The Cambodian garment sector’s total consumption of firewood is estimated to be about 302,000 tonnes per year. Currently, most of the wood comes from Economic Land Concessions clearing, which has rendered the price of wood artificially low.

One promising alternative could be the use of rice husk briquettes, as Cambodia produces around 1.5 million tonnes of rice husk each year. In Vietnam, for instance, rice husk is already widely used as an alternative fuel source.

This SEPS exchange will organise two study tours to Vietnam and one conference.

• One study tour will enable 10 Cambodian rice millers to visit Vietnam to benchmark already proven rice husk processing technologies;
• The other study tour will provide 10 garment factory owners with knowledge on renewable energy boiler equipment and will replicate successful technologies in Cambodia;
• Finally, the capitalisation conference will bring together rice millers, factory owners, international brands and public authorities to raise awareness of the environmental footprint of the manufacturing industry and introduce alternative options for a sectoral switch to sustainable fuel consumption in the Cambodian garment industry.

Updates on the activities will be published in our news blog. More general information on this collaboration between WISIONS, GERES, the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance and H&M is available here: Supporting the Energy Switch of the Garment Industry in Cambodia through Increased South-South Knowledge Exchange among the Value Chain Stakeholders

To fight climate change, nearly 200 countries signed the Paris Agreement in December 2015. However, the current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to lower greenhouse gas emissions will not be sufficient to realise the well below 2 degrees target. What is required are more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction scenarios, roadmaps and actions to achieve zero-carbon.

On 17 July, the 10th annual meeting of the International Research Network for Low Carbon Societies (LCS-RNet) will be held in Yokohama, Japan. In this meeting, proposed actions towards an ambitious decarbonised world in various regions and sectors will be shared and their effective implementation discussed.

Dr. Julia Terrapon-Pfaff of the WISIONS team will give a presentation within a session on the 1.5/2 degree targets and long-term low-carbon global development strategies, which will focus on the implementation of NDCs in emerging, developing and least developed countries. The meeting is free of charge. If you wish to participate, please follow this link.

The LCS-RNet meeting takes place in conjunction with the International Forum for Sustainable Asia and the Pacific, which Dr. Julia Terrapon-Pfaff will also attend.

The Tech4Dev Conference is the biennial flagship event of the UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development. The Conference focuses on the potential of technology solutions to advance inclusive social and economic development in the Global South. Tech4Dev 2018 puts the challenges and the potential of the Global South in the center of discussions reflected by its title Voices of the Global South.

Carmen Dienst, project coordinator of WISIONS of Sustainability, will actively participate in the session Access to Energy for All: Measuring Impact beyond kWh on Friday, 29 June 2018, 10:45 – 12:30. She will present the research paper "Productive Use of Energy – Pathway to Development? Reviewing the Impact of Small-Scale Energy Projects in Developing Countries".

Abstract: It is widely recognized that access to sustainable energy services is a crucial factor in reducing poverty and enhancing development. One of the assumed positive outcomes is the productive use of energy, which is expected to create value thereby having a positive impact on local livelihoods. However, systematic evidence of these impacts is still limited. This study analyses the results of a post-evaluation of 30 small-scale energy development projects and reviews these in relation to existing literature to better understand how the supply of sustainable energy supports productive use activities, and whether these activities have the expected positive impacts.