The formal award ceremony for the European Citizen's Prize took place last week in Helsinki and the event was also streamed live.

Before receiving the award, Steven Vanholme and Merve Güngör from EKOenergy spoke, in Finnish and English, about how motivating the recognition from the European Parliament is. The users of EKOenergy-labelled energy, our licensees and others who have supported us in the past years have made our achievements possible. You can find a short video about the award ceremony on EKOenergy's YouTube channel.

Sirpa Pietikäinen, Member of the European Parliament and part of the jury, explained that there were many reasons for the selection of EKOenergy. "A key element was that EKOenergy deals with a global challenge, climate change, in a solution-oriented way. With this label, each of us can choose environmentally friendly energy. This label is a tool you can trust."

She also added that the EU shouldn't reinvent the wheel when developing climate policy, but should instead support existing initiatives, in particular promising bottom-up initiatives and those from the civil society as much as possible.

We hope that this prize will encourage many others, as well as the European Parliament itself, to join our efforts by switching to 100% EKOenergy-labelled energy.

 

- Lumme Energia on LinkedIn. Thanks Lumme for encouraging your clients to switch to EKOenergy-labelled energy!

Last week, we got the final report from one of the solar projects we recently financed: Solar energy for Bethlehem, implemented by the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ).

It's a very welcome ray of hope in a region that is once more torn apart by escalating violence. It's also a concrete example of how solar energy can bring relief and hope to disadvantaged families and communities.

Renewable energy could be a viable option in Palestine, where energy is completely based on imported fossil fuels, which makes it very expensive. By financing projects such as this one, EKOenergy helps showcase the feasibility of solar energy in the region.

The concrete results of the project include the installation of five grid-connected PV systems with a total capacity of 20.2 kWp, which results in reducing the beneficiaries' electricity expenses by up to 40%. ARIJ plans to use the payments from the beneficiaries to develop new PV systems for other households through a revolving fund.

For an overview of all the projects financed through EKOenergy's Climate Fund, see https://www.ekoenergy.org/our-results/climate-fund/.

 

- From an article on Big Power News, about the first Russian energy retailer offering EKOenergy-labelled electricity (in Russian)

On the 21st of April, EKOenergy and FlexiDAO organised a brainstorming session about real-time tracking of renewable energy consumption and how ecolabels could facilitate communication regarding this topic. Large energy consumers exchanged thoughts about their ambitions and needs regarding synchronicity, and we also gathered ideas about the role the EKOenergy ecolabel could play.

We had an interesting two-hour brainstorming with the participants, including several RE100 companies. Some participants saw 24/7 renewable sourcing as an important step to go the extra mile and support the energy transition further, while some indicated that their main focus was on becoming 100% renewable as defined in the current emission reporting standards, without an emphasis on granularity.

We thank everyone who joined and contributed to this workshop. EKOenergy will continue to follow the interesting developments in time-matched energy tracking, as well as all other developments and approaches with the potential of speeding up the transition to 100% renewable energy.

We will circulate a poll to collect information and assess whether there is further interest. Stay tuned!

Green Key, a prestigious, international ecolabel for tourism establishments, has recently adopted new criteria.

The new criteria catalogue includes clear rules for the use of renewable electricity and also gives extra points for fossil-free heating and cooling.

Green Key now also recommends choosing ecolabelled electricity: "If available, the establishment is encouraged to consider purchasing eco-labelled electricity. This means that the electricity is not only renewable, but the eco-labelling also ensures that it is third-party verified and fulfils additional sustainability criteria, e.g. taking biodiversity into account, financing projects that combat electricity poverty, new clean electricity projects, etc. Examples of electricity eco-labels are EKOenergy, Green-e, Bra Miljöval, etc."

100% renewable energy is possible worldwide and referring to EKOenergy's internationally applicable quality criteria is a straightforward way to go the extra mile, regardless of where the consumers are based. We thank Green Key for encouraging extra climate action, and invite other standards and ecolabels to follow their example.

 

- Dharma Thakulla, one of several thousand people who will benefit from Renewable World's UREKA project, co-financed by EKOenergy (Quote from the Interim report)

In addition to promoting sustainable renewable energy, we also support other campaigns and actions that aim at speeding up the transition to a fossil-free world.

Frequently, we share reports and studies highlighting how some financial institutions continue to finance climate chaos. The 60 largest banks in the world have poured US$3.8 billion into the fossil fuel industry since 2015. We sign calls to urge these banks to end all fossil fuel finance, and we amplify the message on our social media.

Yesterday, organisations from all over the world launched www.fossilbanks.org, a new campaign platform to pressure commercial banks to stop financing the fossil fuel industry.

And today, 18 May, we co-signed a letter to the World Bank Group to express our concern about the lack of involvement of civil society organisations in the drafting process of the Group's new Climate Change Action Plan for 2021-25.

For regular news from EKOenergy, you can follow us on social media. Your likes and comments are always appreciated! Your engagement contributes to us reaching more and more people. Reacting to our posts is also the best way to guarantee that our posts will continue to show up in your feed.

Here are some highlights from our recent posts:
 

- EKOenergy on LinkedIn: "A recent project we financed involves the installation of 40 street lamps with photovoltaic panels in the women’s cooperative and maternity clinic, in the village of Sogola in Mali."

- EKOenergy on Twitter: "How does the nonprofit EKOenergy label contribute to achieving the #GlobalGoals? Learn more about EKOenergy's work and how we address the #SDGs."

- EKOenergy on Facebook: "The Russian sustainability journal Vegetarian published an article about renewable energy and the EKOenergy ecolabel in Russia."

- EKOenergy on Instagram: "The can of beer EKO-Wael is holding is from Saimaa Brewing Co, made with EKOenergy!"
 

Energy Web Foundation (EWF), a nonprofit organisation developing public software for the energy sector, is building a global interface for procurement of renewable energy, called Energy Web Zero. The project is financed with the help of the Good Energies Foundation. EKOenergy is among the organisations giving advisory support along with the I-REC Standard, REBA and RE-Source.

EWF is now looking for renewable energy buyers, especially those with activities in emerging markets, to provide feedback in a 1-hour interview and participate in a test pilot of Zero planned for Q2-Q3 2021. If you would like to give input and share your feedback, please reach out to Andrés Schöndube, andres.schondube@energyweb.org.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has recently raised its forecast for the global growth of wind and solar. The IEA is often criticised for its strong links with the fossil fuel sector and for its very conservative predictions regarding the energy transition.

Their recent Renewable energy market update forecasts a nearly 40% higher growth in 2021 than it expected a year ago. This puts wind and solar on track to match global gas capacity by 2022. The update foresees an "exceptional growth" in the installed capacity of wind and solar, and that these will become the “new normal” in 2021 and 2022, with the potential for further acceleration in the years that follow.

Today, 18 May, the IEA published a new special report, Net Zero by 2050: a Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. This report presents a pathway called the "Net-Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario", which would be compatible with a 50% probability of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5 °C. The report shows that new oil and gas fields are not compatible with the Paris Agreement. This is a big step forward!

Unfortunately, the IEA continues to encourage dangerous levels of reliance on carbon capture and storage, gas, and bioenergy. Let's keep up the pressure: wind and solar can grow much faster than the IEA predicts, leaving no room for dirty, riskier alternatives.