Minutes WBA General Assembly 2016 Istanbul, Turkey. May 28, 2016

Minutes WBA General Assembly 2016 Istanbul, Turkey. May 28, 2016 Present: Chairman: Heinz Kopetz, President of WBA Full Members: Spanish Bioenergy As...
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Minutes WBA General Assembly 2016 Istanbul, Turkey. May 28, 2016

Present: Chairman: Heinz Kopetz, President of WBA Full Members: Spanish Bioenergy Association, proxy Christoph Pfemeter European Bioenergy Association, proxy Christoph Pfemeter Swedish Bioenergy Association, proxy Karin Haara Propellets, proxy Heinz Kopetz The Energy Farm International, proxy Bharadwaj Kummamuru CZ Biom, proxy Heinz Kopetz Eurosolar Turkey, Tanay Sidki Uyar Austrian Biomass Association, Christoph Pfemeter Norwegian Bioenergy Association, proxy Bharadwaj Kummamuru Fachverband Biogas e.V, proxy Heinz Kopetz New World Hope, proxy Remigijus Lapinskas Bioenergy Association of Turkey, Tanay Sidki Uyar Lithuanian Biomass Energy Association, Vilma Gaubyte Swedish Peat Producers Association, proxy Karin Haara Individual members: Andrew Lang, Australia Hazir Farouk, Sudan Douglas Bradley, Canada Heinz Kopetz, Austria Karin Haara, Sweden Bharadwaj Kummamuru, India Remigijus Lapinskas, Lithuania Observers: Leia McIntyre, Canada

1. Welcome/Opening The seventh General Assembly meeting of the World Bioenergy Association was called to order by Heinz Kopetz who welcomed all to the meeting at 11:00 am on 28th of May, 2016 at the Turkan Saylan Conference Center, floor +1, education room, T.C. Maltepe Municipality, Türkan Saylan Cultural Center, Istanbul, Turkey Memorial of Professor Sribas C. Bhattacharya: Prof. Sribas Bhattacharya was remembered at the meeting. He had been a constant supporter of WBA and had contributed to many WBA activities, represented WBA in many initiatives, organized the Kolkata roundtable conference in 2014 and a previous meeting in Delhi. He will always be remembered as a highly knowledgeable individual, great supporter and a dear friend. WBA is grateful to have had him in the board. General remarks: The Annual report for WBA 2015 including the Audit report has been sent beforehand by email. 2. Approval of the agenda Decision: Agenda was approved. 3. Appointment of a person, who together with the President will check and approve the minutes. Decision: Andrew Lang was decided to sign the minutes together with the president. 4. Annual Report 2015 and the period 2012-2016 Heinz Kopetz reported on his past activities in 2015 and current initiatives in 2016: “This is my last report; therefore, I will report first on the year 2015 and then, in a second part I will give a review of the last 4 years.” 4.1.1 Report of the president over the year 2015 Heinz Kopetz continued his report: “In 2015 bioenergy was faced with controversial developments. The declining oil price is becoming a threat for parts of the bioenergy industry; on the other side, the ambitious targets of COP 21 will increase the demand for bioenergy as soon as countries start to implement policies in line with COP 21. One of the key activities of WBA in 2015 was the global statistical report on bioenergy published in June 2015 for the 2nd time. With this statistical report we try to make bioenergy more visible on the global level. Bioenergy is by far the most important renewable energy source; its importance is growing in all continents. As our report shows countries with a high share of renewable energy like Sweden (above 50%) and Brazil (around 40%) all have a high share of bioenergy.

WBA also represented bioenergy during COP 21 in Paris with a side event together with REN Alliance, a press conference and a stand, where we distributed information material about bioenergy to participants. Specific activities: •

WBA published six bi-monthly newsletters for the members;



The work on fact sheets was continued with two Factsheets published: advanced biofuels and thermochemical gasification of biomass.



WBA also finished a flyer on bioenergy for cities; this flyer got financial support by the European Pellets Council, an insurance company and the city of Graz, in total 10 000 Euro.



With BED, the Bioenergy Equipment Directory, WBA launched a new initiative for a better technology transfer and additional revenues for WBA.



