Written by Tracy Heindrichs
Published on 06.09.2022 • Edited on 06.09.2022 at 14:15
IF CEED, which is hosted by the European Defence Agency is holding its first conference in Luxembourg. Photo: Shutterstock
On 6 and 7 September, the Incubation Forum for Circular Economy in European Defence (IF CEED) is taking place in Luxembourg.
The conference brings together 150 defence experts from 20 European countries and takes stock of achievements completed by the forum. Among the successes since its launch ten months ago, IF CEED says it “has already built up a network of several hundred experts working in nine different thematic incubators,” which cover domains like raw materials, green procurement and sustainable eco-design.
The two-year-long forum is being managed by the European Defence Agency (EDA), with a total financial contribution of €784,000 from the European Commission (EU LIFE Programme) and Luxembourg’s Directorate of Defence.
Luxembourg has been interested in making the defence sector more sustainable for some time. “Recent assessments have shown us that value chains in the defence sector contribute significantly to its heavy carbon footprint,” defence minister François Bausch (déi Gréng) shared in a statement on 6 September. “Besides that, in a world of increased competition for raw materials, we urgently need to improve our systems of reusing and recycling materials.”
“We see a great opportunity here to extend expertise gained in the civilian sector to defence. I am happy to see that several of Luxembourg’s SMEs and research institutions have become active in IF CEED’s Project Circles and we look forward to seeing collaborative projects materialize in order to boost circularity, sustainability and resilience in European defence,” he added.
Bausch at the end of 2021 stated that the Luxembourg army’s buildings’ emissions were expected to decrease by 78% after renovations of the Herrebierg. In 2019 the department of defence and the army emitted 19,330 tonnes of greenhouse gases, amounting to 1.5% of the county’s total emissions.
The incubation forum announced in January 2022 wants to support the application of the EU Green Deal’s circular economy approach to the European defence sector, based on an active and cooperative community that involves EU member states, ministries of defence, the defence industry, research-and-technology-organisations, academia, financial institutions, private associations, as well as other national and international public bodies.