Brundtland – A Leader in Smart Sustainable Solutions

Henk is a co-founder and Partner at Brundtland and possesses a profound knowledge of climate change projects and market dynamics. He has worked for companies, government agencies and international organizations across the globe making him a sought-after advisor on the development and application of energy and climate change mitigation policies and measures.

Prior to co-founding Brundtland, Henk setup and managed the Sub-Saharan African operations for EcoSecurities/JP Morgan. During this period, he was responsible for the development of the largest portfolio of climate change mitigation projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) on the African sub-continent. In the early days of his career, he gained valuable experience at PwC as a strategy consultant in the energy sector. Henk holds a MSc degree in Business Economics from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Lodewijk has more than 15 years of experience in the area of climate change and low carbon development. During his tenure at PwC Advisory, TNO and EcoSecurities / JP Morgan he focused on the development, financing and commercialisation of low-carbon energy projects and technologies. When co-founding Brundtland in 2009, he widened his focus to climate change and sustainability consulting.

Lodewijk has assisted various organisations, including business and government, across the spectrum of strategy and policy development, monitoring and performance management as well as developing green economy initiatives. He has an in-depth understanding of the local climate change and energy landscape and the challenges and opportunities in Southern Africa.

Lodewijk holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering and successfully completed MBA courses at the Rotterdam School of Management as part of PwC’s management development programme.

Jan Willem has over ten years of experience consulting on economics, public policy and climate change. He is co-author of the book ‘Taxes and the Economy’, published worldwide by Edward Elgar Publishing, UK. The book examines among other things the use and impact of policy measures in the environmental realm. More recently, he co-authored a book on the Paris climate agreement, evaluating the contents of the treaty, the pros and cons of various mitigation measures as well as their socio-economic impact.

He has advised a variety of public and private sector entities on topics ranging from climate change mitigation, GHG performance benchmarking and carbon tax impact assessments to solar PV, waste-to-energy and green transport technologies. Jan Willem holds a MA equivalent degree in Economics from Maastricht University, an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School and a M.Sc. degree in Finance from the University of Oxford, where he graduated with distinction.

Thapelo is a geoscientist with a passion for sustainable natural resource management. He has a multi-faceted academic and professional background in geoscience, energy and environmental sustainability.

As a geologist he has worked in the mining industry focused on coal exploration, mining and beneficiation for Anglo American Coal South Africa. During this time he gained an interest in the broader energy sector and sustainability matters related to mineral and energy resource utilisation. As a consultant, he has worked on a number of government and private sector projects related to climate change mitigation strategies, carbon management and footprinting as well as policy matters related to the green economy. Thapelo holds a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Geology from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Masters degree in International Energy from Sciences Po (Paris School of International Affairs) in Paris, France.

Hendrik is a chemical engineer with a passion for automation of technical and managerial processes. He has a multi-faceted academic and professional background in process engineering, IT service management and SQL/PHP programming.

After completion of his Masters in Chemical Engineering at the Groningen University he worked for a number of years at the Fluor Corporation, an American multinational engineering and construction firm, before shifting his focus to Information Systems. He started as an Oracle database administrator and over time progressed his career to ITIL change manager with Logica CMG. Nowadays, Hendrik works as Lead Engineer Electrical, Instrumentation & Automation for Albemarle, an American catalyst company. In this role, he is focused on efficiency improvements as well as designing and implementing automation processes.

Hendrik has substantial knowledge of various programming languages and launched various websites. Hendrik understands well how to meet client-specific requirements and adapt systems while keeping system complexity in check, applying best-in-class IT solutions.

Hendrik leads our offshore IT Development team developing solutions for sustainability performance management.

Rhys has co-authored an academic paper on food packaging and waste management in South African supermarkets. He completed his fourth-year research and design projects on optimising the management of environmental factors in aquaculture farms. Through the completion of his degree, he has gained experience working on long duration projects, in multidisciplined teams and in a variety of industrial engineering problems. He has learnt to synthesise and analyse data and use engineering methodologies to create significant value. Rhys holds a BSc (Hons) in Industrial Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Josh has a background in chemical and process engineering. He is experienced in process monitoring and optimization within the petrochemical, oil and gas sector. He has worked on a large variety of tasks including, amongst others, the development of tools to track greenhouse gas emissions and optimize business value chain performance. This work showcased his ability to combine skillsets in engineering fundamentals and data analysis to deliver value. In working to track and report on greenhouse gas emissions, he developed an understanding of environmental legislature. His experience in ESG was further developed working in multi-disciplinary teams when submitting reports to the Department of Environmental Affairs.

