Waste Management

Status: The Waste Management Criteria is available for use in Certifications under the Climate Bonds Standard, please contact certification@climatebonds.net to start the certification process of your waste management green bond.

Financial instruments (bonds and loans) linked to these eligible assets, activities and entities will be aligned with the Paris Agreement and the goal of keeping global temperature rises to no more than 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.

Waste Management Criteria Webinar 

Criteria Summary:

These Criteria apply to assets and projects relating to the following aspects of the treatment of municipal solid waste and similar waste:

● Collection (including collection infrastructure, containers)
● Sorting to separate recyclables
● Reuse and recycling (including processing into secondary raw materials and repair)
● Composting & anaerobic digestion of green/garden/yard and food waste
● Thermal treatment with energy recovery of residual waste (outside the EU only)
● The installation of gas recovery systems for landfill sites (for non-operational landfill sites only)

Why develop Criteria for waste management low carbon investments?

The waste sector has the potential to contribute a 10-15% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. Opportunities in prevention, reuse, recycling, and energy recovery can achieve significant mitigation by reducing landfill emissions, reducing emissions linked to resource extraction and production using virgin materials, and providing an alternative energy source that substitutes fossil fuels.

Trends in governmental interventions and business activity indicate that globally, governments and businesses recognise the economic and environmental value of better waste management. To transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy, these stakeholders require significant capital to invest in innovative, effective technologies and infrastructure that transform the waste sector and turn waste into resources.

The Climate Bonds Initiative seeks to mobilise the global debt capital market in addressing the huge funding needs of the global waste sector, estimated to be hundreds of billions of dollars. To this end, the Climate Bonds Initiative has assembled a Waste Management Technical Working Group (TWG) that consists of 19 experts across 16 organisations including universities, NGOs, consultancies, and industry associations. 

Enabling the transition to a low-carbon and climate-resilient economy will require more than slight improvements to business as usual. With the expertise of the Waste Management TWG, the Climate Bonds Initiative aims to develop mitigation & adaptation criteria for the waste management sector to facilitate ambitious emissions reduction and improvement in climate resilience. These will be aligned with the Paris climate change agreement seeking to limit global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. On top of climate change impacts, the Waste Management TWG will also consider other environmental and social impacts, where they are regarded to be significant.

Launched in January 2017, the Waste Management TWG considered the types of waste and the technologies to be in scope and the priorities for criteria development. Waste types that got considered include municipal solid waste, commercial & industrial waste, and construction & demolition waste. Technologies considered include refurbishment and remanufacture, recycling, anaerobic digestion, composting, and energy recovery from waste. Meetings were monthly over 6-12 months. The Waste Management TWG developed mitigation & adaptation criteria for waste management activities and infrastructure, which incorporated feedback from an Industry Working Group (IWG). 

The new Criteria has now been launched as at December 11th 2019 and investment is open for certification. There is a differential application in the Critieria of Energy from Waste (EfW) inside and outside of the EU. Details are available in both the Media Release and Blog Post of Dec 2019.  

TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP - Current Members

Anaerobic Digestion and  Bioresources Association (ADBA) Jessica Allan Environment and Regulation Manager	UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) Adrian Barnes Associate – Sustainable Finance	Trucost Libby Bernick Global Head of Corporate Business	Resource and Waste Solutions Terry Coleman Consultant TWG Lead Specialist
Veolia Gary Crawford Vice President of International Affairs	World Business Council for Sustainable Development Brendan Edgerton Manager, Sustainable Materials	London Waste and Recycling Board Stuart Ferguson Head of Investment	Golder Associates (UK) Samantha Arnold Associate, Senior Atmospheric Scientist
Eunomia Dr Dominic Hogg Chairman	Ricardo Energy & Environment Chris Hoy Waste Management Specialist	WRAP Keith James Special Adviser – Environmental Research	Anaerobic Digestion and  Bioresources Association (ADBA) Thom Koller Policy Officer
CECEP Mr. Wenqin Lu Deptuy Director	The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Sourabh Manuja Associate Fellow, Environment and Waste Management Division	University of Surrey Professor Richard Murphy Director, Centre for Environment & Sustainability	The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Dr Suneel Pandey Director, Environment and Waste Management Division
Ricardo Energy & Environment Dr Adam Read Practice Director – Resource Efficiency & Waste Management	C40 Amrita Sinha Manager, Solid Waste Network	University College London (UCL) Dr Carla Tagliaferri Research Associate	Resource Futures Bernie Thomas Principal Consultant

 

​ Biographies of current members of the Technical Working Group are available here.

INDUSTRY WORKING GROUP - Current Members

Name	Organisation
Alexandrea Licurse	Commonwealth Bank
Andrew McIntyre	Asian Development Blog
Atul Sanghal	Emergent Ventures
Chindarat Taylor
Damaso Zagaglia, Robert Rosenberg, Janina Lichnofsky	ISS-ESG
Desmond Ho, Tan Kim, Joseph Boey, James Leung, Ong Soo San, Tan Chiew Lee,	National Environment Agency, Singapore
Douglas Farquhar	DNV GL
Emilie Hagen	Atelier ten
Fang-yi Xiang	COAMC
Grace Sapuay
John Sayer, Xing Lan	Carbon Care Asia
John Scanlon	SITA
Julien Grimaud	Veolia
Larry Grant	Eden Eco Solutions
Margaret Bates
Mark Berry	Norton Rose Fulbright
Melanie Eddis, Michael Anderson	ERM CVS
Michael Van Brunt, Paul Gilman	Covanta
Monica Reid	Kestrel Verifiers
Myles Cohen	Earth Link
Oterdoom Herman	KPMG
Pip Best, M.Fisher	EY Financial Services
Rainer Winter	TUV NORD
Sarah Fee, Charles Gooderham, Duncan Russell	ERM
Stacey Mack, Maria (Tina) Sentner	NSF Certification
Stan Krpan	Sustainability Victoria
Stuart Hayward-Higham, Margaret Andrews	SITA
Susan Robinson, Tara J Hemmer	Waste Management, Inc
Zhu Hailei	CQC

Disclaimer: 

"The Climate Bonds Standard Board operates legally as an advisory committee of the Climate Bonds Initiative Board and oversees the development of the Climate Bonds Standard. Neither the Climate Bonds Standard Board nor any organisation, individual or other person forming part of, or representing, the Climate Bonds Standard Board (together, "CBSB") accepts or owes any duty, liability or responsibility of any kind whatsoever to any issuer which wishes to apply for any of its bonds to be certified under the Climate Bonds Certification Scheme ("Scheme"), or to any issuer whose bonds may at any time be certified under the Scheme or to any other person or body whatsoever, whether with respect to the award or withdrawal of any certification under the Scheme or otherwise. All advice or recommendations with respect to any certification under the Scheme or otherwise that CBSB provides to the Climate Bonds Initiative Board is provided to it in an advisory capacity only and is not to be treated as provided or offered to any other person”

 

Financial instruments (bonds and loans) linked to these eligible assets, activities and entities will be aligned with the Paris Agreement and the goal of keeping global temperature rises to no more than 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.