On May 28 in Kyiv, the UST team, together with representatives of WWF-Ukraine and the Independent National Law Firm Arzinger, presented the results of the project “Reducing the Use of Forest Biomass in Ukraine.”
The project aimed to develop analytical reports outlining measures to support forest conservation, reduce firewood consumption, and promote sustainable energy alternatives.
“Unfortunately, due to the war with the occupiers, Ukraine cannot completely abandon the use of forest biomass for energy purposes. However, this situation compels us to rethink our approach to the efficient use of energy resources. In our research, the main goal was to identify the most economically viable solutions that would enable more efficient and rational energy consumption,” noted Olena Koltyk, Head of UST, during the presentation.
The UST experts were responsible for preparing the analytical report “Assessing the Potential for Reducing Forest Biomass Consumption.”
The relevance of this study was driven by three key factors:
- Energy challenges, particularly the need to reduce biomass use;
- The need to conserve forests;
- The fight against illegal logging.
A key value of the report lies in the methodology developed for identifying and selecting territorial communities where it is most appropriate to implement projects aimed at reducing the use of firewood as fuel. This methodology includes detailed regional and local selection criteria. Focusing on regional indicators, the report presents a ranking of Ukrainian oblasts, with Kyiv, Zakarpattia, and Zhytomyr making the top three.
The report also proposes practical solutions to reduce firewood consumption in public and private buildings. These include:
- modernization of heating systems,
- improvement of building insulation, and
- adoption of renewable energy sources.
From a monitoring and accountability perspective, the project developed tools to enhance transparency and oversight, including satellite analytics, digital wood tracking systems, and public monitoring mechanisms.
This project was funded by the Advisory Assistance Programme (AAP) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) for environmental protection in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and other neighboring countries of the European Union.
It was supervised by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the German Environment Agency (UBA).
The authors of this publication bear full responsibility for its content.
On May 29, 2025, a public discussion was held on the Waste Management Concept for the Novobilouska Rural Territorial Hromada in the Chernihiv region.
The document was developed by the Ukraine Support Team (UST) in cooperation with the NGO ReThink, with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Participants in the discussion included representatives of the Novobilouska, Kyselivska, and Kyinska hromadas, the Chernihiv Regional State Administration and District Administration, the municipal utility ATP 2528, and Chernihiv Polytechnic.
The event marked an important step toward establishing intermunicipal cooperation in the field of waste management.
“We didn’t just help the hromada comply with the new legal requirements — we gave them a tool for planning and systemic change,” emphasized Olena Koltyk, head of the UST coalition.
“This Concept is the first step toward environmentally responsible local waste management. It provides the community with clear guidance: what infrastructure is needed, what resources are required, and how to build a system that meets real needs.”
During the discussion, Dmytro Fedorov, Head of the Novobilouska Hromada, stated:
“For our community, addressing the issue of waste management is highly relevant and important. Within the framework of the new waste management reform, working with experts helped us structure our understanding and see how planning is carried out according to the new standards — this was extremely valuable. We hope to establish intermunicipal cooperation with neighboring communities to tackle waste-related challenges together.”
Reform Context: Planning Instead of Chaos
The Concept was developed in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Waste Management”, which came into force in July 2023.
The law introduced a new planning hierarchy encompassing the national, regional, and local levels.
In December 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the National Waste Management Plan, and within a year, each oblast must adopt its own regional plan. After that, it will be the turn of the hromadas, as the implementation of reforms takes place primarily at the local level.
The Concept for Novobilouska Hromada is designed to help the community transition from reactive responses to strategic waste management.
The document includes an analysis of the current situation, a forecast of waste generation for the coming years, and tailored recommendations aligned with the draft Regional Waste Management Plan for Chernihiv Oblast through 2030
“The biggest challenge was the lack of complete statistical data in the community,” said Ihor Satin, the scientific lead of the development team.
“However, thanks to the openness and engagement of the community, we were able to build a realistic model and provide concrete, actionable recommendations.”
The Concept will serve as the foundation for the future development of a Local Waste Management Plan (LWMP). This will enable the community to:
- build well-justified waste management infrastructure;
- plan resources and attract investment;
- collaborate with neighboring hromadas to reduce costs and apply modern technologies.
The document lays the groundwork for real change: less landfilling — more recycling, greater efficiency — less environmental harm.
The project was implemented with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Reducing the use of forest biomass (firewood, logging residues, and wood processing waste) is not only a step toward forest conservation and climate change mitigation, but also an opportunity to enhance energy independence and improve the quality of life in communities.