In his time in the petrochemical industry, he has also focused on water usage within factories and used his skillset to identify opportunities to reduce water consumption. Having spent a year working in project execution teams, Josh is also very adept at writing project documents – be it scope definitions, feasibility reports or design packages. He holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town.

Tapiwa Muzite is an early career Sustainability Consultant with experience in Carbon footprinting and Sustainability Reporting. He has worked on an annual carbon footprint report for a Johannesburg-based food waste recycling company, calculating the company’s Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions. In addition to his experience in GHG accounting, Tapiwa is also skilled in Sustainability Reporting, having been part of a team of consultants that did a maiden Sustainability Report for a Zimbabwean company that manufactures plastic pipes, as well as the second and third Sustainability Reports for a Zimbabwean company that manufactures and distributes non-carbonated beverages. His scope of work included calculating the organizational carbon footprint and reporting on material topics namely emissions, energy, water, ozone depleting substances, waste, anti-corruption and economic performance using the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Standards (GRI standards).

Tapiwa holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Forest Resources and Wildlife Management from the National University of Science and Technology (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa).

Kinesh is a green business visionary and brings unique insight that combines environmentally sound innovation with economically viable business orientated solutions. He advises on climate change, green growth strategies and the protection of natural ecosystems. Kinesh has been intimately involved in renewable energy for the last 8 years and is a recognised industry leader in field of Photovoltaic or Solar Energy. He has been involved in the development of training courses and standard setting for the deployment Solar PV in South Africa.

He served 2 years as board member at SAPVIA – South African Photovoltaic Industry Association. Kinesh has facilitated numerous workshops all over Africa and has been directly involved in the capacity development of 1500 solar installers from the subcontinent. Kinesh holds a B.Sc. (hons) and M.Sc. degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of the Witwatersrand

Amir has a background of advance statistics and quantitative analytical skills. He has worked on multiple modelling and predicting systems which he designed on high-level statistical programming software. He has produced numerous projects for the financial sector, such as target marketing systems and public perception analysis. This demonstrated his ability to apply efficient probabilistic models to everyday operational scenarios.

His time in the financial sector, as well as being involved in team projects, has earned him the ability to eloquently explain mathematical and programming systems to various groups. This, alongside his Honours project, has given him the ability to compose reports on complex topics in an elegant and comprehensive manner.

Amir holds a Bsc in Mathematical Science in Actuarial Science and a Bsc Honours in Mathematical Statistics from the University of Johannesburg.

Tristan completed his fourth-year project on the design of an acid mine discharge to drinking water plant and co-authored his fourth-year thesis on the development and optimisation of an integrated bioresource network. Throughout his degree, he gained project work experience requiring multidisciplinary teamwork through internships and academic projects. His academic projects exposed him to a variety of process engineering problems including water treatment, waste to biogas and various chemical manufacturing processes. He has learnt to synthesise and analyse data and use his engineering toolset to solve problems and create significant value. Tristan holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town.

Ano did her undergraduate in chemical engineering which focuses on the design, implementation, and maintenance of chemical plants. An important learning outcome from the undergraduate studies was developing the ability to perform an environmental impact assessment on the chemical plant. This required research into the raw materials, chemical processes used on the raw materials and the waste produced by the process. The findings from the research would be used to identify potential interactions with the environment as well as check for compliance with local and international environmental management law.

After her undergraduate studies, Ano ventured into an MSc in water treatment by eutectic freeze crystallization, EFC. EFC is a water treatment process which is an alternative to evaporative crystallization requiring 6 times less energy and producing salt and water as products making it a zero-waste process. The MSc was by dissertation allowing her to further develop her research, troubleshooting and report writing skills.

