ALBERT

Description: In light of Egypt's transition to a green economy, this report focuses on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing resource efficiency along three different value chains in which small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role. In order to support SMEs in Egypt to take advantage of implementing greening options along value chains, more detailed analyses are needed. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse three selected supply chains to identify greening opportunities for SMEs. Against this background, the project report is structured as follows: Chapter 2 introduces the background with an overview over the concept of green economy followed by Egypt's economy and its green economy. This is followed by a presentation of the value chains and an overview of the respective sectors. Chapter 3 describes the research approach, methods and data collection. The following chapters examine the three selected value chains cotton, sugar beet and refrigerators, including environmental hot spots, greening options as well as the experts' evaluation of those greening options. The report concludes with key recommendations in Chapter 7.

Description: In order to limit global warming and fulfill their contributions to the Paris agreement, both Germany and Japan have set targets for climate neutrality towards the middle of the century. Reaching these goals will imply transformation of all sectors of society to avoid all fossil greenhouse gas emissions, heavy industry not the least. The focus of this study is the transformation of the petrochemical industry. This sector can become climate neutral but cannot be "decarbonized", as carbon is integral to the chemical structures of the products like polymers and solvents. Reaching climate neutrality thus means that the whole lifecycle of the petrochemical products has to be regarded. Another specific challenge is today's synergetic relation of this industry to fossil transport fuel production, which cannot be maintained in a climate neutral world. The two countries interestingly share a similar industrial structure overall, and the chemical and petrochemical industry is one of the major industries in both countries. The countries' respective chemical industries are the third and fourth largest in the world in terms of sales, but at the same time, these industries represent just over 5% of the respective countries' greenhouse gas emissions. However, these scope 1 emissions of the chemical industry itself are far less relevant than the end-of-life emissions of their products, which belong to scope 3 and are thus not counted under the chemical industry in the country greenhouse gas balances. To mediate these emissions, there is a need to set the direction, draw out paths and investigate possible alternatives for how the petrochemical industry can be become climate neutral. In this report, the existing scenario analyses, energy strategies and roadmaps dealing with this issue in the two countries are compared, as well as the current state of their petrochemical industries. We highlight similarities, differences and identify possible areas of cooperation and exchange in order to find robust paths forward for the transformation of the petrochemical industries.