newsletter 5 - switch-asia · ernment, bscic tannery in-dustrial estate project for the...

Newsletter 5 Implementation of Environmental Management

Systems (EMS) and eco-labelling schemes in the

SMEs of the leather sector in Bangladesh

This project is funded by The European Union June 2017

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EcoLeBan

The ECOLEBAN Project, funded by the European Commission under the Switch Asia Programme, has an overall duration of 48 months (from March 2014 to February 2018).

The main objective of the ECOLEBAN Project is to enhance the resource efficiency and sustainability of the leather sector in Bangladesh throughout the whole value chain of the leather related products such as foot-wear and other leather goods.

Welcome to ECOLEBAN´s fifth newsletter

NEWSLETTER 3 - June 2016 2


The following picture shows the expected results of the action as well as the activities scheduled to achieve them.

IMPLEMENTATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND ECO-LABELLING SCHEMES IN THE SMES OF THE LEATHER SECTOR IN BANGLADESH

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Eco-Labelling IMPLEMENTATION


In order to ensure that the SMEs selected to participate in the ecolabeling pilot program a c q u i r e t h e n e c e s s a r y knowledge to carry out the implementation of the recently created ECOLEBAN Footwear Ecolabel, the first Training on Ecolabeling for Environmental Management Representatives (EMR) has been conducted in the ECOLEBAN Project office on 15th February.

The training was aimed to show the progresses regarding

Ecolabelling. Mr. Sanjoy Kumar went into details about the Ecolabelling criteria for Bangla-deshi footwear. He has ex-plained about six criteria which have been described in user manual for Ecolabelling criteria designed by ECOLEBAN Pro-ject. The presentation was con-ducted along with some partici-patory discussion among all the participants. Mr. Sanjoy has also explained about all kinds of questions and clarification re-garding criteria. Moreover,

roles and responsibilities of the selected representatives of the Ecolabelling Implemented SMEs has been discussed precisely.

In addition they also were ex-plained the direct environmen-tal benefits that can be gained by using an eco-labeled product instead of a typically performed ones which can be quantified in terms of a lower consumption of energy, water and raw mate-rials as well as the minimization of air emissions during produc-tion and use.

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SCP Policies POLICYMAKING


At the beginning of the year (January 14th), the ECOLEBAN Project organized a roundtable at the BSCIC facilities with the main players involved in new Savar's Tannery Station indus-trialization (BSCIC, BFLLFEA, BTA, LETSB and some tannery owners) on "the Role of Gov-ernment Institutions on the SCP Policies and Strategies for the Leather industries of Bang-ladesh”.

The idea of this meeting was to transfer the Government (BSCIC) the problems and diffi-culties that the companies are having in their shifting to Savar and how ECOLEBAN Project

can help solving them with the SCP practices implementation.

Afterwards, listening the opin-ions of the different actors, Mr S a n j o y K u m a r T h a k u r (ECOLEBAN Local Project Manager) concluded the pro-gram addressing some key points discussed in the roundtable. He addressed that SMEs of leather sector need to implement SCP and ISO 14001 certification in order to im-prove the overall situation of Bangladesh Leather Sector. ECOLEBAN Project can help leather sector SMEs imple-menting SCP practices and EMS which have been a burning is-

sue for the business develop-ment at a larger scale. Finally, he thanked Tecnalia as Project Lead Partner and other nation-al partners BTA, BFLLFEA & LFMEAB and also all the related Ministries of Bangladesh Gov-ernment, BSCIC Tannery In-dustrial Estate Project for the contribution in the develop-ment of the Leather Industries in Bangladesh.

At the end of the event, some commitments were reached with BSCIC to support and collaborate in the correct relo-cation of the tanneries in Savar.

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Within the objective, not only to increase the awareness and commitment of governmental institutions in SCP practices but also to strengthen the institutional structure at poli-cy level, two capacity building were carried out in the past month of March, first in 6th and the second in 9th. These two capacity buildings have been the second and third of a training program aimed to t r a i n p o l i c y m a k e r s (governmental officials) on

SCP practices and show them how the Governmental Insti-tutions can start thinking in their inclusion at national poli-cy level.

The training on 6th March was about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Eco labe l in g Schemes and it was intended to let policymakers know how these kind of approaches can help developing the polluting leather sector.

This capacity building was

exclusively designed for Bang-ladesh Standards and Testing Institutions (BSTI), under Min-istry of Industry and that is why it took place in BSTI Conference Room.

We had the honor of having the presence of BSTI top management as for example Mr. Saiful Hasib, BSTI General Director, among other BSTI departmental government officials (in total eleven).

Ministry of Industry

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Ministry of Industry

Bangladesh Small & Cottage Industries Corporation

(BSCIC)

On the other hand, the training on 9th March was about the Im-plementation of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) in Leather Industries of Bangladesh and it was intended to let policymakers know how these kind of practices and poli-cies can help the Government leading the new challenges and

developments of the leather sector.

This capacity building was ex-clusively designed for Bangla-desh Small & Cottage Indus-tries Corporation (BSCIC), un-der Ministry of Industry and that is why it took place in BSCIC Conference Room, Administra-

tion Building, Tannery Industrial Estate, Savar.