Joris has over 15 years of experience in investment management, M&A advisory and project finance for large scale (renewable) energy projects across the globe. After 10 years of international experience with the energy team of NIBC corporate finance, he switched to Triodos Bank, a Dutch pioneer in sustainable banking. At Triodos Investment Management, he was as head of the investment team responsible for the Ampere Equity Fund, a specialized fund acquiring large scale renewable energy projects. After successfully investing the Funds’ capital in solar and wind projects, he started as independent investment advisor. As such, he is Fund Manager for Energiefonds Brabant, a government owned renewable energy fund, and member of the Investment Committee for Susi Partners’ Renewable Energy Funds.

Tshediso gained several years of experience in assessing and developing renewable energy projects in Southern Africa. Projects concern biowaste to energy including biogas production at a basic sow piggery in Limpopo and solar photo voltaic electricity. He has been seconded to several projects as project development manager and has been active as project developer at his own firm New Black Investments as well. Having acquired a keen interest in biowaste to energy projects, he followed advanced professional training in ‘waste water and ‘waste management’ as well as ‘renewable energies’ in Bayern, Germany. Tshediso holds a BCom in Economics from the University of the Witwatersrand and in addition is trained in project financial modelling and financial business administration.

South Africa’s national utility Eskom operates a fleet of the largest coal fired power stations in the world. To prevent undesirable price hikes and stranded assets, Eskom engaged Brundtland to develop a strategy aimed at ‘greening’ its generation mix. The Green Funding Strategy (GFS) looked at the gap between coal-based electricity and renewable electricity on a levelised costs basis and outlines the three strategic components that capacitate Eskom in closing this gap. In addition to providing the strategic direction, the GFS also provides an implementation roadmap to realise this objective in an efficient and effective manner.

Brundtland was contracted by the South African Cities Network (SACN) to develop an organisational strategic framework with the objective to further institutionalise and mainstream climate change action, strengthen systems, processes and capacity, and assist the City in working towards an updated Integrated Climate Change Strategy. The work focused on the organisational aspects and considerations rather than climate change content and sets out a roadmap gearing the organisation towards increased action in partnership with business and citizens. The development included intensive consultation of city departments and entities as well as engagement with the mayoral executive committee.

As one of the largest integrated pulp and paper producers in the world, Sappi has production activities in North America, Europe and South Africa. All these geographies are covered by some form of climate change mitigation regime. The Brundtland team assisted Sappi in the development of a global Climate Change strategy. The strategy balances Sappi’s exposure under the different mitigation regimes in such a way that it could maximize its upside under the different national and international policies and measures while reducing its potential risks by deploying an integrated Climate Change mitigation roadmap.

This three-year (2019 – 2021) project saw Brundtland partnering with the City of Cape Town (CCT) Transport, Human Settlements and Spatial Planning and Environment Directorates, to facilitate their green ambitions. The goal was to measure and monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions following from which, targeted reduction strategies could be developed.

To this end, Brundtland firstly developed a carbon footprint for the three directorates. The footprint was calculated in line with the GHG Protocol: Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and implemented using EPCAM, an online monitoring platform for GHG and sustainability management developed by Brundtland. In addition to this, we developed a greenhouse gas mitigation plan achieving three key aims: the identification of potential carbon trading and investment opportunities, the technical input and support for the implementation of five carbon reduction projects as well as an internal capacity building programme.

EPCAM is an online or server-based platform geared towards supporting manufacturers in managing sustainability and technical performance in general. By determining client specific Key Performance Indicators and structuring the dataset accordingly, a tailor-made portal is developed for the client. The platform also includes modules for reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and the generation of carbon tax returns.

Sustainability portals are equipped with user friendly dashboards designed to your specification allowing managers to oversee the performance of various operations and benchmarking performance against internal targets and sector baselines. Data is collected using online forms tailored to the specific reporting facility. Currently EPCAM is used in sustainability monitoring and reporting by AFGRI, a leading agricultural services company, Philafrica Foods, the City of Cape Town and more than 40 clay brick plants in collaboration with the Clay Brick Association of South Africa.

Support is provided in monitoring energy, carbon, water and overall technical performance. Monitoring takes place on a monthly basis and is used to manage performance of various manufacturing facilities and commercial buildings. On an annual basis, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reported under the National GHG Emissions Reporting regulations (NGER).

Over the years, the monitoring of performance changed from ‘compliance driven’ to ‘performance driven’ whereby performance indicators and corresponding dashboards have been defined to provide a deeper insight in performance under different operating conditions. The tailor-made monitoring and reporting system is based on Brundtland’s proprietary EPCAM^TM platform.

