On 3 May 2012 UNIDO convened the first Interim Advisory Board Meeting for the Green Industry Platform to discuss and gather inputs and comments on the Platform. In this context, Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers gave a presentation on "Resource Efficiency Targets and Indicators".
In 2009, the United Nation's Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has launched the Green Industry Initiative with the objective to mainstream social and environmental considerations into the operations of enterprises, inter alia through
- more efficient use of energy and raw materials,
- innovative practices,
- and applications of new green technologies.
This Initiative shall be supported and implemented through a global high-level multi-stakeholder action partnership - to be known as the Green Industry Platform. The Green Industry Platform will serve as a forum for catalyzing, mobilizing and mainstreaming action on Green Industry around the world. To this end, it will
- provide a framework for bringing together governmental, business and civil society leaders to secure concrete commitments and mobilize action in support of the Green Industry agenda;
- contribute both to cleaner and more competitive industrial development, and will help reduce pollution and reliance on unsustainable use of natural resources by encouraging the more efficient use of energy and raw materials in manufacturing processes and services.
The Platform will both create new green industries and help greening existing industries, i.e. improving their contributions to societal and ecological protection.
The presentation of Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers on "Resource Efficiency Targets and Indicators" [pdf, 470 kB, English] was based on the results from the study "Integrating resource efficiency, greening of industrial production and green industries – scoping of and recommendations for effective indicators", which was undertaken for UNIDO as a scoping of existing resource indicators to assess their potential applicability for measuring progress towards the greening of industries and fostering green industries.
In the context of the process to establish the Green Industry Platform, both the study's and the presentation's purpose is to provide analytical support and to contribute to discussions on potentially relevant indicators for sustainable industries within the Platform.