At the end of 2015 WBA set an initiative concerning the pricing of carbon by introducing carbon taxes as essential for the further development of the sector.



The number of members continues to grow from 151 in January to 182 by the end of 2015.



The financial situation was difficult but finally WBA could finish the year with a positive result and a total budget sum of around 170 000 Euro.



Personally. Lectures and activities: Contact with companies and possible donors to secure the financing of WBA,



Different lectures in European countries, participation at the global renewable conference in Cape town organized by REN21 and the government of South Africa, attending the steering committee meeting of REN 21 in Cape town.

4.1.2 The period 2012 to 2016 Mission of WBA: the global voice of bioenergy As Kent Nyström founded WBA in 2008, he saw clearly that bioenergy as the most important part of the renewable energy family needs a global representation similar to wind and solar technologies. In the last 4 years, I tried to build on the basis created by Kent Nyström. The working method of WBA – the role of the board and Vice Presidents: WBA has a small staff. At the beginning Karin Haara was the only permanent member of our staff, in 2013 we could increase our staff and were lucky to recruit Bharadwaj Kummamuru as new staff member. This gave us the possibility to start new activities. In 2012, we started with a series of fact sheets, soon we will reach the number ten, on specific issues concerning bioenergy such as carbon neutrality, biogas, gasification, biofuels, potential etc. In 2013, we started the project global bioenergy statistics and in June 2014 WBA published for the first time a global statistics report on the role of bioenergy worldwide. This was done by Bharadwaj and supported by a steering committee.

In 2014 we elaborated within a cooperation with the government of Vojvodina, a Bioenergy Action Plan for this region. This project also helped us to finance the budget 2014. In 2015, we started as new project the Bioenergy Equipment Directory (BED) to support the technology transfer and to offer additional services to our associated members and to improve our income situation. The members of the board play an important role in our work in different aspects. We invite all the board members to join WBA as individual members and they help us to gain additional members to broaden the financial basis. We also invite them to give lectures on bioenergy and to use these lecture to mention WBA and to invite companies to join us. In addition, we ask them to support WBA by ideas, by developing and participating at projects and improve the financing. I would like to thank in particular Andrew Lang for his activities in this respect. We organize 4 board meeting per year: 1 -2 as personal meetings, 2 - 3 a telephone meetings. We also tried to make at least one study tour per year and to combine the general assembly with such a tour and an international conference. In the last 4 years we went to the following countries: Study tours to different parts of the world and country reports: 2013: Brazil 2014: India 2015: Kenya 2016: Turkey Lectures of board members and the President in all parts of the world: Based on lectures of board members in different parts of the world and on our study tours, WBA published different country reports on: Brazil, Zambia, Kenya, Sudan etc. Position papers and press releases: The publication of position papers and press releases is important to improve the visibility of WBA and its influence. Several position paper and press releases have been published over the years to influence decisions in favour of bioenergy. Representing bioenergy on the global level: Cooperation with IRENA – a letter of cooperation was signed for statistics. We also assist IRENA in REMap – the IRENA strategy document to double renewables by 2036. REN 21: WBA is in the Steering Committee REN ALLIANCE: WBA is part of the steering committee Initiatives: Founder of Go 100% renewables (GO100RE) We also work with IEA, UNEP, FAO etc. The participation at the global climate conferences became an important activity of WBA. It offers the possibility to gather contacts of representatives of the business world, the governments and the scientific community. WBA organized in the last years together with our

partners of REN Alliance side events, press conferences etc. WBA was present at the last 6 COPs. UNFCCC participation at all climate conferences: Paris 2015 Lima 2014 Warzaw 2013 Doha 2012 Durban 2011 Cancun 2010 Member development number of members by the end of the year: The strength of WBA also depends on the number of members. Over the last years, it was possible to increase the numbers of members steadily from 52 to more than 180 now; WBA has now 22 full members, 52 associated members (companies) and 120 individual members from all parts of the world. Our members come from Africa (23), Americas (24) Asia (34) Oceania (6) and Europe. (98). WBA is still too much concentrated on Europe. 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 May

52 90 121 (18 F, 40 A, 63 I) 151 (21 F, 45 A, 85 I) 179 (23 F, 55A, 101 I) 182 (22 F, 53 A, 120 I)

