The Eighth Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” was held June 8-10, 2016 in Batumi, Georgia.

The International Environmental Conference was established in 1991 and is held in different countries every few years.

This Forum was prepared by the Committee on Environmental Policy of the Economic Commission for Europe.

A side event "Greening Economies in the European Union’s Eastern Neighborhood” was held at the conference June 9, 2016.

With the support of the European Union six Eastern Neighborhood countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine are in the process of a "green" transformation with the objective to provide both economic development and environmental benefits.

Mr. Dmitry Matusevich, head of the Main Directorate of the agro-industrial and forestry systems, the environment of the Ministry of Economy of Belarus made a report about the work of the Demonstration Program in Belarus.

The EaP GREEN program has already produced some important results, in particular:

• adaptation of the concept of resource efficient and cleaner production (RECHP) to the national conditions of the Republic of Belarus, development of methodology RECHP;
• implementation of the RECHP decisions/options identified through the RECHP assessment of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

A success story of one of the leading enterprises in Belarus, JSC “Kommunarka” was presented at the event. The confectionary joined the resource efficient and cleaner production program in 2014 and implemented a number of resource efficient approaches recommended by the experts. In particular, the collection of the so-called "sweet water" produced at the plant during the process of the equipment washing now allows to create a new line of candies and chocolate stuffed with marmalade.

More information on the progress of the Demonstration Program on Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production in the Republic of Belarus is in our video.

Back