By Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Editor (Canada-Ukraine), Times Asian
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 to mobilize capital toward Paris-aligned climate investment, sustainable economic development, and decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen interviews Ted Kronmiller about financing Ukraine’s green reconstruction. Kronmiller discusses decentralized energy, battery storage, bioenergy, eco-industrial parks, carbon markets, and investment incentives. He explains how integrating waste management, water infrastructure, and renewable energy could strengthen wartime resilience while drawing lessons from Romania’s green buildings and mortgage programmes.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we’re here with Ted Kronmiller to discuss banking on green.
You have a dual necessity here in Ukraine. On the one hand, much of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure is centralized, as in many places. Russia’s attacks on power plants and transmission infrastructure have a major impact. Decentralization becomes a practical possibility and, in some cases, a necessity to make the energy system more resilient.
Another factor is the green transition, which is necessary not only because of climate change but also because renewables can reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Solar and wind can offer lower electricity generation costs, although financing, storage, and wartime conditions affect the economics of individual projects.
What is your main proposal to the movers and shakers here, or external investors, about the necessity of decentralization and how that can also help those sympathetic to Ukraine right now?
Ted Kronmiller: Scott, great question. It’s a real honour to be here with you today. You really hit the spot on. Ukraine is working to decentralize its energy system, support decarbonization, and build resiliency at the same time.
The main proposition is this: I believe international investors, institutional investors, multilaterals, climate investors, catalytic capital investors, and carbon investors can achieve substantial emissions reductions per dollar invested when they invest in Ukraine. They can support the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and I see the potential for attractive risk-adjusted returns here. Those outcomes depend on the project and how it manages risk.
Ukraine is a destination for international capital. In my view, it can be a particularly important destination for cooperation under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, for UN SDG impact, and for investment opportunities in the renewable energy transition. Article 6 provides for international cooperation, including carbon-market mechanisms, subject to the applicable rules.
Jacobsen: Which of those pillars are the most immediately relevant? They’re obviously networked together as a package, but are some more immediately relevant and should receive more targeted investment? For instance, is there a seasonal concern? Winter’s approaching.
Is it cost impact? Do you have to invest early to get that long-term return?
Kronmiller: The answer to all your questions is yes. The immediacy is this: the strongest pillar is decentralization. You have very strong demand-side drivers here.
From a climate investment perspective, Scott, meeting the Paris Agreement’s goals requires several trillion dollars in annual investment. Climate Policy Initiative reports that global climate finance exceeded $2 trillion in 2024, but that remains well below estimated needs. Its latest assessment puts the minimum annual requirement at about $6.2 trillion by 2035.
My argument is that investment needs to be front-loaded because of what we call the time value of carbon. Reducing emissions or removing carbon dioxide earlier limits its contribution to warming sooner. There’s an analogy with the time value of money, although the climate effects depend on the timing and permanence of those reductions or removals.
For the pension fund, the insurance company, or the sovereign wealth fund with climate targets, this means Ukraine offers an opportunity to support those goals. I see considerable potential here in bioenergy, solar, wind, and battery energy storage systems, or BESS.
When I say the answer is yes, the immediate focus is on things like BESS because we’ve got to make it through the winter. We need decentralized storage and generation, alongside resilient electricity networks. BESS addresses part of that puzzle by storing electricity for later use. It does not replace generation, and how long it can supply power depends on its storage capacity and the demand placed on it.
A pure-play BESS investment, structured properly, can potentially offer favourable risk-adjusted returns given the demand drivers here. That depends on the project’s costs, revenues, and exposure to wartime risks.
The power of an eco-industrial park is that you’re decentralizing and solving more than one problem at once. You put a park together with symbiotic or synergistic clusters. You have a BESS facility next to a biogas facility, next to solar, next to, say, a chemical synthesis facility, with these working together.
You can close resource loops by taking suitable waste streams that might otherwise go into a landfill and diverting them into the park. Organic waste can produce biogas, which can generate electricity that is then stored in batteries.
You may have negative feedstock costs if the facility is paid to accept suitable waste, although that depends on the arrangements and processing costs. You also have local demand because the electricity discharged from the BESS can supply businesses in the park or the municipality.
I see a strong driver for investors in pure-play BESS, and potentially an even stronger one when you embed it inside an eco-industrial park.
The Verkhovna Rada passed legislation on September 2, 2026, introducing the concept of eco-industrial parks into the industrial parks framework. Separately, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy reported that Ukraine became the first country in Europe to adopt a national eco-industrial park standard in 2025. That is a European first for a national standard, not a claim that Ukraine is an EU member or the first European country to have eco-industrial parks.
Jacobsen: What is the most promising and relevant type of renewable, sustainable energy in a wartime context? No energy installation is immune to a direct strike, but in terms of access to supplies and parts, and domestic and regional trade arrangements, what works for Ukraine?
Kronmiller: There are a couple. For example, an eco-industrial park is reconfigurable, scalable, and replicable. One of the most promising forms of renewable energy in the Kyiv region, Scott, is bioenergy because we have a waste management issue.
In Boyarka, where we’re developing an eco-industrial park, the plan is to take municipal solid waste, agricultural waste, and wastewater streams and transform suitable components into heat and electricity through combined heat and power, along with other value-added products such as fertilizers and chemical products. We also have a carbon output.
