Ted Kronmiller on Eco-Industrial Parks and Ukraine’s Green Investment

Ted Kronmiller is a Climate Finance Strategist and Managing Director at Capturiant Ukraine. His work spans sustainable investment, risk management, bioenergy, carbon markets, and Ukraine’s green reconstruction. He has worked in over 25 countries on mobilizing capital toward Paris-aligned climate investment, sustainable economic development and decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Ted Kronmiller about eco-industrial parks and Ukraine’s green reconstruction. Kronmiller discusses industrial symbiosis, tax incentives, carbon markets, green bonds, and investor confidence. Using Boyarka as an example, he outlines proposed energy, water, and waste projects alongside financing strategies, governance requirements, and approaches to managing wartime risks.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Give us the big picture: what are eco-industrial parks, why are they important to Ukraine, and who is involved?

Ted Kronmiller: Mr. Jacobsen, it’s a great honour to be here with you today. Thank you. You asked three good questions: what are eco-industrial parks, how do they support Ukraine, and who’s involved?

An eco-industrial park brings businesses together in a managed industrial area where they can share infrastructure, energy, water, and materials to improve their economic, environmental, and social performance. In Ukraine, I see it as a structured, incentivized entry point into green reconstruction that can help reduce some investment risks. I think the Verkhovna Rada’s support for this approach is a stroke of brilliance.

The broader point is that investors, companies, and other stakeholders who get involved in recovery before a conflict ends can help provide what people need: energy, water, and buildings. They may also find investment opportunities and access to incentives, depending on the project and the applicable rules. Those benefits aren’t automatic, and the risks remain substantial.

An eco-industrial park combines clusters of symbiotic or synergistic activities that can support the UN Sustainable Development Goals and circular economy objectives. Individual projects may also qualify for cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, provided they meet the relevant requirements.

The first driver is the incentives. Ukraine’s industrial park framework provides a conditional 10-year corporate income tax exemption for qualifying participants, with the exempted funds reinvested in the project. There are also VAT and import-duty exemptions for qualifying new equipment imported for participants’ own use. Local authorities can grant favourable land-tax treatment. These aren’t blanket exemptions from every tax.

Other support can include compensation for loan interest. The actual borrowing rate depends on the financing programme, currency, lender, and project risk.

For illustration, suppose Jacobsen Eco-Industrial Park is developing a $250 million facility. If it could secure financing at 7 percent and legally lend those funds to tenants at 8 percent, that would create a one-percentage-point gross interest spread. Whether that structure is available depends on the financing terms and applicable rules. The spread would also have to cover costs and risks.

The incentives can include financial support for infrastructure and compensation for connections to utility networks, including the electricity grid. That can help eligible park developers, managing companies, or participants, subject to programme conditions. That’s your first driver.

Your second driver is industrial symbiosis. In Boyarka, we’re developing an eco-industrial park where the plan is to bring municipal solid waste, agricultural waste, and wastewater streams into a waste reuse and recovery cluster.

The aim is to recover useful materials and energy from suitable components of those streams, producing heat and electricity through combined heat and power, along with value-added chemical products and a carbon output.

The treatment depends on the waste stream. Gasification can process suitable prepared feedstocks, while wet organic waste and wastewater sludge may require different treatment, such as anaerobic digestion.

That’s one cluster: we’re taking waste that might otherwise go into a landfill or cause environmental damage and using it as an input for another activity.

An eco-industrial park, by its nature, must address environmental objectives: climate, waste management, renewable energy, the circular economy, and biodiversity.

We create the waste reuse and recovery cluster to divert those waste streams. Then we have an energy cluster with solar and battery energy storage systems, or BESS. Solar generates electricity, and the batteries store it for later use. That electricity can supply the city and support the park itself. Renewable electricity can also power electrolysers to produce green hydrogen.

The third cluster in our proposed park is chemical synthesis. The idea is to combine captured biogenic carbon dioxide from biogas processing with green hydrogen to produce e-methanol for the shipping industry. Its climate benefits depend on the sources of the carbon dioxide and electricity, and on emissions across the production and use cycle.

We would then need a viable transport route to customers, potentially through Odesa. The proposed Dnipro route would require a separate assessment of infrastructure, navigability, and security.

That’s the second pillar: symbiotic clusters. The output of one process becomes the input of another. You’re closing resource loops and creating a situation where one plus one equals three.

The third tier is something our firm is working on through financial engineering: a way to strengthen the financing of an eco-industrial park and support eligible projects under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

When you take suitable organic waste, Scott, and put it into a properly managed biogas facility, you can reduce methane emissions compared with landfilling that waste. You can also replace some fossil fuel use by generating heat and electricity. The amount of mitigation depends on the waste, the alternative disposal method, methane leakage, and the energy displaced.

