Italy and the Balkans join forces to seize Kyoto Protocol’s investment opportunities

The Balkans are calling out for “green” Italian investors. Four countries in particular are looking for Italian companies to help with their social, technological, economic and environmental development. It’s business as usual but business tinged with green and based on the rules of the Kyoto Protocol and its so-called mechanisms, which were designed to help combat climate change. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows countries to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by investing overseas.

For this reason, Italy’s Environment Ministry together with the authorities in Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro and Serbia have identified a series of projects that need to be developed. The projects span different industrial sectors but have one thing in common, their environmental benefit. They include biomass-fuelled power stations, efficiency improvements at existing plants, proper waste management processes, the use of biogas and the construction of wind farms.
Italian companies will be able to find on this website details of a first group of projects (about 70 of them) that have been chosen by the governments of these four Balkan countries and the Italian Environment Ministry. They are presented according to various criteria: by country, by sector, in alphabetical order and in terms of the likely investment and the estimated reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, the site provides background information about the Kyoto Protocol and the CDM, progress reports on the projects and useful contact details.

What are the advantages for companies that want to invest? It’s not just a question of getting a return through the sale of goods or services. There are various incentives on offer, with many of the projects eligible for backing, for example, from international financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Italy’s Environment Ministry is co-financing the initial stages of each project, the feasibility studies.

There’s also an intangible incentive: carbon credits. These derive from the Kyoto Protocol, which binds developed countries to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. The international treaty stipulates that pollution goals can also be met in the form of carbon credits, which are generated by emission-reducing projects that developed countries finance in other parts of the world. The credits – officially known as Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) – are awarded for the greenhouse gas savings that these projects generate and can be used towards meeting the financing country’s own pollution targets or else sold on international markets.Another good reason to read the following pages carefully so as to find the business opportunity most suited to your company.