WWF-Ukraine, in collaboration with the NGO UST – Ukraine Support Team and the independent national law firm Arzinger, presented the results of the project “Reducing the Use of Forest Biomass in Ukraine.” As part of the project, experts prepared two in-depth analytical reports:
🔅 Analytical Report: “Assessment of the Potential for Reducing Forest Biomass Use”
A study outlining the current state of forest biomass use for energy purposes in Ukraine, along with practical recommendations for its optimization.
🔅 Analytical Report: “Legal Regulation of Measures to Improve Energy Efficiency and Financing Mechanisms for Energy Efficiency Projects Aimed at Reducing Forest Biomass Use in Ukraine”
An analysis of legal and financial instruments to support the creation of a transparent and effective sub-grant system for energy efficiency measures in Ukraine.
We invite you to explore the full studies on the official website — https://wwf.ua/stay-tuned/news/?18279891/vykorystannia-lisovoi-biomasy
Approximately six months ago, the Ukraine Support Team (UST) began a project to develop an Energy Plan for Ivanivska hromada, covering the period through 2030. To define the energy development goals and assess the current situation, our team conducted data collection, processing, and analysis. Based on this, UST experts identified measures and targets aimed at enhancing the community’s energy potential.
The planning process was particularly challenging due to limited access to energy data and the fact that Ivanivska hromada was under Russian occupation for 25 days. During the project’s presentation, Olga Babiy highlighted the unique nature of this initiative: nearly all key information had to be reconstructed from scratch, as most of the documentation needed for the Energy Plan had been destroyed during the fighting and occupation in 2022. Despite these difficulties, the UST team managed to recover the necessary analytics and formulate a comprehensive energy plan, including detailed assessments and project recommendations.
The significance of energy planning was also emphasized by the Head of Ivanivska hromada, Olena Shvydka, who expressed gratitude to the UST team for their support in improving local energy efficiency and for the practical consulting assistance provided during project implementation.
“We understand how difficult it is for communities to implement the decisions made at the central level. That’s why our team helps to develop concrete action plans that are adapted to the real conditions in each community,” said Olena Koltyk during the presentation.
A key highlight of the event was the overview of 23 proposed projects aimed at improving the community’s energy efficiency. These initiatives are expected to reduce energy consumption by 424 MWh. Special attention was given to heating system upgrades, building thermal modernization, and the implementation of renewable energy projects.
During the presentation, Tamara Burenko emphasized: “Our main goal is the gradual yet steady reduction of energy consumption. Every hromada must start preparing its Municipal Energy Plan (MEP) now, as they are expected to be approved by November 2025.”
It is important to note that the report developed by the UST team is intended to serve as the foundation for the preparation and official adoption of Ivanivska hromada’s local energy plan.
The project is implemented with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Ukraine Support Team (UST), in collaboration with Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, has developed and published Guidelines for Assessing the Recovery Needs of Territorial Communities, adapted for use by civil society organizations.
This methodology responds to the need for a systematic approach to selecting and implementing recovery projects — especially under conditions of limited resources. It helps structure the process of identifying communities’ critical needs, forming well-founded priorities, and building effective cooperation with local authorities and international partners.
The guidelines cover key sectors, including:
- Education
- Healthcare
- Housing and utility infrastructure
The document provides practical tools for:
- Data collection and analysis
- Technical assessment of facilities
- Prioritization of recovery needs
- Procurement and contractor management
- Stakeholder engagement at all stages of the project
The methodology is developed in line with Ukrainian legislation and international standards, and is designed to be useful for civil society organizations, local government representatives, donor agencies, and recovery clusters.
You can view the English version.
The year 2024 was marked by systemic work and meaningful change. We focused on strategic recovery of communities, developed solutions for efficient resource use, launched new partnerships, and expanded our coalition.
📊 This presentation highlights the key figures, achievements, and approaches we implemented throughout the year.
Can debris from destroyed buildings be used for reconstruction?
Together with Ukrainian and international partners, we are looking for a practical answer to this question.
Last week, as part of a collaboration between Sintef (a Norwegian research institute), the company NOCON, and the Ukraine Support Team (UST), we conducted a series of meetings and site visits to better understand how debris and demolition waste in Ukraine can be efficiently recycled and reused in construction. Our focus is not only on removal, but also on reusing secondary materials such as concrete, recycled aggregates, and other structural solutions.
We engaged with relevant ministries and other stakeholders to discuss:
- What legal and economic conditions are needed to launch this market;
- How similar practices are implemented in other countries;
- What must change in Ukraine to ensure that secondary materials genuinely become part of the recovery process.
