The document summarizes projects and activities under the EU4Environment - Green Economy program in Azerbaijan related to the water sector. Key projects include applying resource efficient and cleaner production methods to textile manufacturers to reduce water usage, designing a green public investment program to improve water supply/irrigation/wastewater treatment infrastructure, and collaborating to improve water monitoring data collection and reporting. Thirteen manufacturing SMEs are demonstration projects for reducing resource use. The investment program aims to optimize over $697 million in projects to achieve water, irrigation and wastewater objectives while incentivizing private sector participation.

1. “EU4Environment – Green Economy” in Azerbaijan:
selected achievements and projects with relevance to water sector

2. “EU4ENV - Green economy” Programme structure
5 Programme Results
1. Greener decision
making
(UNEP/UNECE)
2. Circular economy
and new growth
opportunities
(UNIDO/UNEP)
3. Environmental
level playing field
(OECD)
4. Ecosystem services
and livelihoods
(World Bank)
5. Monitoring
progress
(OECD)
• Green economy
ownership & cross-
sectorial
coordination
• Sectoral investment
planning
• Strategic
Environmental
Assessment and
Environmental
Impact Assessment
• Awareness &
education
• Resource efficient
and cleaner
Production
• EU Single Market for
Green Products
• Green public
Procurement
• Waste management
• Eco-innovation
• “Smart” regulation
of environmental
impacts (greening
large industries,
SMEs)
• Environmental
compliance and
enforcement
• Green finance
• Administrative
capacity for
environmental
management
• Emerald Network
• Promotion of legal
trade
• Sustainable natural
resources
management at local
communities
• Strategic financing to
the forest
• Green growth
indicators
• Regional knowledge
sharing

3. Selected highlights of activities
• Public awareness campaign: On-going selection of national partner to deliver campaign to over 1M
citizens promoting sustainable lifestyle choices
• Training of public sector employees: Collaboration with Azerbaijan State Economic University for
regular delivery and promotion of Green Economy trainings among civil servants from key government
agencies
• National Policy Dialogue: Plans to establish a working group for review of draft national climate
change and air quality programme (potentially involving also investment needs assessment)
• Strategic Environmental Assessment: Scoping phase of the pilot SEA application for a draft Master
Plan of the city of Ganja completed in April 2023, preparation of the SEA Report started; Training
workshops on the SEA application in regional and spatial planning (April and October 2021); secondary
legislation/regulation on SEA developed and adopted (Sept 2022); video on transboundary EIA/Espoo
Convention in Azerbaijani (2022); awareness-raising event on SEA and EIA (late 2023)

4. Selected highlights of activities
• Industrial Waste Mapping: pilot studies finalized in Absheron-Kizri and Baku Economic regions
• Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP): engaging 13 manufacturing SMEs into RECP
demonstrations; monitoring survey for EaP GREEN companies conceptualised; revamped RECP page;
training program of RECP experts, RECP assessments of manufacturing SMEs (business cases) and analysis
for RECP preconditions and barriers in the country (upcoming)
• RECP Clubs: established in Ganja and Baku; coaching programs for about 20 enterprises
• Product environmental footprint tool under the EU Single Market for Green Products approach is
promoted through an awareness campaign and a Roadmap for its application is developed (upcoming)
• Waste: Supported development of draft packaging waste law and roadmap to establish an Extended
Producer Responsibility (EPR) system for packaging waste, current plans to support development of a
National Waste Management Program and Action Plan
• Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP): National partner selected to support development of national eco-
labelling and SPP practices, and to align these with international best practices

5. Selected highlights of activities
• Greening SMEs: Development of online self-assessment tool for greening SMEs and assessing progress on
greening SMEs in Azerbaijan in the OECD SME Policy Index
• Fossil-fuel subsidies: inclusion of 2010-20 data for Azerbaijan in the OECD database on FFSs
• Green bonds: Country-level analysis of the capital market and its readiness to use green bonds as a source
of long-term green finance
• Compliance assurance: work launched to assess the compliance assurance system and on administrative
sanctions
• Emerald network: work launched to increase capacity of key stakeholders for developing the Emerald
roadmap, management plans for 3 selected Emerald sites, methodological guidelines and capacity building
• BAT: Report on existing approaches to BAT/regulation of large enterprises (upcoming)
• Fund on Environmental Protection: assessment of the Fund’s operations (upcoming)
• Green growth indicators: update of the report (upcoming)

6. Projects with relevance to water sector in Azerbaijan
• Textile production typically requires large quantities of water (along with energy, and
chemicals) and has become responsible for 20% of the pollution of all rivers and lands.
2,700 litres of water are needed to produce a single t-shirt. Azerbaijan has a long tradition
in the production of yarn, clothes, carpets, leather, and shoes. The traditional Kelaghayi
(women’s silk headscarves) and the traditional carpet weaving are part of the UNESCO list
for intangible heritages.
• Most Azerbaijani manufacturers are represented by SMEs, located around Baku and in
other major cities. This is also the case of three Azerbaijani textile manufacturers which
have joined the UNIDO RECP Project as Demonstration Companies - Alyans Textile LLC,
Baku Textile LLC and BETEX Textile LLC, motivated to improve their resource usage.
• Water savings with RECP methodology: Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) leads to significant
reduction of water usage. As an example, a company in Georgia reported 40% reduction of water
consumption per tonne of product as result of using RECP methodology. In Azerbaijan, 13 manufacturing
SMEs have been selected as Demonstration Companies for the RECP application.
https://recpaz.wordpress.com/

7. Projects with relevance to water sector in Azerbaijan
• Green public investment programme in the water sector: New investment programme is being designed
and costed to secure future cost-effective, reliable and quality water supply, irrigation and wastewater
treatment and incetivise the private sector to participate in the financing of water infrastructure
• Using Excel model, publicly available, designed by the OECD, with purpose to optimize the cost to achieve the objectives
• The training workshop on designing and implementing green public investment programmes in Azerbaijan was conducted on 25
February 2022 to increase the capacity of government authorities to better manage public environmental expenditure with a special
focus on achieving the national objectives in the water supply sector.
• Improving monitoring: cooperation with “EU4Environment – Water & Data” to produce E-book, hosted by
the OECD “Environment at a Glance” platform, including data on water
• Building synergies with “EU4ENV - Water and Data”: 2022 country profile, joint newsletters, meetings
https://www.eu4environment.org/news/new-green-public-investment-programme-in-water-sector-in-azerbaijan/
Programme elements
Water supply facilities (number of users) 547 876
Irrigation facilities (ha) 93 350
Wastewater facilities (number of users) 10 000
Total investment cost (MAZN) 697.9
Of which co-financed by the public financier 483.0
Of which co-financed by private / public beneficiaries 214.98
Water savings (10 billion cubic metres/year) 3.5

8. 2022 edition
of the Country profile
https://bit.ly/3wLgy5d

9. Visit our webpage: www.eu4environment.org
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