The financial development: The financial situation and the financing of WBA is changing and it is a permanent challenge for the president, the staff and the board. At the beginning, the financing was mainly based on grants from the Swedish energy agency. This money flow stopped in 2012. In 2012 and 2013, we tried to increase the revenues from sponsors and from Bioenergy Connect (BC). This was for several years successful – I thank our main sponsors ANDRITZ; KWB; AGRANA and the Norwegian Viking Heat Engine company. After the drop of oil prices, some of them ended the sponsorship. BC was at the end not successful and had to be stopped to avoid the loss of money. In the last two years, we tried to increase the income from member fees, publications, projects and new donors and sponsors. This allowed us to finance the association as it is but did not allow to extend our staff or the activities. With BED, we now try to find an additional financial basis. Table: Development of WBA revenues, 1000 Euro Kind of revenues Swed. Energy Agency Member fees Sponsors, donors Conferences, worksh.

2011 213 27 0 2

2012 34 86 -

2013 41 137 -

2014 39 99 2

2015 50 109 -

2016 60 60 -

Sales, advertising projects Bioenergy Connect BED –Equip. Direct. others SUM

2 4 5 253

1 30 151

10 8 2 198

3 47 7 197

8 3 170

10 20 50 200

Outlook: Looking back, I would like to say my aspirations were higher than the real development. WBA is now established as global Bioenergy Associations but certainly at lot is to be done in the future concerning financial basis, member development, studies and position papers to fight against negative voices against bioenergy. I would like to thank all our members, board members, Vice presidents and in particular Karin Haara for her tremendous work and Bharadwaj for his very important contributions to WBA. After Paris the world needs a fossil fuel exit strategy and the transition to a new energy system based mainly on bioenergy, wind, solar and hydro. I hope WBA can contribute to this challenging task and I wish all of you, the new president, the vice presidents, the new board and all our members all the best. 4.2 Report of the Executive Director Activities and examples as presented by the president were aimed to - increase awareness of bioenergy opportunities also besides activities already mentioned by the president, I would like to point out a few others not mentioned earlier how WBA also was the co-organisation of a webinar with the REN Alliance on presenting synergies between the renewables hand how they work together by examples in reality and also WBA submitted the declaration from the biofuels industry gathered at a conference in Stockholm in September represented by aviation, maritime and road and signed by 28 biofuel companies at COP21. - increase the presence on global level and enlarge our networking influence Last year the GA welcomed two new vice presidents: Dr. Benard Muok (Kenya) and Dr. Tanay Sidki Uyar (Turkey) WBA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Higher Council for Environment, Khartoum state, Sudan at COP21 on efficient utilization of wastes and residues in Khartoum and were accepted as an official observer organization to the Green Climate Fund. - examples of projects – knowledge & technology transfer Vojvodina Project: During the years 2014 and 2015 WBA worked on the project “Biomass Action Plan for Vojvodina”. In 2015, as part of the project WBA organized a workshop and study tour for experts from Vojvodina to demonstrate the development of bioenergy in Styria, a province in the South East of Austria. Heat Sector: The heat sector is often overlooked in the policies for renewables. WBA wrote a position paper on the potential biomass offers to replace fossil fuels by renewable energy in the heating sector. The role of Bioenergy in European cities: In a position paper, WBA explained the role of bioenergy in cities describing different examples. The paper highlights how cities can integrate bioenergy in the energy matrix.

- increased activity on our Website for sending information and social media to interact. During 2015 we added a presentation of WBA “about us” to our communication activities In parentheses (Year 2014) • WBA had 15 203 (13479) visitors on our website with more than 62% being new visitors. We are active in social media with our LinkedIn group having over 1041 (821) members and Facebook page we crossed the 1000 likes mark having more than 1553 (247) likes and 200 (81) followers on Twitter. This is a significant increase in the past year and would continue to increase WBAs online presence. Press releases: 13(9) were launched about: 27th January: Oil price drop as tool to fight fossil carbon emissions 16th February: Advanced biofuels factsheet launched 22nd May: Abengoa World Bioenergy Forum 2015 10th June: WBA elects two new vice presidents 16th June: G7 summit 25th Jan: New factsheet: Thermochemical gasification of biomass Media collaboration with Bioenergy International and Bioenergy Insight 30th June: WBA Global Bioenergy Statistics 2015 16th November: Declaration from biofuels sector to leaders at COP21 30th November: WBA call to COP21 2nd December: Carbon tax - key instrument for energy transition! 10th December: Technology solutions are in place for 100% renewable future 12th December: The Paris Agreement is adopted 14th December: WBA signs a MoU with Higher Council for Environment, Khartoum state, Sudan