We thank the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine for their willingness to develop an economically viable model that will enable businesses to operate in the field of recycling.
We also thank the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine for supporting the idea of adapting construction standards to European norms regarding the use of secondary materials.
We also visited several sites where recycling is already taking place. Together with our Norwegian colleagues and other partners, we visited two operational recycling facilities:
- A recycling site in the Borodianka community, managed by a municipal enterprise of Kyiv Oblast. The equipment provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) impressed us with its capacity. With the right technological approach, it can ensure high-quality secondary raw materials. We express our sincere thanks to our Japanese partners at JICA, the Kyiv Regional State Administration, and the entire team that helped organize the visit!
- A recycling site in the city of Bucha, where just a year ago the temporary waste storage area was literally covered with debris brought in from across the community. Today, it is a clean and organized site, with recycling operations running at a high level. This has become possible thanks to the support of UNDP Ukraine.
We sincerely thank our colleagues at UNDP for their contribution to recovery efforts and support for the community!
We also visited sites of destruction in Chernihiv, where dismantling and recycling are still urgently needed. We are convinced that through joint efforts, these processes can be accelerated — while complying with environmental and construction standards.
Our colleagues from SINTEF highly appreciated the quality of the equipment already available in Ukraine. They see potential not only for temporary solutions (such as road sub-base) but also for producing full-fledged construction materials.
Who are we, and why are we doing this?
The Ukraine Support Team (UST) is a coalition of experts helping communities and the country recover effectively. We bring together stakeholders — local authorities, academia, businesses, international partners, and government — to develop systemic solutions.
We work at the intersection of:
- Waste management
- Sustainable energy transition
- Community development planning
If you’re interested in making Ukraine’s recovery smart, modern, and sustainable — follow our page. More case studies, data, and solutions are coming soon.
Together with the Ivanivska community in the Chernihiv region, we are launching a project to develop Energy Planning for the period until 2030 aimed at sustainable energy development.
The main goal is to provide the community with strategic solutions to improve energy efficiency, reduce emissions, and implement renewable energy sources. As part of the project, an analysis of the energy status will be conducted, baseline consumption levels identified, and priority actions for the community’s energy security developed.
This project will not only enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure energy supply but also serve as a foundation for the development of a Municipal Energy Plan and a “green” recovery strategy.
We are grateful to the International Renaissance Foundation for their support and to the Ivanivska Village Council for their trust.
Is it possible to effectively plan recovery without understanding how the community will develop in the future? How can we forecast the capacities of social and critical infrastructure, which is built for decades, without prior assessments of the community’s demographic situation, economic potential, and development prospects? The Ukraine Support Team coalition and partners have begun working on an economic modeling project for the recovery and development of the Borodianka community to address this issue.
As part of the UST coalition’s work, we have extensively assisted communities in prioritizing their recovery needs. In the context of war and limited resources, rebuilding everything at once is an unattainable task and, in some cases, impractical. Is it worth investing millions in rebuilding a school for 600 students if we don’t know how many children will study there in five years? How many hospital beds should the new hospital have?
The recovery process cannot be limited to the physical rebuilding of what was destroyed. To bring people back home, it must focus on strengthening and developing the economy.
Together with the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) and the Saturday Team consulting company, using Borodianka as an example, we aim to create an algorithm that will help communities determine the most promising and priority pathways for their economic development and recovery.
“It is very difficult to assess what needs to be rebuilt and where to invest effort and funds first when there is no understanding of how the community will develop under different circumstances. That is why we have undertaken a new ambitious project — economic modeling for community recovery and development. By developing economic scenarios for Borodianka, we hope to create a kind of checklist for other communities: what they need to know about themselves; how to plan their future; determine what needs to be restored and proposed to donors and potential investors,” says the head of the coalition, Olena Koltyk.
With the support of the International Renaissance Foundation, our team conducts an analysis of the economic and demographic state of the Borodianka community over different periods, identifies systemic problems, and possible ways to solve them. We will also study global and national trends that will impact the long-term development of communities.
Based on this data, our experts will model economic development scenarios up to 2030 and test them with residents, business representatives, and other stakeholders, selecting the most promising and suitable for the community.
We are confident that this approach will allow local governments to build a more effective management strategy and establish better communication with donors and potential investors, ensuring the community increases its capacity and develops sustainably.
