Invest, do not throw away – Newspaper Kommersant No. 236 (7437) dated 12/20/2022

The PPP Center studied the practice of state concessions for the construction of infrastructure in the waste industry, fixing the volume of private investment in them at 227 billion rubles. against the backdrop of expanding state support, as well as describing a number of systemic problems that hinder concession financing of infrastructure construction, including the lack of an integrated approach to its planning and the low investment attractiveness of municipal projects. Market participants and experts, however, complain that these studies are incomplete, and far from all the “pitfalls” are mentioned in the conclusions – for example, the problem of coordinating goals and tools to achieve them has not been resolved even in the Ecology national project itself.

The PPP Center investigated the state of concessions in waste management – as of December 13, 2022, 117 PPP projects in the treatment of MSW were operating in the Russian Federation for 252.8 billion rubles, of which 226.8 billion were private. “Over the past five years, commercial closures have taken place between 10 and 12 industry projects per year. 2022 was a record year: 19 projects for 43 billion rubles. general investments,” the center notes, explaining this by the appearance of six state support instruments, five of which are returnable (standard solutions from Sberbank, Project Finance Factory VEB.RF and the Russian Environmental Operator, REO). A non-refundable tool is a new program for co-financing projects for the treatment of MSW from the budget (the first 7.9 billion rubles were allocated for the construction of enterprises for sorting and processing MSW in Dagestan and the Arkhangelsk region). The authors of the review also note that in addition to the technical problems of concession legislation (the center participated in the preparation of amendments together with the REO), there are systemic ones in the regulation of “garbage” concessions – “lack of an integrated approach to infrastructure planning at the regional level”, lack of competencies and “low investment attractiveness” municipal projects.

It should be noted that the PPK REO, responsible for achieving national goals in the field of MSW management, needs to find a total of 500 billion rubles. for their implementation, concessions of which account for 350 billion rubles. At the same time, the national project “Ecology” by 2024 requires the processing of 60% of waste and 100% of their sorting by 2030 (but it is still unclear whether shares are counted from the collected or generated volumes) and a reduction in the volume of burial by half with an increase of 50% recycling. The same goals require, according to the estimates of the PIC, the creation and reconstruction of capacities for 49.9 million tons per year for sorting MSW (90.7% of the need) and for 15.5 million tons per year for recycling (64.6%).

The head of the Institute of Ecology at the Higher School of Economics, Boris Morgunov, criticizes the work of the center, noting the inconsistency of the data: “The study presents a list of the ten largest investment projects. Of these, only one is in the investment stage, the rest are in the pre-investment stage. The agreement has been signed, but neither the money has yet been received nor the construction has begun. Taking into account the current state of the economy, it is incorrect to consider these objects to be realizable, to put it mildly.” He also asks numerous questions about the data on the work of the mechanism in the regions. Thus, Dagestan will receive capacities for sorting 500 thousand tons of MSW and a landfill for 300 thousand tons per year, in which 5.6 billion rubles will be invested. budgetary funds, but these capacities do not meet the standards of the national project.

With such inconsistencies, “concessions do not solve the problem of reducing landfill disposal and, on the contrary, create potential problems (landfill reclamation) and are aimed at increasing the tariff and developing unprofitable infrastructure,” Sodnom Budatarov from the circular economy laboratory of the IGSU RANEPA is also convinced. “It is possible to discuss the shortcomings of the concession and tariff legislation, but first you need to decide what is not transparent: what and how objects will be processed, how many of them there will be, what will be the output, where to see the actual results,” concludes Mr. Morgunov.

Companies willing to invest in waste management also have mixed feelings about concessions. “When an investor comes and starts talking about a concession, it turns into a vicious circle: it is necessary to build, but this leads to an increase in tariffs. Regional leaders often do not dare to raise tariffs. Ordinary investors, like us, need profitability, guarantees of revenue, ”said Petr Sannikov, head of the board of directors of the Terrikon group of companies (see Kommersant of June 17). Tatyana Bolshukhina, CEO of SimbEK, also calls concessions not the best tool: “You don’t own anything, but you invest your own money. The investment program under the Civil Code has the same legal force. The region guarantees waste streams here too. The concession is the same, but the object belongs to the state, and this is not interesting for private traders,” she complains.

Artem Chugunov