Utility partnerships at the center of international environmental technology
VKU panel discussion on ‘Utility partnerships - international knowledge exchange for municipal companies’ | Photo: Lena Pahlenberg
Today three months ago the Utility Platform attended IFAT Munich: the world's leading trade fair for water, sewage, waste and raw materials management. With almost 150,000 visitors from almost 170 countries and regions, it brings together the most important international industry representatives from politics, business and science and offers exciting ideas and innovative solutions for industrial and municipal challenges on around 300,000 square metres of exhibition space. This year's event, which was held from 13 to 17 May at the Munich Exhibition Centre, was all about climate change and active environmental protection. Together with our partners, the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) and the German Water Partnership (GWP), as well as the Export Initiative for Environmental Protection (EXI), we also focussed on the efforts and achievements of the utility partnerships.
15/05/24: Utility partnerships prominently presented at the VKU trade fair stand
As part of a VKU panel discussion on the topic of ‘Utility partnerships - international knowledge exchange for municipal companies’, insights were provided into the partnerships between the Wupperverband, the Oldenburgisch-Ostfriesischer Wasserverband and the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. Since 2022, this partnership has been dedicated to the topics of drinking water and wastewater, digitalisation and environmental education. Catrin Bornemann, Head of Technical Innovation and Research Coordinator at Wupperverband, drew a positive balance after the first two years of cooperation and emphasised the experience gained for her work context, e.g. in dealing with difficult working conditions such as vandalism or power outages, as the South African partners often experience.
The waste management sector was also at the centre of the discussion, with exclusive insights into the partnership between Entsorgungsbetriebe Lübeck and the two Albanian cities of Cërrik and Sarandë. These partnerships focus on the important topics of composting and recycling. Heiko Heidemann, project manager for the operator platform at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, gave an overview of the programme's current portfolio and invited other utilities from the water and waste sector to get involved in the partnerships.
13/05/24: Get-together of water utilities at the GWP joint stand
Project manager Heiko Heidemann (GIZ) and GWP CEO Ingo Hannemann
at the IFAT | Photo: GWP
Intensive discussions were also held at the GWP joint stand with representatives of the partnerships from Tanzania, Jordan and Ukraine. Joint activities included a Get-Together of the Utility Platform organised by GWP, which was opened by Heiko Heidemann, project manager of the Utility Platform, and GWP Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of Hamburg Wasser, Ingo Hannemann. The discussions that followed emphasised that water security and climate resilience in Africa's fast-growing cities can only be achieved if the perspectives and contributions of women and young water experts are promoted at all levels.
Participants of the get-together organised by GWP at IFAT | Photo: GWP
14/05/24: Inter-municipal cooperation as a success factor for improved waste management
A panel discussion organised by the Export Initiative for Environmental Protection (EXI) on the topic of ‘Ukraine: Inter-municipal cooperation as a success factor for improved waste management’ on 14 May 2024 provided a particularly inspiring insight into the cooperation between utility partnerships. After an encouraging welcome speech by Nilgün Parker, Head of Department at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUV), in which the difficult working situation due to the Russian war of aggression was pointed out, representatives of the Ukrainian waste management association EcoService2022 discussed the milestones already achieved and future goals of their partnership with their German partners from the Bergischer Abfallwirtschaftsverband. The cooperation, which was launched around two years ago as part of the EXI, is focussing in its first phase on the development of sustainable waste management and the introduction of separate collection systems in the Ukrainian region of Poltava. Since September 2023, EcoService2022 has also been supported by the Utility Platform as part of a utility partnership with the Bergischer Abfallzweckverband. The recent delivery of around 500 additional containers was particularly emphasised in this context, making it possible to integrate the entire area of the four Ukrainian municipalities into a functioning waste management system.
Examples of successful knowledge transfer as part of the utility partnership included a study trip by a Ukrainian delegation to the :metabolon innovation site in Engelskirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia in December 2023 and a series of online webinars in spring 2024. These events focused on topics such as landfill remediation, waste separation and strategies for improving waste management. The Managing Director of EcoService2022, Oleksandr Kotenko, emphasised Germany's accuracy and strategic approach to the planning and implementation of waste management projects in relation to the webinar series. In addition, the Deputy Mayor of Novoorzhysta Municipality, Volodymyr Nedbailo, was impressed by the technologies and modern approaches to waste processing and utilisation demonstrated at IFAT. "The municipal knowledge transfer offers an excellent opportunity to learn from the experience of the German colleagues and to improve life in the Ukrainian municipalities with the help of the technologies and knowledge gained", said the deputy mayor.
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