- continuation to intensify relationships with international contacts on the global level Besides what already have been mention we also started a collaboration with the World Energy Council (WEC) who invited WBA in late 2015 to be the lead author of the World Energy Resource publication chapter on bioenergy which we accepted. The 2016 publication will be published in the World Energy Congress in October 2016 in Istanbul. During the year also the GO100RE – campaign on 100% renewables was very active and was from WBA side coordinated of prof Sribas C Bhattacharya. Today it is coordinated by Kes McCormick. Activity report WBA has been involved in many events as speakers, participating in workshops, collaborations, posters, exhibitions, panels, business match makings, sponsors etc. More than 39 events and 4 board meetings during the year. Here some more examples of events WBA attended. January • 19.01 – 20.01: Fuels of the Future. 13th Conference on Biofuels, Berlin, Germany • 28.01: Agriculture conference, Vienna, Austria • 29.01 – 30.01: Short rotation forests conference, Wieselburg, Austria

February • 25.02: European Pellet Conference, Wels, Austria March • 19.03 – 20.03: Conference on European Energy Union without nuclear, Vienna, Austria April • 15.04- 18.04: Intensive Biogas Course - SNV/Olden- burg University • 22.04- 23.04: International Geothermal Congress, Melbourne Australia • 29.04- 30.04: Forest and Timber Conference Melbourne Australia • 27.04 – 30.04: IRENA Bioenergy statistics workshop, Abu Dhabi, UAE May • 04.05 – 05.05: AEBIOM European Bioenergy Confe- rence, Brussels, Belgium • 12.05: LIGNA conference, Hannover, Germany • 19.05 – 21.05: Leadership Forum Bioenergy, Seville, Spain • 27.05 – 29.05: IRENEC, Istanbul, Turkey June • 03.06 – 04.06: Biotrade conference, Vienna, Austria • 10.06 – 12.06: Low Carbon Development in Africa workshop, Nairobi, Kenya • 18.06-19.06: Gippsland Bioenergy Seminar, Victoria Australia July • 06.07: Biotrade conference, Liezen, Austria August 18.08 – 20.08: 4th China International Biomass Energy Exhibition 2015, Guangzhou, China September • 02.09 – 03.09: Bioenergy 2015, Jyväskylä, Finland » 16.09 – 17.09: European Biomass to Power 2015, Berlin, Germany • 16.09 – 17.09: Advanced Biofuels Conference, Stock- holm, Sweden • 24.09 - 26.09: World Conference of Bioenergy, Xi’an, China October • 01.10- 03.10: Smart Future Cities conference, New- castle, Australia • 03.10 – 09.10: SAIREC, Cape Town, South Africa » 07.10 - 08.10: All-Energy Conference, Melbourne, Australia • 25.10 – 27.10: Global Wind Energy Conference, Jerusalem, Israel • 28.10: Austrian Biomass Conference, Styria, Austria November • 03.11: COP21 seminar, Vienna, Austria • 09.11: IVA conference on biomass potentials, Stockholm, Sweden • 11.11: World Energy Council report on roadmap to COP21, Stockholm, Sweden • 17.11: BioDriv conference, Stockholm, Sweden • 23.11: IEA World Energy Outlook release, Stockholm, Sweden • 29.11 – 30.11: COP21, Paris, France December • 29.11-1.12: Bioenergy Australia conference, Launceston, Australia • 10.12: Conference on biodiesel certification, Brussels, Belgium • 01.12 – 12.12: COP21, Paris, France cont. from end of November

