INTRODUCTION GN: Introduce Yourself. I’m Katsiaryna Viadziorchyk, a 22-year old international relations graduate. I’m from Minsk, Belarus. I like Mumford and Sons, historical movies and traveling. As a student, I organized several international youth events and I like to see things moving forward. Katsiaryna Viadziorchyk.
GN: How many years have you been working in your industry? 9 months ago, I joined EKOenergy as a volunteer of the European Erasmus+ program. This is my ‘sabbatical year’ in which I want to do something useful for society and for the environment whilst getting a lot of new interesting experiences and contacts. At EKOenergy, I focus mainly on stakeholders in Russia and Russian speaking countries. Our aim is to make Russian consumers enthusiastic about renewable energy. This is my first experience in the energy sector.
THE COMPANY GN: Describe your company. EKOenergy is a not-for-profit organization that promotes renewable energy. Our most visible tool is our EKOenergy label for sustainable renewable electricity, which we launched in 2013. We started in Europe but are now also preparing for launch in other continents. Our members, over 40 environmental NGOs from over 30 countries, decide about the global strategy and the budget. The daily management is in the hands of the Secretariat, which is based in Helsinki. GN: How big is EKOenergy? After only 3 years of activities, we now certify 1 TWh of green electricity and we have about 50 licensed sellers in 15 countries. Both our volumes and network are growing fast. GN: Describe your mission, vision and values. We promote sustainable renewable energy and encourage consumers to ‘vote with their wallets’. Our ecolabel helps consumers navigate the electricity market. GN: Where is this company headed? Our size doubles each year and we want to continue at the same speed in the coming years. Our dream is to develop activities in all countries, with thousands of sellers and millions of proud EKOenergy consumers.
CLEAN ENERGY AND ITS IMPORTANCE GN: What is clean energy? All energy we promote comes from renewable sources: hydropower, wind, solar, biomass. What some people don’t realize is that the production of renewables can have an impact on the environment; hydropower can devastate river ecosystems and the production of biomass can result in deforestation. At EKOenergy, we take these aspects into account as well: we set strict sustainability criteria. GN: What’s the importance of pursuing clean energy? We all know that the fight against climate change is a race against the clock. Amidst a lot of scary news, there is at least one reason for hope: technically it is possible to replace all fossil fuels with renewable energy. Also financially it is possible, renewables have a reputation for being expensive when this is not the case. In many areas, renewable energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels, and the prices continue to fall. Where politicians and traditional companies don’t act (or don’t act fast enough), consumers can take an important role. Think of the RE100 (www.there100.org), a group of large multinationals, all striving for 100% renewable energy. Such actions aren’t only sound economic choices, they also accelerate the necessary, global growth of renewable energy. ISSUE NO.004 RENEWABLE ENERGY
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