The FINANCIAL — €26 million financing package by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Clean Technology Fund to Ege Profil Ticaret ve Sanayi A.Ş., the second largest PVC profile maker in Turkey, will promote greater energy efficiency and more advanced environmental practices in the country.
Ege Profil PVC manufactures plastic goods under two main brand names – Egepen Deceuninck and Winsa. It currently operates two plants, one in Cigli, 12 kilometres northwest of Izmir, and another in Kocaeli, some 120 kilometres east of Istanbul. The combined total capacity of both plants is 85,000 tonnes per year, according to EBRD.
The package – a €25 million loan from the EBRD and €1 million in parallel financing from the Clean Technology Fund – will be used for the construction of a new state-of-art and environmentally-friendly PVC profile manufacturing plant in Menemen, a district of Izmir province. Moving production from Cigli to a more specialised industrial zone in Menemen will help increase operational efficiency and is seen as a springboard for the company’s future growth.
The loan will also finance resource efficiency investments at the new plant. These include photovoltaic solar panels, wastewater treatment and a combined cooling, heat and power (trigeneration) plant as well as the infrastructure required to expand Ege Profil’s PVC recycling activities. The Spanish government has financed an audit to identify energy and resource efficiency opportunities.
The project aims to bring Ege Profil’s PVC recycling rate to about 15 per cent. With recycling rates in Turkey below 10 per cent, the planned rate would be well above that of the local competition and in line with international best practice. As a consequence, the amount of recycled PVC at the plant is expected to increase by at least 800 tonnes per year.
The EBRD’s loan is the first investment under the Bank’s new Near-Zero Waste programme which finances waste minimisation projects in Turkey. Launched in July 2015, the programme is set to drive a profound transformation of waste management in the country, helping it advance towards a more competitive and resource-efficient circular economy.
Frederic Lucenet, EBRD Director for Manufacturing and Services, said: “The EBRD’s loan will help Ege Profil PVC realise its strategic goal of improving competitiveness on domestic and foreign markets through better operational and resource efficiency. Once these efficiency measures are put in place, we estimate that the company will save the equivalent of the cost of about 1.7 million litres of gasoline each year – enough for a car to travel for over 20 million kilometres.”
Helping successful manufacturing companies such as Ege Profil PVC improve their efficiency, boost operations and set higher environmental standards is part of the EBRD’s efforts to advance the competitiveness of both Turkish enterprises and the country’s economy overall.
Since it began investing in Turkey in 2009, the Bank has provided over €236 million to finance resource efficiency investments in Turkish industry. These investments are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the country by more than 645,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The EBRD, which is currently operating from offices in Istanbul, Ankara and Gaziantep, has to date invested over €6 billion in Turkey through close to 160 projects in infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, industry and finance. It has also mobilised over €12 billion for these ventures from other sources of financing.
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