblast State Administration, he reported:”We do one common work and therefore our synergy will yield only positive results. Those cases that were announced to be demonstrated during the event look very positive and promising. Moreover, other companies in Western Ukraine should replicate them”. Stepan Kuibida assured that the Centre and enterprises in western region would always have total support from the Regional State Administration regarding enhancing resource efficiency. “Oblast State Administration is always ready for cooperation and communication. Because of these COVID-19 restrictions for organizing various offline conferences, seminars etc., the Administration is now looking for live events with real partners, and the Centre can easily become such a partner”, S. Kuibida concluded in his speech.
Then the floor was given to Andrii Vorfolomeiev, the director of the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre. In his speech, he dwelled about RECP implementation throughout Ukraine and focused on the activities of the Centre during the period of UNIDO project, taking into account all project components. “Resource efficiency should become the key to competitiveness of Ukrainian enterprises. Ukrainian industry should become competitive due to the efficient use of resources, energy, water and materials in production processes”, summarized Andrii Vorfolomeiev.
Besides moderation process, the moderator of the event also made his own presentation on the Centre’s activities specifically in the target region he is responsible for. Volodymyr shared information about organizing and participation in various awareness raising (local forums, round tables, online measures, industrial weeks), cooperation with Ukrainian Universities, RECP assessment at the enterprises in Western region in 2020. In his speech, Volodymyr paid a lot of attention to the RECP Clubs activities in Khmelnytskyi region.
Andrii Popadynets, chief engineer in Ligos LLC., offered a real story about the installation of solar collectors and an electrode boiler. This system allowed meeting the production needs in water supply, heating in the administrative building and partially meet the requirements of Workshop 6 in terms of space heating. ‘The effect is amazing as in winter the company no longer uses traditional electricity to generate heat, but only solar energy’, marked Andrii Popadynets.
For sure Oksana Kuleba, a co-owner of “MODUS” LLC.became one of the most flamboyant speakers of the event. Her performance was very interesting, and the conclusion was very inspiring. “Small results begin to inspire and we want to move on. What do I recommend others? Think about your costs; consider what and how you can optimize at the company you work for. If you can’t attract external funds, think about opportunities to save your own money. We have taken into account all the comments of the RECP Centre. The external support opens your eyes to the obvious things. Thank you for prompting and helping us to improve ourselves. We will follow your recommendations and move on!”
Bohdan Mazurkevych, an expert in lean production at Smart People, continued the topic mentioned by Oksana Kuleba in her speech, namely lean production. He explained, “Lean manufacturing is about involving every employee into business optimization process and maximum customer orientation. It helps using resources rationally”.
Stepan Kushnir, the director of the Khmelnitsky Energy Cluster, also joined the online event and gave some picturesque examples of successful RECP implementation at the enterprises in Western region. Thus, thanks to RECP options one enterprise producing food flakes started to generate heat by burning husks from cereal crops, which is actually the main raw material in the production process of the company. Besides, the enterprise installed its own briquette line. “We are often blind to see this hint. The resources in the form of garbage is not waste for disposal, it’s an additional opportunity, actually it’s another resource to be reused”, quoted Stepan. Another example was a mineral water production company. The company decided to produce biofuel out of polymer waste (plastic, packaging) to fill its trucks with bio euro diesel. This technology is already patented.
Andrii Melnyk, the head of the Sustainable Development Programme, Bank “Lviv”, concluded the keynote speeches. He explained about the financial support for business development provided by EBRD and Bank Lviv, and that is ‘Cashback up to 15%”, also explained how and what companies can submit for loans and the like.
After all participants had delivered their presentations, Volodymyr Popovych summed up the event and thanked all participants for their contribution and active position. To finalize the event, Andrii Vorfolomeiev expressed gratitude to all speakers for their persistence in RECP concept implementation at Ukrainian enterprises.
Total participants 96, women made 47%.
The recorded video is available on YouTube here.
The online event was organized within the framework of UNIDO Project “Promoting the Adaptation and Adoption of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production through the Establishment and Operation of a Cleaner Production Centre in Ukraine” with the support of Switzerland and Austria.