SCO France tops up with new projects

Published on 01/04/2021

In the first national application of the SCO, the French branch office presents a portfolio of 35 projects! Demonstrating remarkable mobilisation, the members of the CIO (Inter-Organisation Committee) met for the fourth time on 16 March 2021. On the agenda: a review of the international situation, a close-up of 2021 projects and the labelling method, creation of working groups and new meetings. Read on.

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SCO International news

The meeting began with the success of the first international calls for proposals. Of 38 candidate projects received, 3 obtained the SCO label: a Moroccan project for optimising irrigation systems, a Mexican project devoted to the monitoring of maize production, and a Chinese project for estimating possible leaks from geological carbon storage reservoirs. The majority of the other projects need to gain maturity with the local SCO in the geographical zone concerned. For this purpose, these countries will initially set themselves up as acceleration committees SAC (SCO Acceleration Committee) with a view to gradually becoming an experienced stand-alone SCO branch office.

This was followed by a recap of the key information, including 3 new SCO members (Indonesia, Malta, and shortly Russia), the holding of One Planet Summit of 11 January, and the work in progress on the international charter.

The French 2021 call for proposals

The CIO acknowledges the work and dedication of the labelling committee's 16 assessors who analysed the candidate projects from September 2020 to February 2021. On completion of the process, 21 projects covering 9 themes have received the SCO label so far. The presentation sheets are currently being drawn up, but we would like to give you a brief overview of these 21 projects before they are posted on line .

3 new working groups

Funding

The 35 projects of SCO France combined represent a total investment request of €8 million. The CIO has therefore created an ad hoc committee to identify new funding windows.

Capitalisation

How can we capitalise on the products of the SCO projects? A workshop will be organised to reflect on how to guarantee the durability of the assets developed and propose, among other things, a storage infrastructure. A first proposal is targeted for the end of July.

Outreach

A third workshop is currently being created to identify channels for creating value from SCO France and its projects.

Running the SCO France network

Held as a webinar session, the "Quarterly of SCO France", will regularly present 3 or 4 projects to the community as a whole. SCO France will organise an in-person conference at the end of the year to bring together - once a year - as many stakeholders as possible around the SCO projects.