That isn’t automatically bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. BECCS requires capturing biogenic carbon dioxide and storing it durably. Using captured carbon dioxide to make methanol is carbon utilization; when the fuel is burned, that carbon dioxide is released again.

Eligible, verified mitigation could generate carbon credits under an applicable crediting programme. For mitigation outcomes to be transferred under Article 6.2, the relevant authorization, reporting, and accounting requirements must also be met, including corresponding adjustments to prevent double counting. A carbon credit doesn’t automatically become an internationally transferred mitigation outcome, or ITMO.

Our proposal is to link those eligible credits, or their revenues, to a green use-of-proceeds bond. For example, if Jacobsen EIP issued a $250 million bond, the financing structure could incorporate rights to qualifying carbon credits or revenues from their sale.

The green bond would still need to finance eligible environmental projects, with appropriate project selection, management of proceeds, and reporting. Including carbon credits doesn’t, by itself, make a bond green.

The idea is to use the bond markets to scale investment and get capital into Ukrainian recovery. Some insurance companies and pension funds may find a suitably structured bond more compatible with their investment mandates than buying standalone carbon credits. Its appeal would depend on the credit quality, terms, and risks.

That’s our proposed third tier of financing. It’s an additional feature of our model, rather than a defining requirement for every eco-industrial park.

Jacobsen: You mentioned EIP standards as well. How do you get the park assessed or certified against the relevant standards, and how do you verify its contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals? I think those are important to get right.

Kronmiller: Scott, great question. First, there’s the park’s status under Ukraine’s national framework. You need to meet the applicable requirements for industrial park registration and eco-industrial park recognition. Getting plans approved or entering the industrial parks register doesn’t, by itself, demonstrate compliance with every environmental standard.

Ukraine has adopted a national eco-industrial park standard covering sustainability criteria and assessment. The process needs to distinguish legal registration from assessment against that standard.

Second, there’s your contribution to the Paris Agreement’s goals. The activities within the park can generate emissions reductions, but those reductions need to be measured and verified under the relevant methodology.

For Article 6.2 cooperation, host-country authorization is an important step. An ITMO is an internationally transferred mitigation outcome. A letter of authorization alone doesn’t establish the quantity of emissions reduced or complete the transfer and accounting requirements. There are also reporting, tracking, and corresponding-adjustment requirements to prevent double counting.

Ukraine has approved a legal and institutional framework for implementing Article 6, creating a basis for that participation. The framework and the operational work needed to implement individual projects are distinct steps.

Third, there’s your contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There are 17 SDGs. By mapping the park’s activities against the relevant targets and indicators, you can identify contributions to clean energy, waste management, health, employment, and other priorities. That mapping isn’t, by itself, UN certification.

An eco-industrial park can address several goals systematically. With a standalone project, Scott, you might have an incredible solar project in Africa, a forestry project in the Amazon, fleet electrification, or a waste management project. Each will have its own contributions to sustainable development.

The power of an eco-industrial park is that combining those clusters can produce benefits from industrial symbiosis while bringing several development objectives together. The number of SDGs it supports depends on the actual activities and demonstrated outcomes. There isn’t a fixed rule that a park addresses 11 to 15 goals while a standalone project addresses only four or five.

Jacobsen: Ukraine is a unitary state, rather than a federation like Canada or the United States. It has regional authorities and local self-government, with powers defined under Ukrainian law.

How does that structure affect your work when you go from oblast to oblast, pitching eco-industrial parks and putting plans together? Are there particular permitting or regulatory processes that make development easier or harder than in EU countries?

Kronmiller: Scott, that’s a great question. Each oblast has its own opportunities and challenges. When you look at oblasts, hromadas, cities, towns, and villages, each has a distinct economic, demographic, and environmental profile.

One strength of the eco-industrial park model is that it can be reconfigured, scaled, and replicated. We can take a configuration proposed for Boyarka and adapt it for somewhere like Mykolaiv, which has a very different environment, different opportunities, and different challenges.

There may be rubble that can be processed into recycled aggregate for construction, subject to sorting, contamination checks, and material standards. We can also use different energy sources.

We’ve spoken about this a couple of times, but the power of the model is its flexibility to address local needs. That flexibility still operates within the powers of local authorities and the applicable planning and environmental requirements.

In one of our discussions, a local official made the point very clearly: “We’re innovating forward. We are not going to build back.”