Smart Climate Opportunities is a joint initiative by the Dutch multinationals APG, Eneco, IBM, Royal KPN and PGGM. The Brundtland team was responsible for creating an online introductory course on climate change for the associated Climate Change Academy, including a general background to the topic, the Paris climate agreement, the economics of climate change, policy measures to combat global warming and renewable energy technologies. In addition to this, the services included a mapping of the current course offerings and curricula on climate change in the fields of economics, law, public policy and natural sciences by Dutch universities and colleges. Based on this information, a database was created, containing all available educational resources on the topic for stakeholders to tap into.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company. As a responsible corporate citizen, Sasol implemented secondary catalysts to mitigate N2O emissions at its Sasolburg and Secunda facilities. The project was registered and operated under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM ID: 0961) under extremely poor carbon market conditions, Brundtland structured and facilitated the sale of 243,896 CERs by Sasol to British Petroleum. Due to its in-depth carbon market knowledge and knowhow, the Brundtland team managed to structure the transaction at a price far above the going market rate at the time.

Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company. As a responsible corporate citizen, Sasol implemented secondary catalysts to mitigate N2O emissions at its Sasolburg and Secunda facilities. The project was registered and operated under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM ID: 0961) under extremely poor carbon market conditions, Brundtland structured and facilitated the sale of 243,896 CERs by Sasol to British Petroleum. Due to its in-depth carbon market knowledge and knowhow, the Brundtland team managed to structure the transaction at a price far above the going market rate at the time.

The African Sustainability Initiative (ASI) is a South African company that looks for ways to help transition the African economy onto a greener, cleaner and more sustainable path. ASI commissioned the registration of 5 programmes of Activities (poa) known as the Sustainability Platform under the Clean Development Mechanism:

• Southern Africa Solar Thermal Energy (SASTE)
• Southern African Renewable Energy (SARE)
• Southern Africa Solar Electrical Energy (SASEE)
• Southern African Fuel Switch (SAFS)
• Southern African Land Fill Gas to Energy (SALFGE)

Brundtland was appointed to register the SASTE and SARE programmes as PoAs under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The SASTE PoA was successfully registered on 15th May 2013. The SARE PoA covers South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland and was registered on the 25th of January 2013. The Brundtland team successfully designed cost effective, highly adaptable monitoring systems, plans and protocol to accommodate the different local circumstances.

Transalloys is the largest producer of SillicoManganese (SiMn) in South Africa. The production process of SiMn is very electricity intensive. Therefore, to address concerns around the climate change impact of the very carbon intensive power grid, Transalloys started the process of improving the electrical efficiency of its SiMn furnaces in late 2004. Furthermore, to ensure the financial viability of the energy efficiency project, Transalloys engaged the Brundtland team for the registration, monitoring, verification and commercialisation of the climate change benefits of the initiative under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). To date the project was registered under CDM ID: 1027 and has generated 77.7 million ZAR in revenue from the commercialisation of the Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) realised by the project.

The FX Group produces laminated boards for kitchens wardrobes, desks, display cabinets to name a few. The Brundtland team assisted the FX Group in raising finance for the 4.5 MW green power project. The total capital costs for the project are approximately R329 million with a further R35 million required for peak working capital. Following the identification of potential providers of grant, equity and debt finance from within its extensive ‘green funding and financing’ network, the team went on to develop a prospectus for the project and established an investor data room. Based on the different term sheets provided by interested parties, the Brundtland team assisted the FX group in developing the optimal funding and financing structure and started negotiations with potential investors. FX Group reached financial close in September 2017 with the Industrial Development Cooperation (IDC) as main financier and a guarantee facility from USAID. The biomass power plant is expected to be commissioned in 2020.

This EU co-funded three-year project is executed jointly by the Clay Brick Association of Southern Africa, Brundtland and our European partner, Partners for Innovation. The objective is to promote inclusive sustainable practices regarding the production of clay bricks and its use in the built environment. The project specifically targets Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) as well as the informal sector.