It became easier for territorial communities to assess the amount and manage debris generated by war-related destruction. Experts from the ReThink public organization, a member of the Ukraine Support Team coalition, have developed Methodological Guidelines for accounting the volume of debris from destruction. These guidelines enable quick preliminary assessments of the amount of debris generated at the sites of destroyed residential buildings, educational institutions, and medical facilities. This tool will aid in planning expenses for demolition and logistics, as well as the placement of recycling facilities. More than 500 representatives of territorial communities in Ukraine have already been trained to use it.
Why is it important to count debris?
According to official data, there are more than 600 thousand tons of debris in Ukraine. However, experts estimate this figure to be significantly underestimated, as it only accounts for the debris transported to temporary storage sites or landfills. That is, the official statistics mostly do not consider the debris amount from buildings that remain undemolished, as there was no methodology for estimating debris at the sites of their formation. In addition, the amount of debris is not recorded in areas of active hostilities and temporarily occupied territories.
“To solve the problem, we first need to understand its scale. Our Methodological Recommendations for estimating the debris amount using the calculation method will help communities assess the amount of debris generated as a result of the demolition of a building and plan the necessary infrastructure for demolition, temporary storage, and recycling of this debris. Only by having accurate statistics – where exactly and how much debris we have, can we attract investors in recycling. The country cannot cope with this problem on its own,” says Olena Koltyk, head of the UST coalition and co-founder of ReThink.
How does the methodology work?
The Methodological Recommendations allow to estimate both the total amount of debris generated from the demolition of a building, as well as by components (such as concrete, bricks, wood, metal, and others) using the calculation method. According to ReThink expert Ihor Satin, after studying international experience, the team settled on the Japanese approach to accounting for debris from natural disasters and adapted it to Ukrainian realities:
“We cannot simply take the methodology of another country and apply it in Ukraine, as we live in different climatic conditions and use different materials and their quantities in construction. Accordingly, we have to derive our own calculated figures. More than 70% of Ukraine’s housing stock was built during Soviet times, in the 1950-1990s, so we analyzed projects from those times as well as modern ones to build an appropriate methodological foundation.”
The approach is based on deriving debris generation rates per square meter depending on the type of building. This way, communities can get a calculated amount of debris from demolitions by knowing only the building or demolition area and the type of building (for high-rise buildings). In addition, the methodology can be used to determine the estimated amount of asbestos-containing and related debris (related are the materials and items that were inside or near the object at the time of damage or demolition).
What were the communities taught?
Throughout June, the ReThink team held a series of offline and online workshops where they taught local government representatives and other stakeholders the basic principles of managing debris and assessing their amounts using the Methodological Recommendations. More than 500 people participated in these workshops.
During the online workshop, Deputy Minister for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development Nataliia Kozlovska noted that the approach could be useful for communities in particular to determine the necessary quantity and capacity of equipment, areas for temporary storage, necessary funding, etc.
“We believe that the approaches proposed in the Methodological Recommendations can serve as a tool for preliminary and approximate express assessment of the volume of debris from demolitions. This will allow communities to initially determine the economic need for managing debris from demolitions.”
National aspect
On a national scale, when actual data on the volumes of generated debris is absent, the Methodological Recommendations will promote the implementation of circular economy principles and the establishment of the recycling industry. Finding ways to reuse debris from demolitions is important for Ukraine, noted Ukrainian MP Olena Shuliak during the online workshop. The “green course” is part of Ukraine’s commitments to the EU under the Ukraine Facility Plan.
“The EU is ready to support modern waste management infrastructure to create value-added chains and ensure recycling and reuse. Today, we see in the Netherlands that more than 90% of construction debris can be reused. I am confident that we can set similar goals for ourselves: what we need to do now to ensure that this recycling percentage is also maximized for our country.”
The Methodological Recommendations developed by ReThink experts could also become the foundation for working with construction and demolition debris in the future when the norms for using this type of debris in new construction products become mandatory in Ukraine, as in EU countries, said MP Oleh Bondarenko:
“Demolition debris is not an object for pollution or burial in landfills. It is a raw material. I would urge the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Environment to quickly adopt these methodologies for their implementation in legislation, for their realization and practical application in recycling facilities.”
To simplify the practical use of the Methodological Recommendations, in a partnership with GlobalLogic Ukraine company the team developed an online calculator that will speed up the process of calculating the amount of debris by their components. The full version of the Methodological Recommendations and the online calculator can be found on the Ukraine Support Team coalition website.
Project “Rethink: Recommendations for Debris Management on the Frontlines” is a part of the Ukraine Confidence Building Initiative, implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
