Wants to reach the top of the pyramid
The billion-dollar BIR group has approximately 450 employees and wants to move as far up the waste pyramid as possible together with the Terravera Foundation.
Bergens Renovationsvæsen, which later became BIR, was established in 1881 as the first municipal waste management service in the Nordic region. Among the owner municipalities that use BIR’s waste management services are Askøy, Bergen, Bjørnafjorden, Kvam, Osterøy, Samnanger, and Vaksdal. The organization handles waste for nearly 400,000 residents.
As the newest partner, BIR aims to gain deeper insight into waste management.
The waste value chain begins with the customers, followed by pickup and collection, material sorting, treatment, handling, energy production, and disposal. It’s a lengthy process, and there is likely much to gain from acquiring more knowledge about sustainability in relation to waste.
The Environmental Company for All of Western Norway
BIR’s vision is to be the environmental company of choice for people in Western Norway. Both the circular economy and the waste hierarchy are models the organization currently uses. See sketches below.
-“We primarily want to encourage waste reduction, and then we want to handle waste in a way that leaves as small a footprint as possible on society and the environment,” says BIR’s Development Manager, Stian Haarvig Halland.
What challenges do you see in the industry, and how could partnering with Terravera benefit BIR?
“The requirements for separating single waste fractions keep getting stricter, regardless of the processes and resources needed to meet them,” explains Halland. “Fact-based decision-making that leads to better and more sustainable solutions in our industry would be highly valuable to us,” he says.
BIR’s slogan is “Together for a good cause,” so the organization welcomes collaboration with all partners who share its goals, Halland notes.
Collaboration and respect for each other’s roles are central to BIR’s value system. “We team up with our customers and work together for a good cause,” is how BIR describes its approach.
BIR also points out that Terravera is a non-profit foundation with the ability to perform systematic, fact-based sustainability analyses without underlying ulterior motives, which is particularly motivating.
“We will start by examining sustainability analyses of the existing waste treatment solutions we’re currently involved with. We hope this will give BIR and the industry a better understanding of today’s waste treatment solutions and provide us with more information about how sustainable the different approaches are,” Halland concludes.
“The waste sector is exciting, and there’s a lot to gain in a forward-looking perspective,” says Terravera’s Board Chair, Erik Færevaag. “We are proud to have BIR on board and hope we can achieve valuable insights and results,” he adds.