Brundtland is specifically involved in the development and implementation of a sustainability framework and transformation plan for the clay brick sector, which will clearly define sustainability indicators to be monitored during the production of clay bricks and their use within the built environment. In addition, Brundtland tailored a clay brick specific sustainability monitoring portal based on its EPCAMTM monitoring platform which assists clay brick makers in the monthly monitoring of various sustainability indicators relating to, among others, energy usage, water consumption, waste generation, air pollution and employment equity.

The Clay Brick Association (CBA) represents the formal South African clay brick producers. Since the production of clay bricks is covered under the Carbon Tax, Brundtland has assisted the CBA on an ongoing basis, both internally directed to its members and externally towards National Treasury (NT) and other government stakeholders. The main activity under this ongoing support includes the development of a sector specific Carbon Tax impact assessment tool. During the assignment, public comments to the different policy papers and the draft Carbon Tax bills was provided. Brundtland also assisted the CBA in the updating and finalisation of the sector benchmark to be used as a showcase example for other sectors on the request by NT.

Brundtland successfully applied for the inclusion of the Clay Brick Association of South Africa (CBA) in the EU funded SWITCH Africa Green programme. In this way, we assisted the industry association to access international funding targeted toward low-carbon project developers. This allowed the CBA to implement a three-year project to promote inclusive sustainable practices.

The SWITCH Africa Green programme was developed by the European Union in 2013, targeting four high-priority sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, integrated waste management and tourism. The aim is to support stakeholders in Africa in achieving sustainable development by transitioning to an inclusive green economy based on sustainable consumption and production. It provides opportunities for the private sector to move to more resource-efficient, environmentally sound business practices that also increase profitability, create green jobs and reduce poverty. The collaboration with partners in the public and private sectors aims at advancing green business development, eco-entrepreneurship and sustainable consumption and production practices.

The Ngodwana biomass project concerns a 25MW greenfield power plant located at the Sappi Ngodwana pulp and paper mill site in South Africa. The Project will source forestry and pulp and paper mill biomass residues from Sappi Southern Africa Ltd.’s for the generation of power in a power-only plant. The renewable electricity will be exported to the national grid where it will displace grid electricity, which in South Africa is largely generated by the state-owned entity Eskom and has a high carbon-intensity due to its considerable reliance on fossil-fuels such as coal and diesel.

Brundtland provided support to the successful registration of the GHG mitigation project under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). Services included finding the most appropriate methodology, writing the Project Description, including applicable monitoring plan, and guiding the project through the official validation process with the accredited auditor. The project was registered with the VCS on 5 May 2022 under the VCS ID: 1982 and title: “Ngodwana Biomass to Energy Project” (see below reference to the Verra Project Database for further information). The Brundtland team will also be involved with the first verification of the GHG emission reductions realised.

Brundtland and Geo Ingenieria S.A. (local Colombian partner) started the development of a regional renewable energy PoA under the CDM. This PoA was envisaged to include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. The focus of the programme is wind energy; however, it was envisaged to also cater for other renewable energy technologies (e.g. hydro and solar). The estimated annual generation of the initial four project activity instances is 382,634 MWh, thus the average GHG emission reductions is 92,710 tCO2e. Using the CDM documentation, the PoA was converted by our partner Geo Ingeneria into a VCS Grouped Project under VCS.

Durban Solid Waste is the waste management branch for the municipality of eThekwini (formally know as Durban). DSW operates the largest landfill in South Africa located at Bisasar road at which it installed a state of the art landfill gas extraction, utilisation and destruction facility. In March 2009, the Landfill gas to energy project was registered under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) with project ID: 1921. The municipality contracted Brundtland to realise the verification and commercialisation of the Certified Emission Reductions (CER) generated by the project from the 31st December 2012. To date the Brundtland team has realised the issuance and commercialisation of approximately 700,000 carbon credits from the project.

Both Vattenfall and Enel are among the largest utilities in the world. To mitigate their exposure both entities embarked on an elaborate green generation programme including the development of renewable energy projects under the South African Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Purchase (REIPPP) programme. Following a detailed Carbon Feasibility Study conducted by Brundtland in 2011 for two PV projects under development by MedEnergy Brundtland was commissioned by the Vattenfall Energy Trading Netherlands B.V. and Enel green Power to develop a Southern African Renewable Energy (SARE) Programme of Activities (PoA) under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The programme went into validation in August 2011 with Bureau Veritas as Designated Operational Entity. The PoA covers South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Swaziland and was registered on the 25th of January 2013. Since its registration, Enel Green Power has become the largest developer of renewable Energy projects under the REIPPP Programme and Vattenfall joined the PoA for the development of projects in Southern Africa outside of South Africa itself.