I see an opportunity for Ukraine to leapfrog older technologies in parts of the energy transition. The priorities discussed included social housing for veterans and internally displaced people, along with rebuilding energy infrastructure.

There’s also a large paper mill in the area we’re discussing. An eco-industrial park could be configured around its specific waste stream. We’d need to select the treatment technology based on that feedstock. Suitable biodegradable fractions could potentially be used to produce biogas for combined heat and power, or CHP; other fractions would require different treatment.

In that configuration, the park could have a facility recovering energy from suitable paper mill waste. We’d also have solar and battery energy storage systems, or BESS, using the available land nearby.

You’d have a waste reuse and recovery cluster for the paper mill, an energy cluster with solar and BESS, and a data centre cluster. Solar would generate electricity, while the batteries would help manage when it is available. The data centres could use that electricity and provide digital services to customers in Kyiv. Their environmental performance would depend on the full electricity supply, energy efficiency, cooling, and other operating requirements.

That’s a different configuration, and that adaptability makes eco-industrial parks powerful for Ukraine’s situation.

On governance, Scott, Ukraine is working towards closer alignment with EU rules through its accession process. That is an ongoing process, rather than a completed adoption of every EU governance, taxonomy, green bond, and climate requirement.

Our work brings together environmental assets and financial structuring. The aim is to connect credible climate outcomes with instruments that institutional investors can assess.

Strong disclosure and governance can help mobilize capital at scale. But securities registration, climate accounting, and environmental verification are separate requirements. Registration alone doesn’t establish a security’s climate performance or demonstrate that its governance exceeds that of advanced economies.

When we structure financing for an eco-industrial park, the ambition is to meet demanding standards for disclosure, accountability, and environmental integrity. Those standards need to be demonstrated through the transaction documents, oversight, and reporting.

We’re trying to create a model for governance that others can use. The ambition is not simply to meet the applicable EU standards, but to go beyond them where we can demonstrate better practice.

Jacobsen: There’s also a significant sales component to intercultural business. How do you bridge distrust, wherever you’re working? Once you build trust, how do you maintain that reputation for trustworthiness and keep moving forward? These projects take a long time.

Demonstrating contributions to the SDGs, using appropriate emissions-accounting methodologies, and meeting applicable EU standards are part of the initial work. Then there’s securing permits and financing and coordinating with local and international partners.

But you have to sustain those relationships over many years, especially when, as you’re arguing, investment needs to be heavily front-loaded. On the business and sales side, how do you maintain those relationships in a positive way?

Kronmiller: Scott, for us, it’s very simple. It’s about conviction: our conviction in Ukraine’s ability to out-innovate, outperform, and outmanoeuvre many advanced economies.

A lot of this comes down to shared values and shared objectives. By shared objectives, I mean alignment of interests.

We have a very strong team working on our Boyarka eco-industrial park project. We have a strong sponsor whose commitment includes acquiring appropriately located land, pursuing permits, and bringing scientists, economists, financiers, lawyers, and policy experts together. That’s the catalytic phase where we kick things off.

The ability to transcend geographical boundaries is essential in any global business. In Ukraine, I believe the value proposition is well understood by experienced investors who know the history of reconstruction.

Think of institutions such as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and PIMCO. These are examples of the sophisticated investors I’m talking about. My argument is that investors, companies, and other stakeholders who become involved in recovery before a conflict ends can help provide what people need while laying the groundwork for longer-term development.

Early involvement can create opportunities to accelerate progress, although it also carries substantial risks. That’s the value proposition I see.

Closer to your point, translating that value proposition and shared conviction into tangible progress comes down to working closely together.

I’ve been around the world twice, to Asia, Europe, and the Americas, working with major insurers, asset managers, pension funds, family offices, and companies on this. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. The Ukrainian eco-industrial park model has been very well received by the international stakeholders we’ve spoken with.

Foundational to that is presenting a clear, dispassionate picture of where we are. I’m very passionate about Ukraine, but you have to say, “Here’s where we are now. Here’s what it took to get here. Here’s what we need over the next three, five, or seven months. Here’s where we’re going over the next three, five, or seven years.”

Is a pension fund necessarily going to want to invest several million dollars in the early-stage work for an eco-industrial park? No. But it’s important to give them a clear picture of where we are, with strong, regular communication about milestones: “Here’s what we said we were going to do three months ago. We’ve done exactly that.”

To overcome what you’re talking about, it takes clear and consistent communication, alignment of values, and the ability to demonstrate concrete milestones, success, and tangible outputs. Through that process, we’ve secured strong early-stage commitments from investors.