WBA Board Meetings • 11.02: Board meeting over telephone • 09.06: General Assembly, Steering Committee, and Board meeting in Nairobi, Kenya • 18.09: Board meeting over telephone • 17.12: Board meeting over telephone Finances WBA would like to acknowledge the continued support of financing from the Austrian Government and from following supporters: ANDRITZ AG; Graz AGRANA AG, Wien Landesregierung Steiermark, Graz Landwirtschaftskammer Obero sterreich, Linz Landwirtschaftskammer Niedero sterreich, St. Po lten Landwirtschaftskammer Tirol, Innsbruck Landwirtschaftskammer Ka rnten, Klagenfurt Landeskammer fu r Land- und Forstwirtschaft Steier- mark, Graz Landwirtschaftskammer O sterreich, Wien O sterreichische Hagelversicherung AG. Wien Chorherrnstift Vorau The primary funding to the WBA is aimed to be from members, sponsors, donors, projects. Building a global organisation is a major challenge, especially in securing the financial backing before the member stock is big enough to bear the basic costs of human resources and office. Therefore also in 2015 we have to work hard to broaden the financial basis. The small positive result 2015 of 9034 SEK (about 993 €) shows us that the revenues are in balance with the expenses. Accounts: The revenues consist of Member fees, members supporters, contributors and sales in total 1 550 352 SEK. In total we got about 320.000 SEK less in revenues this year compared to last year mostly because of no projects. This shows how important it is for WBA to get more members and more project financing. The expense side was 1 541 252 SEK and 83% personal costs and the rest was mainly office cost as rent and service Balance sheet: Total assets of the association is 509 907 SEK and consist of 194 456 SEK in cash and the rest is receivables mainly contribution and member fees. The equity is 36 106 SEK The liabilities is 473 801 SEK and consist of payable trade 43 497 SEK, tax liabilities 171 564 and salary 84 455 and the rest 174 285 is Accrued expenses and deferred income that includes: Vacation accrual+ Accrued Social security cost and deferred income and other items.

4.3 Report of the Board Members of their activities Douglas Bradley: Douglas is exploring streams of different sources for WBA – missions/conferences etc. Started with supporters for pyrolysis oil factsheet. Prepared a value proposition for factsheets for next 2 years. Created a webinar for torrefied biomass – expecting 90 participants. Trying for a major WBA event in October. Trying to organize a mission to Europe from other regions – Americas/Australia etc. generating added value for WBA.

Andrew Lang: WBA work in Sudan; 4 times a year Andrew visits Sudan giving lectures on biofuels, waste to energy, biogas. Andrew also supported the WBA at the COP21 meeting Hazir Farouk: work on innovation, biogas, waste to energy in developing countries in Africa, MoU between Khartoum state, Sudan and WBA, Attended at the COP21 meeting, etc Ben Muok was operative for the successful WBA meeting in Kenya last year. Ben reports on work in the ISO technical committee and is also active in the ISO work for Sustainable bioenergy. Tanay Sidki Uyar: Attended COP21 in Paris. Organized the annual meetings in Istanbul along with study tour. 5. Approval of the annual report Decision: The annual report was approved. 6. Approval of Accounts and balance sheet The audit reports that the annual accounts have been prepared in accordance with the Annual Accounts Act and give a true and fair view of the organisations financial position and results of operations in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in Sweden. The statutory report is consistent with the other parts of the annual accounts. The audit recommends: “…that the board of directors and the president has in my opinion not act in contravention of the articles of the association. I recommend to the annual meeting that the members of the board of directors and the president be discharged from liability for the financial year.” The board members have signed the report and the audit has signed and sent the audit report to the meeting. Decision: The accounts and balance sheet was approved.

7. Presentation of the new WBA Board, president and vice presidents Name

Function

Country

Affiliation

Elected until

Remigijus LAPINSKAS

Board member,

Lithuania

Lithuanian Biomass Energy

2018

1

president

Association

Werner SITZMANN

Board member

Germany

Douglas BRADLEY

Board members, vice president

Canada

Andrew LANG

Board member, vice president

Benard MUOK

Kahl Group

2018

2

Climate Change Solutions

2018

3

Australia

SMARTimbers Cooperative

2018

4

Board member, vice president

Kenya

Jaramogi Odinga Odinga University of Science and Technology

2018

5

Tanay Sidki UYAR

Board member, vice president

Turkey

Eurosolar Turkey & Turkish Bioenergy Association

2018

6

Laercio COUTO

Board member

Brazil

RENABIO

2018

7

Jean Marc JOSSART

Board member

Belgium

AEBIOM

2018

8

Saku RANTANEN

Board member

Singapore

Tasma Bioenergy 2018 Pte Ltd

9

Geraldine KUTAS

Board member

Brazil

Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Assoc.

