RoGBC signs position paper “Romania and Climate Change Policies – Economic Stimulus from a Green Economy”
September 19, 2009 at 4:46 pm | Posted in Events, Legislative Outreach | Leave a commentTags: buildings, climate change, conference, Energy Audit, Energy Certification, Energy Efficiency, Energy Efficiency in Buildings, GBC, Green Building, Green Building Council, green buildings, LEED, Legislation, Legislative Outreach, renewable energy, strategy, sustainability, sustainable architecture, Sustainable Development, WWF
The Romania Green Building Council (RoGBC) along with WWF Danube-Carpathian Romania, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Association of Energy Auditors for Buildings (AAEC) signed a shared position paper, regarding the measures that should be taken in order to encourage energy efficiency. The document, entitled “Romania and Climate Change Policies – Economic Stimulus from a Green Economy”, draws the attention on the economic opportunities associated with the implementation of environment policies, especially in the construction field. Some of the opportunities highlighted are the reducing energy costs, ensuring energy safety, raising comfort and creating new jobs.
In addition, the position paper underlines the necessity of immediate action in order to move towards a greener economy and explains that the practical measures to be applied do not represent budgetary costs, but investments towards a sustainable development. .
The position paper is available for reading here.
Local Incentives for Attracting Green Investments
September 2, 2009 at 12:59 pm | Posted in Events, Legislative Outreach | Leave a commentTags: green investments, incentive, investment, Legislation, Legislative Outreach, strategy
Romania Green Building Council is creating a strategy with local measures that could be implemented by local public authorities for attracting green investments. The initiative consists of:
- realizing a comprehensive study on successful policies implemented by other local public authorities in different parts of the world and comparing/checking with existing national legislation on what could be done in Romania.
- a survey with questionnaires sent to local public authorities, developers and architects meant to identify their feedback on the topic.
- a Green Cafe on the 23rd of September where we will discuss more details, in workgroups with RoGBC members and guests from the local public authorities on specific suggested measures that the RoGBC is planning to promote further.
The results and the main conclusions of the survey will be presented to the local public authorities within the conference “Cities of the Future: Towards Low Carbon Economies”, organized in Brasov by the Association of Romanian Municipalities and the European Commission on October 14.
Please contact Anca Bieru at anca.bieru@RoGBC.org for more details or getting involved.
Oxford Sustainable Group launches €200 million renewable energy fund
August 25, 2009 at 1:24 pm | Posted in Member Projects, News from Members | Leave a commentTags: funding, Green Building, renewable energy, strategy, Sustainable Development
The RoGBC member Oxford Sustainable Group, the leading renewable/sustainable developer, announced the launch of The Oxford Renewable Energy Fund 9 (OREF 9) , a closed-ended fund to be listed on the Channel Island Stock Exchange (CISX) seeking to raise €200 million. OREF 9 aims to add value, achieve capital growth and spread risk though investment in and development of a range of renewable energy projects primarily in Finland, Romania and Estonia.
The fund has a duration of five years and aims to deliver a low-risk 20% per annum return to investors after all costs and fees (net). The return requires zero bank financing, meaning high returns with low risk in the current financial market turmoil. The final development value of the projects generated could reach €2 billion.
The fund is targeting institutional and high net worth investors. The market in Central and Eastern Europe has performed well in the past compared to Western Europe and is expected to again perform strongly in the medium term. European and Global demand for energy is high and forecast to rapidly increase. Within Europe there is a strong government commitment to fixed targets and high subsidies to generate a minimum percentage of energy using renewable sources – some countries need to double their renewable capacity by 2020.
The Oxford Sustainable Group will select and manage OREF 9 projects through a process of careful and detailed analysis, due diligence and active management; this means that investments are selected based on the considerable value that the Oxford team can be add to them, taking account of project specifics, local area effects, general planning, political possibilities and market situation/trends. This is the same investment philosophy which Oxford’s previous eight investment opportunities have followed. To date, Oxford’s independently audited projects have delivered over 50% per annum on average.
Hadley Barrett, CEO, Oxford Sustainable Group said: “We have an impressive track record and years of experience leading our peers in this area. We are therefore delighted to launch OREF 9. In the current climate, the new fund represents a unique opportunity for sophisticated investors to generate strong returns. Our investment model is focused on adding value and does not count on passive asset appreciation. Added to our sustainable approach, we therefore outperform our peers, while preserving capital, even in a falling market, and creating value for our investors. The demand for renewable energy today vastly outstrips supply and the demand is only going to increase, so we are confident that investors are perfectly positioned to make excellent, risk-adjusted returns while contributing to social and economic future stability. I am sufficiently sure about this fund to kick it off with 20m Euro of my own money.“
The Oxford Sustainable Group goes further than other ethical/SRI methodologies in the market by using a proprietary 360 degree sustainable approach. This sustainable approach takes into consideration the effects of Oxford projects on all stakeholders. Instead of focusing only on an “ethical” formula derived from narrow investment criteria, Oxford is concerned with how a project satisfies the needs of our investors, the environment, society, local residents and the broader economy.
The Oxford Sustainable Group was recently awarded CarbonNeutral status – the only CarbonNeutral renewable energy developer in the CEE region.
RoGBC Green Cafe – Urbanization and Adaptive Reuse
August 21, 2009 at 3:00 pm | Posted in Events | Leave a commentTags: buildings, Energy Efficiency, green cafe, strategy, Sustainable Development
The August edition of the RoGBC Green Cafe ended with unanimous laughter as Jaime Lerner, a Brazilian mayor sang the “Sustainability song” during his presentation on reinventing the urban system in his native city, Curitiba. “The city is not the problem, the city is the solution”, said Lerner in his TED Conference presentation that the Green Cafe participants watched and discussed. A provocative thought that would motivate the discussions around “urbanization and adaptive reuse”, which was the main topic of this month’s meeting.
“Every city in the world can be improved in less than three years” argued Jaime Lerner. “This is not a matter of scale, it is not a question of financial resources” he added, before expressing his strong belief that “every problem in a city has to have its own equation of co-responsibility.” To explain this position, Lerner listed some of the most significant factors in achieving success, by presenting his work for restructuring the city of Curitiba.
While selecting important experience tools from his presentation, the participants described some of the obstacles that Romania crosses whenever it faces a changing agent willing to take action in the urban space. The lack of education, the very high level of beaurocracy and the lack of measures that would be specifically adequate to the Romanian environment were only some of the arguments the participants presented.
The discussion had a solid optimistic foundation that was set by another short movie, called “Adaptive Reuse in the Netherlands”. The educational documentary presenting the successful transformation of the Borneo docks and Sporenburg of Amsterdam into residential neighborhoods set a striking positive example of intelligent adaptation of the city to the needs of its inhabitants. Discussing the possibilities for Romania, the participants agreed that there is a constant need to adapt innovation and creativity to the local environment specificity.
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RoGBC’s Comments to the National Strategy for Sustainable Development
September 5, 2008 at 3:36 pm | Posted in Legislative Outreach | Leave a commentTags: comments, Green Building, Legislative Outreach, strategy, sustainable_development
The RoGBC Legislative Outreach Task Group’s comments were integrated into the letter sent last week by AmCham Romania to the team that is drafting the Romania’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development. In the letter, Romania Green Building Council is recognized as being the main provider of comments/information related with sustainable construction.
The National Strategy for Sustainable Development (both the RO and ENG version) can be accessed here.
Our comments can be accessed here.
I would like to thank all the members from the Legislative Outreach Task Group for getting involved in the discussions. If you want to get included in this or other Task Groups going forward please let me know by sending an e-mail to anca.bieru@rogbc.org.
– Anca