EKOenergy Newsletter 34: Full of energy, new volunteers, Katarina Ylikorkala, EKOenergy Comic

1. Full of plans and energy

The first half of 2014 was busy and promising for EKOenergy. We intend to keep up the speed and reach out to stakeholders

- We expect that more environmental NGOs will join our EKOenergy network, that more suppliers will sign the Licence Agreement and that more consumers will make the switch to EKOenergy.

- Seven dynamic and talented volunteers and trainees will help our members and friends in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK and the Balkans to get EKOenergy launched in their country. We also have concrete plans for further action in Finland, Latvia and Slovenia.

We will keep you informed, via our Newsletter, via the website, via Facebook or in direct contacts. Let us know if you see opportunities to join forces with us.

2. Volunteers to work on EKOenergy in Italy, Poland and Austria

Since November 2013, the EVS volunteer Fabiola NardÃ² (left) has been focusing on EKOenergy in Italy. She contacted suppliers and consumers, translated our documents and developed our archive. Fabiola's term ends end of August and her work will be continued by Giulia Francisconi (right) from Cesena (Italy). Giulia joined the EKOenergy team today and she will stay until mid-December.

Earlier this month, Milena Nowak (middle) joined the team as an EVS volunteer. She will focus on Poland, the country where she spent the first 18 years of her life, and Austria, where she is living now. She will do so in close cooperation with our local contacts.

Thanks a lot Fabiola. Welcome Giulia and Milena.

See the current EKOenergy staff at website.

3. 100% EKOenergy with Katarina Ylikorkala

Katarina Ylikorkala is the Director of the Business Unit Energy Sales at Loiste Energia (formerly E.ON Finland) and the CEO of its daughter company EkosÃ¤hkÃ¶ Oy. The latter is the first European electricity supplier selling only EKOenergy.

"We have been pioneers in selling green energy in Finland and very proud of that. EkosÃ¤hkÃ¶ Oy is the first company selling EKOenergy labeled hydropower from Finland. We are also the first electricity supplier selling only EKOenergy certified electricity. Our motivation to develop the product further is very high."

"I am happy that the common awareness of the â€œgreennessâ€ of electricity products expands. I am also happy that the consumers are getting more aware of differences between different green products".

Women CEOs are still a minority in the energy world. What does Katarina think about that? "At Loiste we have always seen diversity as an asset. A good team needs people with different ways of thinking and one way to gain that is through diversity."

4. EKOenergy Comic, drawings and texts

As announced, we are making a comic about switching from one electricity supplier to another, about green electricity in general and about EKOenergy in particular.

Aimed at a general and young audience, the story combines an engaging story with information on green power. The drawing process is well over halfway. The translation of the dialogues proceeds on schedule. The Dutch, German, Italian, German and Polish translations are ready; work in five more languages is underway.

Mid-September we will add captions to the drawings and around the end of September we will be able to put the first language versions online. The comic will be 31 pages and will be downloadable as a pdf.

Contact us if you want to help us with the translations and or with the distribution.

5. New on the website

We restructured the EKOenergy website, to better reflect the range of items we are working on.

Under the chapter 'The ecolabel' you find a new page about 'EKOenergy in LEED and other standards'. All information for sellers also moved to that chapter.

Under the new chapter 'Extras', you find a background text about climate change and renewable electricity, as well as some of our leaflets and videos.

Also the newsletter archive is now online: see http://www.ekoenergy.org/news/newsletter-archive/

The translation of the new pages is ongoing.

6. Articles and public consultations

Elea Kunz, from the EKOenergy Secretariat, wrote an article about how the â€˜voluntary electriciy marketâ€™ (i.e. sales of green electricity) and the â€˜mandatory green electricity marketâ€™ (i.e. subsidies and quota systems) could strengthen each other. The article has been published in the most recent (paper) version of the German professional renewable energy journal e21.magazin. You can download the pdf of the article here.

The EEB (European Environmental Bureau) published a short introduction to EKOenergy in its latest Metamorphosis newsletter. And a similar article has been published in the paper version of the French magazine "La Maison Ã©cologique"

In July and August, the EKOenergy Secretariat also submitted comments on WRI/C40/ICLEI draft Global Protocol for Community-scale Emission Inventories (GPC), on OFGEM's final proposals for green and renewable tariffs and on some RE-DISS texts.

Contact Steven.Vanholme@sll.fi if you want more information.

7. Bad news from Siberia

Reporters didn't have difficulties to fill newspapers last months. International attention was directed to Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, Irak, Nigeria. Amidst all this human suffering, we should not forget to heed an even scarier development: methane emissions from the melting permafrost.

The permafrost is perennially frozen ground occurring in about 24% of the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere. Its soils contain nearly twice as much carbon in the form of frozen organic matter than is currently in the atmosphere. (Source http://www.unep.org/pdf/permafrost.pdf)

For quite some years, climate scientists have been warning us that the melting of the permafrost will lead to massive greenhouse gas emissions, in particular in the form of methane. As such, the melting would be a 'tipping point': a change resulting in an out-of-control climate change.

Last months, huge craters have been discovered in Russian Siberia, and the most reasonable explanation is that they are the result of massive escape of methane. See an article about this issue in Nature. The speed of this change exceeds, once more, the most pessimistic scenarios and reminds us of the urgent need to reduce emissions, and do much more to keep climate change in check.

Picture: Siberian Times