GCCSI OUTLINES REGIONAL FOCUS IN NEW STRATEGIC PLAN

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
3/22/13

The Global CCS Institute this week detailed upcoming changes to its organizational structure that will make the trade group more “regionally focused” but “globally connected.” In its new five-year strategic plan released March 22, the Canberra, Australia-based organization said it will aim to “consolidate” its efforts to its core goals of creating “favorable conditions” for carbon capture and storage projects, providing advocacy and policy support for the technology and encouraging knowledge-sharing efforts. CEO Brad Page said that the Institute will concentrate its efforts in three regions: the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific. “In particular, we will continue to advocate for CCS to be included in clean energy agreements and policies, collaborate with key multilateral bodies, strengthen CCS implementation capacity and inform the broader community that CCS is a clean, safe technology,” Page said in a statement.

According to Page, the Institute has wrapped up discussions with the Australian government, which provided the organization with the vast majority of its seed money in 2009, about terminating its funding agreement. Page said that development will bring the organizing a step closer to becoming a financially-independent, member-funded trade group. “The new business model will produce a leaner, more efficient and fiscally sustainable organization with a focus on delivering globally informed, regionally important member services at a lower cost,” he said.

Changes a Year in the Making

The trade group has spent the better part of the last year restructuring itself after it became apparent that its initial $315 million budget from the Australian government was drying up. After consulting with its roughly 360 current members last year about how to move forward, Page outlined in a speech last month that the Institute would soon phase in fees for its members, which run the gamut from government and industry to academia and NGOs. He said the Institute would also move to decentralize its staff, cutting employees at its Canberra headquarters in half as it looks to slash overhead costs 50 percent over the next three years and expand the organization’s global presence.

GCCSI was initially funded in 2009 under the government of then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, created as a way to put Australia on the map as a world leader in CCS. But the Institute has been at the center of ongoing criticism in the Australian media as reports there have questioned the group’s organizational effectiveness and spending practices over the last several years. The Institute, though, has long defended its investments as worthwhile in moving the ball forward on CCS internationally. “In a relatively short period of time the Institute has developed extensive expertise in many areas of CCS,” the group said in a June statement.