The official kick-off and stakeholder meeting for the project titled “Knowledge Sharing and Participation for Environmental Guidelines for Complex Services in ASEAN” under the BMUB’s Export Initiative Programme wasconducted last 22-23 November 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand. The project will focus on knowledge sharing and developing environmental guidelines for complex services.  Complex service holds very high integrated energy and CO2 saving potentials and savings are very likely to pay off in the medium run. For the current project, the focus will be on green retail stores and energy service contracts in two ASEAN countries, Malaysia and Thailand. The two complex services were chosen based on their high energy saving potentials, with many avenues for climate-friendly criteria to be used. Oeko Institut will be at the forefront of collaborating with the countries to define hotspots and the key environmental issues that can be addressed in the guidelines based on each country’s context and priorities. Ultimately, the goal is for governments to enhance framework conditions for the use of successful and sustainable environmental technologies through knowledge sharing and building partnerships.

The objective of the Export Initiative Programme is to complement the climate initiatives through building synergies and cooperation, sharing of German environmental know-how, and replicating/ scaling up best practices. Export Initiative will cover different fields of action such as information management, feasibility studies, country studies, capacity building, and knowledge transfer. Topics will be as diverse as water and wastewater management, recycling management, resource efficiency, and urban and environmental planning. The funding volume for Export Initiative is 10M EUR a year and around 50 projects can be supported in the current phase (2017-2019).