2018

10

Christoph PFEMETER

Board member

Austria

Austrian Biomass 2018 Association

11

Wan Asma IBRAHIM

Board member

Malaysia

Forest Research Institute Malaysia

2018

12

Mika OHBAYASHI Board member

Japan

Japan Renewable Energy Foundation

2018

13

Hisashi KAJIYAMA

Board member

Japan

BERI Institute

2017

14

Hazir FAROUK

Board

Sudan

School of Mechanical

2017

15

Amandus Kahl

member

Engineering SUST, Khartoum

Jörgen SANDSTRÖM

Board member

Sierra Leone

ADDAX Bioenergy

2017

16

William STRAUSS

Board member

USA

Future Metrics

2017

17

Kelvin HONG

Board member

China

Great Resources China Ltd

2017

18

Kes McCORMICK

Board member

Sweden/Australia International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE)

2017

19

Nominating committe: Following members were elected: Gustav Melin, Swedish Bioenergy Association, Sweden, convenor of the NC Ralph Sims, Massey University, New Zealand Heinz Kopetz, WBA, Austria Vacancies, 2 President for one year: Remigijus Lapinskas Vice Presidents for one year: Andrew Lang Douglas Bradley Tanay Sidki Uyar Benard Muok Vacancy, 1 8. Opening Speech of the new President WBA should be more active and expand operations. Thank Heinz Kopetz for the job well done. Promise to continue with the positive rules in our activities. Looking forward to elaborate on papers for board members and vice presidents. Should have more changes in statutes for clarification. Should identify personal responsibilities for certain spheres – speakers/drafting position papers/finding supporters and members. Clarify in roles and responsibilities. Offer everyone to develop regional offices with local support. Need everyone’s support to grow. Attend meetings. WBA is the leading bioenergy association globally and has established

itself as a trusted organization, started the new president Remigijus Lapinskas in his opening speech. It has come a long way since being established in 2008 and I feel honoured to be elected after Dr. Heinz Kopetz. I envision the following development path for WBA: - Development of new biomass markets using the momentum of COP21 agreement. This is an extremely important part of the WBA activity as development of the markets will assist technology and biomass procurement companies towards expansion, growth and globalization and WBA should focus on utilizing this momentum of growth. • WBA should increase activity in promising markets, for e.g. China (new official plans of the Government of China to switch energy production from coal to cleaner energy generation), Ukraine and other post Soviet republics (because of the well developed DH system and abundance of biomass) and liguid biofuels in all over the world etc. • WBA should really become a global organization with affiliates/members in different parts of the world. WBA should be involved in their activity by encouraging global and regional biomass industry leaders in both companies and individuals. • This process of WBA expansion should be based on the more active participation of WBA Board members. They should act as organizers of the process and unifiers of WBA and industry in order for a more stable financing of WBA and its activities. • The general idea of such an organized biomass energy expansion could be a goal, declared by WBA: A world without fossil emissions by 2050 as the only possibility to combat climate change and keep temperature rise below 2°C or event 1.5°C. • The way to reach that goal could be developed in many ways: having in mind regional advantages and developed biomass resources and technologies, but also with global initiatives like “Global CO2 tax”. WBA should be proactive in promoting these initiatives. Finally, the success of WBA is possible only if it will play a leading role in development of biomass energy worldwide and will be recognized by industry as not only a promoter of biomass energy, but also an organizer of market development. 9. Approval of the Member fees The budget is challenging and we expected that the BED would bring us about 50 000 € this year but it seems that it will hopefully deliver half of it and that the process will take longer time to make it revenue bringing than what was thought when the budget for 2016 was decided. From Lithuania it is announced that company sponsors will contribute with around 40 000 €. It was also announced that the Austrian Government will decline its financial support to WBA starting the year 2017. Decision: GA decided to have the member fees unchanged 2016. 10. Information of the ongoing work in 2016 a) Funding: First half of the year has had a focus on funding of WBA with different strategies. Bioenergy Equipment directory has a goal of 50 companies until 30 June this year before we start broader marketing of it. Office have support from Viktoria Kazlauskaite LiTbioma who is pointed out to work with this item and Remigijus Lapinskas New members especially companies has had a special focus. We also work to get funding as supporters of statistics report, fact sheets, approaching silver sponsors and even official supporter, approach different agricultural and forestry institutions

