For the fourth year in a row, STELLA Consulting, on behalf of the European Commission and in collaboration with MWH and the EU Member States, has successfully completed the 28 annual Information Sessions aimed at informing potential applicants about the LIFE+ Programme.  As required by the Commission, the Information Sessions presented to potential applicants the requirements for submitting a proposal.  In particular, they helped potential applicants decide whether to submit a LIFE+ proposal, and highlighted some key issues to help avoid common problems when submitting a proposal.

Each year between 2008 and 2011, STELLA has organised an Information Session in each EU Member State in the national language, with two Information Sessions in Belgium.  The Information Sessions were held each year shortly after the publication of the annual Call for Proposals under the LIFE+ Programme.  The Call covered the three components of LIFE+: nature and biodiversity; environment policy and governance; and information and communication.

Over the past four years, the Information Sessions have reached annually up to 2,700 potential LIFE+ applicants, and the high quality LIFE+ PowerPoint Presentation and other materials reached an even wider audience via the European Commission LIFE website.

Participants were drawn from a wide range of organisations, from national Ministries and municipalities, through SMEs, environmental NGOs and consultancies, to universities and research organisations.  In 2011, STELLA again increased the number of participants in most of the Information Sessions and successfully identified new audiences who previously had no knowledge of the LIFE+ Programme, but are potentially eligible for co-financing under the Programme. 

For more information about the LIFE+ Programme, please visit the following website: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/index.htm where the LIFE+ PowerPoint Presentations in the national language of each country (except Malta and Ireland) are available

STELLA Consulting is studying the feasibility of recovering biogas from the two largest landfills in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.  One of the landfills started receiving waste in 1947, while the second one has been receiving waste since 1986.  

This study will be used to design, finance, build and operate a Waste-to-Energy plant, which will convert landfill gas to electricity.  It will assess options for extracting biogas from the two landfills and quantify the Certified Emission Reductions that the plant could generate if the project is approved as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol.  The study will further calculate the Net Present value and Internal Rate of Return of the preferred option. 

In a wider context, this study is expected to advance the use of municipal solid waste for electricity production in Sierra Leone and in other countries in Africa

The European Commission’s DG Environment has selected STELLA Consulting to estimate the costs and benefits of natural water retention measures, and their potential for increasing resilience to climate change.  Natural water retention measures aim to reduce or slow down the flow of water in a river basin, thereby decreasing flood risk in an area. 

The 12 month-project will also analyse the potential of EU policy and funding instruments to promote no-regret measures at the EU level as well as the best instruments to create synergies between the EU policy framework in place and these measures at a river basin level.  It will also help disseminate and make more visible the implementation of these measures at the EU level and their potential side benefits.  This study feeds into other EU initiatives and legislation such as the Flood Directive and the Water Framework Directive and its River Basins Management Plans (RBMP).

STELLA’s multidisciplinary team includes experts in civil and environmental engineering, water and sanitation, climate change, cost-benefit analysis, and EU financial schemes and policies.  The experts are from Belgium, France, Hungary and Italy.

On the basis of the information gathered by the Commission’s call for evidence on the costs and benefits of natural water retention measures, STELLA will build a metadata catalogue to structure all the information and compile a sample of measures of EU relevance.  STELLA will select a geographically and typologically representative sample of measures of EU relevance which would be suitable for generalisation at the EU scale.  We will also evaluate the efficiency of these measures in relation to the variability of the natural environment, socio-economic factors, and policy context.  We will provide a quantitative estimate of the potential for natural water retention measures at EU level, and their costs and benefits. 

STELLA will also assess whether the selected measures contribute to sustainable water management, adaptation to climate change and also alleviation of already existing problems (e.g., biodiversity loss).  After describing these “no-regret” measures and their co-benefits, we will provide DG Environment with policy recommendations on the potential implementation barriers or critical success factors for no-regret measures.

