The First programme of Environmental Mentorship

During three days, 30 selected mentors took part in panel discussions on a wide range of environmental issues: from separate garbage sorting to the energy sustainability of communities. Now, having received all the necessary knowledge and mastered the tools, mentors will go to the communities that we selected at the first stage, and start cooperation with leaders during September-December of this year.

The zero waste concept is about conscious consumption, minimising amount of waste, and giving preference to reusable items instead of “convenient” disposable ones. And this is a necessity for the world in general and Ukraine in particular. However, how can communities implement this concept?

Iryna Myronova, executive director of NGO Zero Waste Lviv, coordinator of ZW Cities, member of the Board of Zero Waste Alliance Ukraine, using an example of Lviv, a pilot project of zero waste city in Ukraine, shared her experience with mentors on how to initiate environmental changes in a community.

What is strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)? How do these tools differ, and how can people use them?

For successful work with EIA, it is important to understand the legal framework for Environmental Impact Assessment, its stages, and features of public participation. Maryna Shymkus, project manager of European Business Association and expert on EIA and SEA, helped our mentors to understand these complex issues.

She told the participants of the programme of Environmental Mentorship of Communities about procedural nuances of conducting an environmental impact assessment and importance of public control in the field of EIA.

In a few years, Ukraine has turned from a white spot on the map of Europe into a country with a developed system of equipment for monitoring air quality. Today, in just a few clicks, you can find out air quality in almost any part of Ukraine, but how can someone influence on the reduction of air pollution on ones own?

Fine dust and emissions from large enterprises both worsen comfort and cause development of many diseases. Clean air is vital for people. Therefore, it is important to understand how communities and local authorities can monitor and control environment, influence pollutants, and prevent violations of licensing procedures.

To answer all these questions, Artem Romanyukov, Co-founder and development director of Saveecobot and SaveDnipro and a 2018 USPS alumni, shared with mentors successful cases of environmental control of enterprises and introduced them to air quality monitoring tools.

Communities depend on energy. In addition, not everyone has yet learned how to use it effectively and, when possible, economically. Therefore, it is now important to explain to communities that energy efficiency is both financially reasonable and helps to avoid crisis situations caused by natural disasters. Every community should have a crisis response plan and the possibility of uninterrupted power supply.

Andriy Zinchenko, Co-founder of NGO Greencubator and a participant of this year USPS programme, told mentors where communities can get energy from, how to avoid crises, and become energy resilient. But using an example of his project of Municipal Energy Cooperative “Sunny City”, he demonstrated that energy is both a matter of large capital and of local communities, groups of people.

Lack of sorting skills, of necessary infrastructure, of understanding the scale of pollution and its consequences are the main reasons for improper waste management in Ukraine at present. Because of this, only 5% of waste is sorted in Ukraine.

Fortunately, we have caring people who develop the sorting culture in Ukraine. One of them is Artem Myrhorodskiy, Executive director and founder of GreenAge Project, CEO of BioBin, and a 2007 USPS alumni.

From his own experience, he explained how to turn garbage sorting into a profitable business. There is a demand for recycling and sorting in society, we just need to provide people and businesses with convenient tools for that.

Clean water is another vital condition for the development and functioning of communities. Data from a study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Ukraine) for 2020 show that water pollution and poor quality drinking water are the No. 1 environmental problem that concerns Ukrainians.

However, how to solve “water” problems in Ukraine? Where to start this path? Mariana Hinzula, an Expert on Water Resources Protection, worked on details with environmental mentors.

According to the speaker, renovation of water facilities of a territory is one of the key issues of community development, which will solve a complex of environmental and socio-cultural problems of the territory. However, saving water bodies requires a systematic and professional approach. There is no unsolvable environmental problem, but everything comes at a price. You will have to pay for preservation of water bodies – with money, time, and efforts of caring people.

In recent years, we were witnessing climate changes in Ukraine: abnormal heat, floods in cities, and an increase in the number of fires. Adapting to those changes is a serious challenge for communities.

Olena Maslyukivska, Associate professor of the Department of ecology of National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, curator of the programme of Environmental mentorship of communities and 2008 USPS alumna, conducted an interactive training for our environmental mentors on adaptation to climate change.

How much will climate change in Ukraine? How will climate changes affect Ukrainian communities? What are the challenges associated with climate change? How can we help communities adapt to those changes, and how to properly work with the stages of adaptation activities? Participants had an opportunity to discuss that with the expert.

Working with open data is a popular and effective direction in many areas. In 2014, working with open data came out even in the Anti-Corruption Strategy. And in 2015, the Cabinet of ministers approved Resolution No. 835, that determined which data sets are subject to publication in the form of open data.

Benefits of using open data in environmental matters may not be obvious to everyone, but working with it correctly makes it much easier to solve many environmental problems.

Andriy Hnap, Co–founder and data analyst at Waste Ukraine Analytics, told our mentors about that extremely complex topic. Andriy managed to explain as clearly and easily as possible how to work with open data on the state of environment.

From 1970 to 2016, a decline in species population increased to a frightening 68%. That has contributed to the fact that now the decrease of biodiversity is on the 4th place among global risks by the level of impact.

Humanity needs to stop careless use of ecosystem services and switch to nature–oriented solutions – that is, to focus efforts on protecting, effective management, and restoration of natural or modified ecosystems.

Olena Tarasova, Project manager and expert of UNDP Ukraine, told mentors how to do that and how to involve communities into a transition to nature-oriented solutions. She shared her experience of work with communities and tools for engaging ATC in biodiversity conservation.

Now we are moving on to stage 3 of the project – cooperation between mentors and communities. This is the longest and most difficult stage, but we are convinced that by the end of this year, communities will feel changes for the better.

We hope that this project will be an impetus for communities not to stop but to take more care of environment even after the end of the programme. If this experience is successful, we plan to expand mentoring support for communities in other areas, so we are already waiting for the third stage of this year project.

The School of Community Leaders – Programme of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies and the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, which is implemented with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.