SwitchMed in Egypt

United Nations 3 years ago

The Egyptian Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan (SCP-NAP) was developed under the coordination of the Ministry of Environment and the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) under the EU-funded SwitchMed programme, with advisory services and technical support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The plan is part of Egypt’s efforts to achieve Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The SCP-NAP (SDG12.1) addresses four priority sectors water, energy, agriculture, and municipal solid waste and was developed in Egypt through nationally owned multistakeholder processes. The SCP-NAP for Egypt was officially launched on April 18th, 2016 at a side event during the 6th special session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in Cairo, Egypt. SCP-NAP demonstration projects: The implementation of the plan is ongoing through selected projects and initiatives. A selection process led by the Ministry of Environment with participation of different government stakeholders and the Projects Steering Committee choose two projects from the list of 28 project proposals of the Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan: reducing plastic bag consumption and mainstreaming sustainable public procurement (SPP). CEDARE was designated by the Ministry of Environment as SwitchMed leading implementing partner for both projects. Reducing plastic bag consumption: Egypt consumes around 12 billion plastic bags annually, which vastly affects humans’ health as well as animal and marine life. The Ministry of Environment, CEDARE and UNEP cooperated with 7 main supermarket chains (Metro, Carrefour, HyperOne, Ragab Sons, Kheir Zaman, Fathalla Market & Al Raya Market) to encourage Egyptians reducing their consumption of plastic bags and to shift towards more environment-friendly alternatives. Sustainable public procurement (SPP): Sustainable public procurement is one of the priorities in the Sustainable Consumption and Production National Action Plan aiming at pointing out the importance of the public sector and government in creating a push and a demand for and from local markets for green and sustainable products. By acting as a role model in creating a mechanism for purchasing sustainable goods and services, other market stakeholders can be directly and indirectly influenced to join in promoting sustainable procurement and purchasing. Several activities were developed in Egypt to allow the country to move ahead in promoting sustainable public procurement practices and foster the switch through concrete actions and tools. For detailed project information please download the factsheets of the demo project.
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layersDaily Sustainability Digest

Published about 12 hours ago



Climate volatility is stress‑testing infrastructure in real time. Nepal’s floods disabling over a tenth of national hydropower show that low‑carbon assets fail without climate‑robust design, operations and maintenance. Sustainable construction must plan for compound events and tomorrow’s hydrology: specify spillways, scour protection, drainage and storage; pair resilient engineering with community‑centred delivery and long‑term upkeep. This is central to environmental sustainability in construction and sustainable building practices, linking green infrastructure with building lifecycle performance and life cycle thinking in construction through rigorous lifecycle assessment.

The UK water sector’s £50m Breakthrough Challenge signals deployment at scale. Funding should couple whole life carbon assessment with life cycle cost, target embodied carbon and embodied carbon in materials, and use environmental product declarations (epds) to inform sustainable material specification. Low carbon design supported by low carbon construction materials, renewable building materials and green building materials can cut the carbon footprint of construction while improving resource efficiency in construction. Alignment with BREEAM and BREEAM v7, circular economy in construction and broader circular construction strategies will accelerate net zero whole life carbon, net zero carbon buildings and energy‑efficient buildings as part of decarbonising the built environment, carbon neutral construction and a wider circular economy that supports sustainable urban development.

Delivery needs operators in the design room early, procurement that rewards adaptive capacity, and end‑of‑life reuse in construction. The sector can prove that eco‑design for buildings, sustainable design, sustainable building design, green construction, eco‑friendly construction and each low carbon building deliver resilience on time, on budget and with demonstrable whole life carbon and carbon footprint reduction.

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