BY AMB PETER MADDENS
Today, February 26, 2024, the international community in Nairobi is opening the Sixth United Nations Environment Assembly – one of the UN system’s key fora for debate, conversation and decision making on environmental issues.
These meetings are held in Nairobi, because the city hosts the United Nations Environment Program, the UN system’s main program on these issues.
I have a story to tell, this week.
I am a quintessential Babyboomer, born in 1960. I was brought up loving to fly to places for pleasure, thinking that owning a car was a must, not just a privilege; meat was part of a healthy diet; and A/C, while a luxury, had become a necessity when it is hot.
And my wife and I have two millennial sons. That is where it all started – with “our” millennials, who, like every adolescent, went through a phase of knowing things better than their parents. With one big difference compared to when my generation went through that phase: Our kids really did know (some…) things better than we did, particularly when it comes to climate change and sustainability.
They created our consciousness. So now we try to fly only when necessary, we don’t own a car (back home, at least – in this job, it is hard not to have one for professional reasons…) and we’re lucky to be in Nairobi, where A/C is not really necessary… (I don’t think I will be able to give up meat… pole…).
It was with that climate-consciousness that we arrived in Nairobi in August of 2021.
Let me divulge a secret… When an ambassador arrives in a posting, there are a couple of circles of contacts that he/she inserts him/herself into to start building the network that is the center of his/her universe and the most important tool for the job: Other diplomats, the business community, political or civil society contacts and, most importantly, compatriots, the “diaspora”.
That is how I met Loïc Amado and Valery Super – an amazing Belgian couple who had a most impactful idea: build their Emboo River Camp to be the very first carbon-neutral safari camp in Maasai Mara.
A couple of months later, we were planning the first team-building that year. We ended up having a number of colleagues from the Embassy participate in the Ultra MARAthon in Maasai Mara in early December and asked Loïc and Valery if we could combine our participation in the marathon with a night at Emboo with the whole team. And they showed the most incredible generosity in saying “yes” …
That night, after the MARAthon, about 40 of us (colleagues and their families) descended upon Emboo River Camp, were fed by the camp-chef (who, by the way, is an absolute expert in vegan cooking!), were regaled by local Maasai dancers and generally gave the team the boost we all needed.
The next morning, like for everyone when they stay at the camp, before letting you plant a tree, Loïc and Valery show you the installations that make their camp carbon neutral: the solar panels, the batteries, the water capture and recycling, the hydroponic vegetable gardens, the biodigesters for gas, the battery powered (solar-power-recharged) safari-vehicles and, most impactfully, the pride with which the whole Emboo team lives and breathes the carbon-neutral mantra the camp is built on.
The one thing that I kept thinking while Loïc was showing me around his place was: “Our ‘businesses’ are totally different, but our infrastructure is the same: The camp has 12 tents, four cars, three acres of land, 40 staff.
The Embassy has two buildings, two cars, five acres and 25 staff. I think I can do this carbon-neutral thing too.
A couple of weeks later, Zakia Khattabi, the Belgian Minister of Environment, was in town for the UN Environment Assembly, and I thought it may be fun to test the idea of a carbon-neutral embassy on her… It took all of five seconds for her to be totally on board and I found myself empowered to go full steam ahead with this idea. I also gave myself a deadline: The next UNEA in February 2024, when, as the calendar dictated, Belgium would also be holding the rotating EU Presidency and Ms Khattabi would be back to attend UNEA 6.
The visibility opportunities of a major UN event related to environment and climate and a Belgian EU Presidency were too good to pass up!
So now, two years later, here we are. Our principal partner in this project, Painted Wolves PLC, put together a consortium of Kenyan companies who retrofitted the whole Embassy – office and residence – to be the first Belgian Embassy in the world and the first in Nairobi to operate on a carbon neutral basis.
Qwestworks installed solar panels on the roofs of the residence and the office as well as a battery park and EV chargers at the residence and at the chancery. Bioliff is putting in the rainwater harvesting and the waste-water recycling systems. Home Biogas set up the system to produce biogas for the kitchen (with the biodigester fed with unsold produce from a grocery store in our neighborhood).
Vertical Gardens built vegetable and herb gardens to provide the kitchen with all our vegetables and herbs. Chameleon installed solar/heatpump-boilers for hot water. And, finally, we are buying an electric vehicle which we will be charging with a solar car port which was set up on the parking lot at the Embassy.
Belgian Environment Minister, Zakia Khattabi, will be “flipping the switch” on Wednesday, February 28 , during the Sixth UN Environment Assembly – an appropriate moment, if ever there was one for this kind of event.
She will be accompanied by Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya and the President’s climate adviser, Ali Mohamed. This isn’t a spectacularly big project. Kenya already gets 90+% of its electricity from sustainable, carbon-neutral sources. This project goes beyond that, though. It is not just electricity.
The biogas, the water recycling and -capture, the on-site production of our vegetables and, most importantly: raising awareness with our staff and clients about how everyone can do his part, even if it is just two buildings that are being retrofitted. But because of the visibility an embassy inevitably has, I want to think that we can show what is possible and show that if every individual does what he/she can, we can make the difference my millennial kids made me want to make.
We took our inspiration from a camp in the bush and we made it happen at a posh residence in the city. I am convinced that every kind of dwelling or installation in between those two extremes can copy all or part of what we’ve done here.
Because if we want to fight climate change, the macro-battle, the big things like wind farms and geothermal plants and solar radiation modification, can only be successful if the little guys, the individual small business, the residential house, the affordable apartment complex, do their bit too.
That is the impact we want to have, that we must have.
Peter Maddens is the Belgium Ambassador to Kenya
