Over a third of global GHG emissions come from the industrial sector. If business continues as usual, heavy industrial sectors will account for the world’s entire carbon budget in 2050, and the Paris Agreement will be out of reach. What we need now is a new industrial revolution to drastically reduce the environmental footprint of the manufacturing sector, while supporting social and economic wellbeing through inclusive and sustainable industrial development. The Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator is a UNIDO-led network of international initiatives working to accelerate the shift of industrial organizations – both large and small – away from fossil-fuels.
Fueling industrial decarbonization solutions
UNIDO's Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator: Accelerating the transition of industries worldwide to a net zero economy
Overview
Approach
Our scalable decarbonization solutions leverage on our collective wealth of experience from working with a wide range of industries around the globe.
Working with government and industrial stakeholders in emerging and developing economies, to drive momentum for energy efficiency with tailored training for industries, improved access to finance for entrepreneurs and policy advice for governments.
Helping industries from all sectors to integrate emerging sources of clean energy mainly to generate heat. These include biomass, solar thermal systems, green hydrogen, waste heat recovery technologies and others.
Facilitating the creation of policy that enables industrial
decarbonization, by creating a thriving market for low
carbon industrial products such as steel, cement, chemicals and others.
The duration varies depending on the specific solution used, ranging from several months to a few years for full project implementation.
Global
Impact
The project aims to enable sustainable industry development, drastically cut industrial GHG emissions, and put the world on track to net-zero. It will create local green jobs and foster market creation for low-carbon industrial products such as steel and cement. Additionally, it seeks to establish global standards for comparability and to define low and near-zero emission steel, cement, and concrete.
Key Indicators
SDGs:
UNIDO Priorities:
Thematic Area(s):
“Industrial decarbonization offers great opportunities to slash emissions and make major contributions to reaching our global net-zero emissions targets. With the support of our partners, UNIDO makes sure that the technologies and know-how needed to advance sustainable industry decarbonization are made accessible to all.”
Riccardo Savigliano
Technology Used
Electrification, Green hydrogen, Renewable energy and energy management, Waste heat recovery, Industrial heating and cooling systems, Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage (CCUS), District cooling, Heating and Alternative fuels
Catalytic Outlook
Governments and industry players are taking action towards climate-neutral industry by 2050 and collaborating across the global and value chains to deploy decarbonization technologies and solutions.
Unique Solution Characteristics
Working in-country forges critical relationships with local governments and industry players. Collaboration is encouraged across sectors, stakeholders and countries to improve collective impact and share experiences with the world.
- Global Environment Facility
- European Union (EU)
- Mitigation Action Facility
- Government of Germany
- Government of Canada
- Government of the United Kingdom
- Government of Switzerland
Training and know-how (inc. ISO 50001 training programmes);
Technology solutions kits;
Toolkit to explore the energy-saving potential by country;
Financing solutions;
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) industry;
decarbonization support toolkit (upcoming);
Case studies;
Advocacy and policy support