especially in Austria, Swedish Growth & Development & regional department, Swedish Energy Agency, Swedish Aid -organisation (SIDA) applied to the KR foundation but was not successful to get a projects yet. For the paper the role of bioenergy in EU cities we got 10 000 €, part of it already in 2015 for the work done. For the Global Potential paper we were supported by 8 000 € b) Finalized the report on a bioenergy action plan for Vojvodina and waiting for further suggestions from them on projects c) Fact sheet on Global Potentials of Bioenergy have been published and Clean Efficient cookstoves is about for publication in middle of June. some concerns by various experts about the content of this were passed on by A Lang. d) the role of bioenergy in cites will be published in the beginning of June e) Statistics, work in progress and will be published 20th of June f) World Energy Resources g) Other Fact sheets in drafting phase: waste to energy, bioenergy logistics, pyrolosis oil, New fact sheet proposal from Douglas Bradley was presented to be discussed at the board meeting nr 33 following after the annual meeting. h) Webinar 2016: Torrefaction to be organized on the 22 of June. The work is led of Douglas Bradley and Andrew Lang with support of Leia McIntyre and administrative support of WBA office. The idea of Webinar will also be discussed during the 33rd board meeting. i) WBA conferences another development chain from Douglas Bradley and Andrew Lang to run the first conference on pyrolysis oil in the Netherlands in autumn. More details on this at the board meeting j) something about our interns Erika and Pranav Erika Johnels worked on the cookstoves factsheet in drafting, designing and contacting potential supporters for the factsheet. Pranav Dhadich is assisting in the data collection and analysis for the WBA Global Bioenergy Statistics 2016 report. 11. Contribution of members concerning the work in 2016 and the work programme 2017 a) Austrian Bioenergy Association (AB) through Christoph Pfemeter reported on the organisations work on promotion material for awareness building of bioenergy in Austria and would like to share that material with WBA b) ABA also invited WBA to have a work-shop/meeting in Graz in January 2017. Meeting was positive and forwarded it to be elaborated further at office c) Country reports on bioenergy was a good attempt but was postponed to the board meeting 33. d) the question of promotion of how to create new bioenergy associations was postponed to the board meeting nr 33 12. General Discussion 13. Closing of the meeting Before meeting was closed Dr Heinz Kopetz was thanked for his great work for WBA. Douglas: WBA was started at World Bioenergy conference in 2008. Kent Nystrom initiated the association and was fully supported by the Swedish Government and SEA. The idea was to tell organizations on who we are. Heinz took over in 2012 and started telling on what we do and had no concrete financial support. Even then, he was instrumental in the working of WBA and in getting tremendous support from the Austrian government and companies. We are truly

thankful to have worked with you and a successful retirement ahead. Andrew: Thank you for all the support in the development of the organization and we will continue the good work following on your thoughts and ideals. Karin: It was an honour working with such a fantastic person who has been wonderful to have in the organization. WBA will sorely miss your energy and ideas. It was a pleasure hosting you at the office during our monthly meetings. Your energy, passion and dedication for the job have been instrumental in successful development of the association. Good luck with your retirement. Finally the participants at the meeting thanked our Vice President prof Dr Tanay Sidi Uyar for the invitation to host the WBA annual meetings in Istanbul. His exceptional organisational skills and hospitality along with a hard working team of dedicated organisers ensured that WBA had an interesting and a memorable trip. Heinz Kopetz closed the meeting 12:00 noon For World Bioenergy Association

Karin Haara

Approval

Heinz Kopetz

Andrew Lang