In the next three years, Ogilvy and STELLA, as one of its subcontractors, will assist the European Commission’s DG Environment in its “strategic development and implementation of communication campaigns in the field of the environment” at the EU level.  The objective of this new €7.5 million framework contract is to provide integrated communication services to ensure that DG Environment reach its communication objectives efficiently, swiftly and with high quality. 

The services will range from advice for designing and preparing activities, developing messages adapted to the target audience in the most appropriate form to be broadcasted on all media, to coordinating and implementing communication actions and following up on these actions and measuring their impacts (both qualitative and quantitative).  For all of these services, Ogilvy and its three subcontractors (STELLA, Birdlife International, and TNS Dimarso) will also analyse existing data and carry out research to ensure the appropriateness of the messages and
actions and the quality of the campaigns. 

STELLA will particularly support Ogilvy, one of the eight largest advertising networks in the world, on the technical content of environmental communication given STELLA’s broad knowledge of EU environmental policies and hands on experience in policy implementation.  STELLA will also play an essential role in the framework contract, given STELLA's renowned experience in raising awareness on environmental issues and training environmental stakeholders at EU level.

STELLA Consulting and its partners in the LIFE III project "IWPM Integrated Wastewater Purification Management" met on 05.11.2011 in Paris to assess progress on project implementation.

The IWPM Project aims to demonstrate how wastewater management can improve through an innovative IWPM system, increasing the quality of effluent and reducing costs, in support of EU Directives on Wastewater, Integrated River Basin Management and Habitats.
During the meeting, STELLA presented the results of its work on IWPM’s transferability to other EU Member States, which could benefit from this cost effective system to improve their wastewater treatment.  There may be a potential case for IWPM replication in Chiclana de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain.  Overall, the project is well on track to achieving its objectives; according to the coordinator, Prof. Rudolph, the system is working well and the project should be finalised according to plan (October 2011).  

The meeting participants visited the Maurepas wastewater treatment plant in a Parisian suburb.  The plant, with a capacity of 36,000 population equivalent (p.e.), consists of primary and secondary treatments.  The visit to the plant prompted interesting discussions on wastewater treatment and new technologies in the EU and abroad.

The meeting was very fruitful and provided an opportunity to discuss the next steps of the project, including a visit by the counterparts from Chiclana to the IWPM demonstration wastewater plant in Germany.  

For more information on the project, please visit the project website: www.eu-life-iwpm.de/english/index-eng.html

STELLA Consulting is continuing to assist Romania’s Government in its implementation of its Environment Sectoral Operational Programme (SOP ENV).  In this €1.16 million project, STELLA works in a consortium led by Interdevelopment and in charge of assisting Romania’s Intermediate Bodies (IB) in evaluating the proposals submitted by various institutions in response to the calls for proposals under SOP ENV’s Priority Axis 4 (PA4 on nature and biodiversity).  We will summarise the results of this assistance in technical reports on the selection of projects under PA 4. 

STELLA is also organising a large number of training sessions on project cycle management, cost-benefit analysis, nature conservation and management of Natura 2000 sites and protected areas, legislation, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  These sessions use interactive-oriented training methods (e.g., questions and answers and discussions) and engage the trainees to work on practical exercises.  The training sessions include five four-day and five three-day sessions with 30 participants per session and 24 one-day sessions with 40 participants per session. 
 

STELLA Consulting is working in a three-year $7.2 million project financed by the USAID to assist the Government of Kosovo in implementing national policy reforms in the water supply and sanitation sector.  STELLA works in a consortium led by Tetra Tech and in charge of supporting and strengthening the long-term financial and technical sustainability of Kosovo's Regional Water Companies (RWCs).  STELLA provides the Regional Technical Coordinator, responsible for liaising with RWC counterparts on all issues related to technical assistance and infrastructure construction implementation and interaction with senior government officials, donors, and other key stakeholders in Kosovo's water supply and sanitation sector.