We had the honour of having the presence of BSCIC top management as for example Mr. Mustak Hossain Md. Iftek-har, BSCIC Chairman among other BSCIC departmental gov-ernment officials (in total 7).

http://www.google.es/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjIvK7rmN7UAhVCtxoKHckDBxgQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fresultdownload.com%2Fministry-of-industry-job-circular%2F&psig=AFQjCNEzghhjrfo1aumYdJGtGlXFn-HI8w&ust=149865869464

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Networking STAKEHOLDERS


The ECOLEBAN Project cele-brated International Women's Day on March 8th by organizing a rally at the Tannery Workers’ Union office to celebrate the contribution of women to the sustainability of value chains and promote their safety and rights.

The rally was attended by fe-

male workers and tannery owners and was followed by group discussions. Project team members from ECOLEBAN, SNV Bangladesh and Oxfam Bangladesh were present at this event emphasizing the im-portance of women’s involve-ment for the sustainable con-sumption and production of

resources in Bangladesh.

Some of the women workers expressed their present prob-lems and shared their experi-ence at the leather sector. The speakers were responded on their queries and at the same time were motivated to contin-ue focusing in their objectives and responsibilities.

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The 29th March, ECOLEBAN Project was invited by the Hon-ourable Ambassador of Bangla-desh in Spain Mr. Hassan Mahmood Khandker BPM, PPM, ndc, to the celebration of the 46th Anniversary of Inde-pendence and National Day of Bangladesh. The event took place in Intercontinental Hotel, Madrid.

Representing ECOLEBAN Pro-ject, Mr. Mikel Perez Maiz Tech-nical & Implementation Manager attended. At the event, in addi-

tion to various institutional rep-resentations from other coun-tries, several representatives of companies with investments or potential interest in doing busi-ness in Bangladesh attended.

Mr. Mikel Perez, in addition to interacting with different mem-bers of the Government of Bangladesh, also had the op-portunity to share project ac-tions with companies and finan-cial institutions that could collab-orate or be interested in co-working with the project objec-

tives. The Ambassador of Bang-ladesh personally congratulated TECNALIA on the work has been carrying out in last 3 years in Bangladesh and he desired the best of luck to ECOLEBAN Project.

This was a very good opportuni-ty to share and disseminate the benefits of the project between Bangladeshi Government insti-tutions and networking with companies interested in partici-pating in the project objectives.

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Between 15-17th May 2017, the SWITCH-Asia Network Facility organised a set of events to streamline the impact reporting of SWITCH-Asia projects, facili-tate the aggregation of their results at the Programme level and support the long-term sus-tainability of individual actions via access to innovative finance mechanisms such as blended finance.

Held in Bangkok, the events brought together 80 profession-als from DG DEVCO headquar-ters, eight EU Delegations in Asia and most of the teams that implement SWITCH-Asia grant projects.

The Ecoleban Project was pre-

sent with the assistance of Mr. Javier Del Pozo, ECOLEBAN Project Director and Mr. Mikel Perez Maiz, Technical & Imple-mentation Project Coordinator.

A lively dialogue between grant projects and their respective EU-Delegations helped to develop a better understanding of devel-oping the project's Log Frame and result indicators.

The first and second day of seminar focussed on monitoring and reporting, while the third day addressed access to fi-nance via Blending mechanisms to contribute to the financial sustainability of SWITCH-Asia projects.

Monitoring and reporting was in

focus during the first two days, when the first draft of a newly developed conceptual frame-work and comprehensive indica-tor scheme was introduced.

During the lively panel discus-sion that took part in the second part of the seminar, SWITCH-Asia Programme representa-tives further discussed these themes with experts from finan-cial institutions and the SWITCH-Asia project teams, with a par-ticular eye on the needs and constraints of micro and small companies.

You can read more at SwitchA-sia website.

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World Environment Day 2017 was jointly celebrated on 5th June 2017 by the Eu-ropean Union (EU) partners in Bangladesh under its Switch-Asia Programme. The event was celebrated with its global theme for this year - ‘Connecting People with Nature’.

Bangladesh Youth Environ-mental Initiative (BYEI), Oxfam and its partner Bang-ladesh Environmental Law-yer’s Association (BELA) led the celebration as other Euro-pean Union (EU) partners in Bangladesh such as ECOLE-BAN, SNV and Care partici-pated in the joint event.

BYEI organized a Vision

Sharing Contest for the youth as the applicants were invited to come up with creative and sustainable solutions on how to ensure sustainable envi-ronment in the urban cities. Around 175 submissions were received as students from different universities of Bangladesh as well as abroad entered the competi-tion.

Alongside the competition, a grand rally was organized in Dhaka on 5th June where participants from BYEI, BELA, Oxfam, ECOLEBAN, SNV and Care alongside other participants in general. The rally started from Dhaka University campus

and ended at Dhaka Press Club where the selected top entries for the Vision Sharing Contest were given an oppor-tunity to make a presentation. Dr. Md. Khalid Hossain from Oxfam, Mahbub Ullah from SNV, Sanjoy Kumar Thakur from ECOLEBAN, Md. Elias from Care Bangladesh and Mohammad Arju from Save Our Sea initiative were pre-sent as panel judges to select the 03 winners from the final-ists. They also spoke on the occasion on how they are implementing their individual projects under the EU funded SWITCH-Asia Programme collaboratively working to-

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Taking advantage of the celebration of the international day of the envi-ronment, the project published a new on ecolabeling to enhance the de-mand of eco-labeled footwear goods, by sensitizing consumers on the im-portance of choosing environmental-ly-friendly products. In order to achieve that aim, the project selected chose Bangladesh's most widely read newspaper; The Daily Star.

MONDAY, “June 5, 2017”

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This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the consortium and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of

the European Union.

Learn more about our project visiting our website

www.ecoleban.com

http://www.ecoleban.com/

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