The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) announced it has renewed its cooperation agreement with Eco-City Kitakyushu, in Japan, to promote green industry, including reducing industrial pollution and promoting e-waste recycling.
The three-year agreement, signed in Vienna, Austria, will include holding seminars on environmental industry management.
16 July 2013: The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) announced it has renewed its cooperation agreement with Eco-City Kitakyushu, in Japan, to promote green industry, including reducing industrial pollution and promoting e-waste recycling. The three-year agreement, signed in Vienna, Austria, will include holding seminars on environmental industry management.
UNIDO says the seminars will focus on training administrative officers from Asia and Africa in how to replicate the best practices of the Kitakyushu model, including legal, policy development and financing aspects. To date, the Kitakyushu initiative has resulted in decoupling economic and industrial growth from pollution, and establishing an electronic waste (e-waste) recycling project that exports e-waste from India to Kitakyushu for safe recycling. The initiative’s seminars provided support to meet the requirements of the Basel Convention for Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal.
UNIDO notes that Kitakyushu won the Japan Environment Agency Award in 1987, was awarded a Global 500 Award by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1990 for reducing industrial pollution, and was listed as a Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) “green growth model city” in 2011. [UNIDO Press Release] [UNIDO Seminar for Ecotown Managers Webpage] [Kitakyushi Asian Centre for a Low Carbon Environment]