15 May 2023

Valorsul and LIPOR present paths to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050

Companies Organize Conference on Carbon Use in Energy Recovery Plants and directions to Achieve the Paris Agreement Goals

Valorsul and LIPOR have organized a Conference to debate with leading international specialists the issues of Capture, Storage and Use of the Carbon generated in the Energy Recovery Plants, with the objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

The debate took place today in Lisbon and was attended by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro. The session was also attended by José Manuel Ribeiro, Chairman of the Board of Directors of LIPOR, Marta Neves, Chief Executive Officer of Valorsul and Nuno Lacasta, Chairman of the Board of the Portuguese Environment Agency.

The Paris Agreement, signed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015, established the commitment to move towards carbon neutrality by 2050, with the objective of halting climate change and preventing harmful consequences for the planet. Under debate were the paths, solutions and commitments to be implemented by organizations and states in the coming years.

Valorsul has been a pioneer in the use of waste transportation vehicles powered by natural gas, as well as in the valorization of the selective flow of bio-waste, which has gained increasing prominence at the environmental level since it largely contributes to the reduction of CO2 equivalent emissions. And it continues to work on the transition from the current waste value chain to a resource value chain, maximizing the reintroduction of materials into the economy, and to seek low-carbon solutions for the company's future treatment plants and collection and transportation systems.

According to Marta Neves, Chief Executive Officer of Valorsul, "It is of utmost urgency that we think about how we are all going to work together in this sector to achieve these important goals of the Paris Agreement, which should be a common concern of private and public organizations as well as citizens. The goals that we must achieve are already part of Valorsul's strategy. The paths are the ones we are discussing today at a higher technical level.”

LIPOR has a clear goal of decarbonizing its operational activities regarding the Recovery of Municipal Waste produced in the Greater Porto region.

Besides several initiatives and projects underway, the issue of capturing the CO2 produced at Maia's Energy Recovery Plant is essential to significantly reduce LIPOR's carbon footprint, and it also represents an important asset that will allow us to consider the development of a Project to produce ecological synthetic fuels.

According to José Manuel Ribeiro, Chairman of LIPOR's Board of Directors, "the transformation of LIPOR's current business model and our search for partnerships to develop high added value products is a reality that does not ignore highly complex projects, but which have a very high environmental and even economic value, as is the case of the production of ecological fuels for the aviation sector".

The conference was attended by:

Fabio Poretti, Technical & Scientific O_cer, CEWEP - Confederation of European Waste to Energy Plants
Johnny Stuen, CCUS, Hydrogen, WtE/EfW and biogas - project development and Execution
Rahul Anantharaman, Sintef / TNO - Norwegian Research Institute
Alicia Mansour, Strategy & Innovation Veolia, Portugal
Christoph Weber, P2X (H&R Gruppe + Mabanaft), Hamburg
Pedro Guedes Campos, Smartenergy Portugal / Pedro Furtado, REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais
Lídia Pereira, Member of the European Parliament
Mark Preston Aragonès, Bellona-Europa | The EU taxonomy and CCSU projects
Assunção Cristas, Vieira de Almeida/Nova School of Law | Financing CCSU
Sofia Santos, Systemic
Kim Brinck, Ramboll
Alicia Mansour, Strategy & Innovation Veolia, Portugal
Christoph Weber, P2X (H&R Gruppe & Mabanaft), Hamburg
Pedro Guedes Campos, Smartenergy Portugal
Sónia Montón Subías, Technip Energies, Norway