Keeping in close communication with major investors, companies, and other stakeholders is vital.

I’ll wrap up because I know it’s a long answer. For us, that meant doing a detailed study of Boyarka’s water, energy, and waste management infrastructure. We examined the financial, engineering, and scientific aspects to present a clear, objective picture of its current condition, where it should be, and how an eco-industrial park could help get it there.

Then we went back to the investors we’d spoken with and said, “This is where we were a few months ago when we last spoke. Here’s where we are now.”

They see that progress, and it builds the relationship. Those are the foundations of what we have now: an eco-industrial park project at an early stage, with strong investor commitments.

Jacobsen: Let’s take the Boyarka example. How old is the infrastructure? When was it constructed, and when was it last updated?

Kronmiller: The last update to the water infrastructure was about 50 years ago.

Jacobsen: My last question is more qualitative than quantitative. We’ve discussed a lot of policy, international standards, costs, and financing. Qualitatively, what range of opinions have you been getting from domestic and international partners?

Kronmiller: Scott, as you can imagine, our situation in Ukraine is a global situation. I see eco-industrial parks as powerful ways to accelerate climate investment into Ukraine because they can help address issues with global implications, including food and energy security.

Part of Ukraine remains under Russian occupation, and land outside occupied areas can also be contaminated with mines and other explosive remnants of war. Areas identified as potentially contaminated require surveying; that doesn’t mean every part of them is covered with landmines.

The implications extend well beyond Ukraine. Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s food exports helped feed an estimated 400 million people annually, according to the World Food Programme. Disruption to agricultural production and exports affects food security elsewhere. We’re dealing with something truly global.

Experienced investors understand that. At the most cautious end of the spectrum, when I meet large investors, multilaterals, and family offices, the reaction is often, “We love Ukraine. We’ve done philanthropic work supporting schools, humanitarian causes, and people on the front line. But when we talk about deploying tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, our board has a longstanding policy against investing in a country in an active war.”

The portfolio managers and bankers may see the merits even when their institutions can’t proceed.

Some have said, “Ted, we like this. We work with other counterparties, hedge funds, private equity firms, and family offices. We can introduce it to them. When our firm decides it’s time to invest in Ukraine, we want this front and centre. We want to be early stakeholders.”

That’s one scenario.

Part of my message is to welcome that interest while also saying, “If you’re waiting until peace is clearly in sight, you may miss some early opportunities. Capital is already coming into Ukraine, and projects are being developed.”

My view is that being here early matters. It takes time to build relationships, understand the market, and prepare projects. That doesn’t mean later investors can’t make a meaningful contribution.

Then you have institutions already putting capital into Ukraine. Some use war-risk insurance, political-risk guarantees, and partnerships to reduce particular exposures. Multilateral institutions such as MIGA provide guarantees, while brokers such as Willis, part of WTW, help arrange insurance. These tools can mitigate specified risks, but they don’t eliminate all investment risk.

Corporate partnerships can also help with project delivery and commercial arrangements.

Then there are asset managers and family offices with more streamlined decision-making. Their response is, “We have the agility. This is something we can do, and we’re going to do it.”

I’ve seen that among Nordic family offices with strong support for Ukraine. Some are acting quietly. That’s important when you’re providing the early capital needed to build these projects. We can execute without announcing everything to the world or seeking accolades.

Another group consists of particularly nimble family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. They say, “Ted, we’re doing this because we believe in Ukraine.”

They may see a strong financial proposition in a battery energy storage system, or BESS, alongside its humanitarian value. Supporting reliable electricity for essential services can help protect lives. An investment can have that social purpose without being a charitable donation.

Some people I work with in New York, including senior portfolio managers, executives, and high-net-worth individuals, are willing to consider an initial $10 million or $15 million investment partly for what they’ll learn about the market.

Their thinking is that, even if the first investment loses money, the experience could improve their later investment decisions. That isn’t a guarantee that they’ll recover a loss, but it is part of how they assess the opportunity.

You see this in real estate. An investment can reflect affinity, conviction, and values as well as an expected financial return. It can also help an investor understand the local environment.

If you’re investing in real estate in the United States or Canada, having a property manager on the ground can give you useful local knowledge. Where might the next hotel go? What businesses are expanding? What are tenants asking for? Some information is public, but you won’t learn everything from the headlines.

That’s the thinking I’ve heard here in Ukraine: “We’re prepared to make an initial investment because we want to understand the market and build relationships. We believe that experience will help us with the next investment.”

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Ted.

—

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer and Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 2,000 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic, media, and research institution fellowships, and currently serves on numerous international boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.