The focus of this study was to develop Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission performance guidelines for a selection of fourteen energy intensive South African sectors to inform climate change mitigation assessments and the allocation of carbon space as part of environmental authorisations for new entrants. The technical study reflects on GHG intensity performance standards used around the world, localises international standards and looks at locally established standards. Finally, local performance was compared to international standards.

The guidelines were established in close consultation with stakeholders from industry. Sector-specific meetings took place and a general public consultation workshop was conducted. The technical document will be used as a reference document for both government and industry.

The objective of the study was to conduct a detailed study on Waste to Energy technologies and practices that will enable the determination of future policy direction by the Department. As part of the assignment, Brundtland reviewed the environmental management legislative framework across various spheres of government, conducted a national and international analysis of relevant technologies, estimated the respective costs and benefits of the various technologies and mapped the availability of feedstock in the country. Moreover, against this context, the most appropriate, efficient and economically sensible technologies were identified.

An extensive stakeholder consultation took place whereby various meetings took place with operators of leading waste-to-energy projects in the country. In addition, stakeholder inputs were obtained by means of three regional workshops in Tshwane, Cape Town and eThekwini respectively.

The study was commissioned by the South African Department of Trade and Industry to examine the current policy and regulatory framework surrounding green road transport technologies in the country. The main objective was to provide the necessary information to guide effective policy, regulation and incentives to support the development of South Africa’s nascent green transport industry. The analysis focused on the following technologies: electric vehicles (EVs), compressed biogas (CBG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles as well as biofuels blending practices. The study provided an overview of projects and initiatives currently in the country and looked at a number of international success stories to distil key messages and lessons learned. The project was finalised with a skill transfer session for selected dti staff on data gathering and processing methods in this area.

As part of a wider support programme funded by UKDFID, the Brundtland team studied the uptake of biogas technologies and the use of biogas for transport particularly in South Africa. The team made a techno-economic evaluation of local biogas production, assessing potential sources of biomass, available technologies and the economic viability. As part of this, a comparative attractiveness assessment of biogas for transport versus the use of biogas for heating and electricity was performed. An international and national policy analysis took place to inform the synthesis of options for policy development that promotes the production and use of biogas as a transport fuel. The report has been published by the Department of Environmental Affairs.

INFINIT Value Engineering located in Spain is targeting the African market with their novel integrated Waste to Energy concept for municipal, forestry and agricultural waste. Activities concern the identification of appropriate municipal, industrial, agricultural and forestry waste streams, project development and attracting funding and financing from local and international funders/financiers. The integrated waste concept includes a combination of gasification, pyrolysis, bio-digestion and palletizing technologies. In case of municipal waste, up to 90% can be diverted from landfilling. The projects under development are envisaged to benefit from selling offsets under the South African carbon tax and as such emission reductions are being quantified considering various registration standards and methodologies.

Brundtland assisted with the development of business cases regarding commercial algae farming and industrial processing of human food supplements from the algae oil as well as animal and aquaculture feed from the algae cake. The assistance provided included assessment of the patent position, financial and market analysis as well as preparing a presentation slide pack to be used for finding project partners and approaching funders/financiers. The Brundtland team also facilitated introductions to the European Investment Bank, the Energy and Environment Partnership facility as well as Operation Phakisa an initiative of the South African government.

The South African government implemented a carbon tax in June 2019. Under the carbon tax, a performance allowance of up to 5% applies for companies that outperform the sector average GHG intensity benchmark. To implement the allowance, 17 sector benchmark proposals were submitted by industry to National Treasury. In partnership with Ricardo Energy and Environment, based in the UK, the objective of the project was to a review these 17 benchmarks on the basis of a standardised evaluation framework, including the following criteria: applied methodology, robustness, transparency, consistency, completeness, accuracy and uncertainty.

The project consisted of the development of a GHG benchmark evaluation framework based on international guidelines / best practices, a technical assessment of the benchmarks in line with the above criteria, the development of an implementation plan for corrective actions as well as engagements with the various stakeholders over the course of the project.