The value is in the energy, but it’s also in addressing a waste problem, modernizing water infrastructure, and building energy resiliency at the same time. That’s very promising for the Kyiv region.
Let me give you another example. In Kyiv, we’re looking at building a waste-to-energy facility next to a paper mill. That’s a different scenario because paper mill waste can contain toxic pollutants, depending on the production process. Improper disposal can cause environmental impacts.
The idea is to divert suitable waste into the park and use a different gasification technology to produce fuel gas for heat and electricity. That requires appropriate treatment and emissions controls. It’s a variation relevant to that particular waste stream. Not all waste-derived energy is renewable; that depends on the material being processed.
Then you go somewhere where solar may make more sense because it can be affordable and decentralized. Within an eco-industrial park, you could have a solar energy cluster that powers another cluster that takes rubble from buildings and processes it into recycled aggregate for construction, including suitable concrete applications.
That rubble has to be sorted and assessed first, with hazardous materials such as asbestos removed and managed safely.
The concept is to take a waste stream that would otherwise go to a landfill or elsewhere and put it back into the economy as a value-added product. The most effective forms of renewable energy vary by region, use case, and industry.
Jacobsen: Does that also benefit the community’s health through reduced pollution, including pollutants from waste and industrial byproducts?
Kronmiller: It can, Scott. One of the foremost issues in the climate transition is the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees. That is a long-term temperature goal, not a deadline to stay below 1.5 degrees by 2030.
Each greenhouse gas, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, has its own characteristics. Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas. Over 20 years, it has roughly 80 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide per unit of mass. It also contributes to ground-level ozone, which harms human health, crops, and ecosystems.
Methane itself is not directly toxic, but high concentrations can displace oxygen and cause suffocation in enclosed spaces. It also presents a fire and explosion hazard. That’s different from saying that ordinary outdoor exposure to methane from a landfill directly poisons a community.
The connection is that organic waste in a landfill can generate methane as it decomposes without oxygen. By diverting suitable organic waste into a properly managed biogas facility, you can capture methane that might otherwise escape into the atmosphere. You’re also turning that waste into energy that can replace fossil fuels. You’re getting that dual effect.
Emissions reductions per tonne of waste depend on the waste itself, what would otherwise happen to it, how much methane is captured or leaks, and what energy source is displaced. There isn’t one fixed reduction factor for every tonne of municipal solid waste.
Another health issue is water. Boyarka is one example where we’re looking at modernizing water infrastructure. Water quality has clear implications for human health, and testing must establish specific concerns.
That infrastructure is vital not only for people but also for our four-legged friends, biodiversity, and agriculture. Ageing water infrastructure can also be energy inefficient and costly to operate.
You’ve got old pumps that consume more electricity than necessary and leaky pipes that lose water between point A and point B. That means wasting both water and the energy used to treat and pump it.
Health and environmental impacts are intertwined here. Waste management and water infrastructure are two areas where eco-industrial parks can help, provided the systems are properly designed and operated.
Jacobsen: In the big picture, you’re arguing for front-loading trillions in investment to support the transition towards net zero around mid-century. How much front-loading is required, and for how long, in the Ukrainian context specifically, within the country’s borders?
Kronmiller: Scott, great question. In the early 2000s and 2010s, Ukraine had a highly emissions-intensive economy. The relevant comparison is emissions per unit of economic output, rather than saying its total emissions were several times those of OECD or EU countries. Ukraine’s emissions intensity was higher than the OECD and EU averages.
Ukraine has a lot of heavy industry and natural resources, including oil, gas, coal, and critical minerals. Fossil-fuel-powered heavy industry is a combination that produces high emissions.
Well before the full-scale invasion, I think industry leaders, investors, and policymakers saw an opportunity to embrace the transition in a way that would benefit Ukraine economically and strengthen its environmental performance.
As it entered that transition, Ukraine could draw on technologies and practices already developed elsewhere. It didn’t have to repeat every step other countries had taken. It could start at the crest of the wave and say, “We’ve had a lot of climate innovation. Let’s take the leading practices and implement them here.”
Opportunities exist to decarbonize industry, transportation, ports, shipping, and agriculture. But falling emissions caused by industrial shutdowns or wartime destruction should not be confused with progress in making those sectors cleaner.
Where rebuilding is necessary, there’s an opportunity to use more sustainable materials, technologies, and efficient energy sources from the outset. Ukraine isn’t a blank slate, though. It still has existing industries and infrastructure that need modernization.
To put the scale in context, the joint assessment by Ukraine’s government, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the United Nations estimates reconstruction and recovery needs at almost $588 billion over the next decade, based on damage assessed through December 31, 2025. That’s an estimate of needs, not funding already secured.
In a scenario where 35 to 50 percent of that investment is climate-aligned, you’re looking at roughly $206 billion to $294 billion. That includes renewable energy, low-carbon infrastructure, and low-carbon industry. It isn’t all renewable energy investment.
I think that scale of climate-aligned investment is a realistic ambition. My own scenario is around $250 billion over the next three years. That’s a much faster timetable than the decade covered by the reconstruction assessment, and it would require a major acceleration in financing and project delivery.
For an economy like Ukraine, that’s a big number. It’s not just the investment itself but also the knock-on effects.
Ukraine has approved a legal and institutional framework to implement Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, creating a basis for participation in international carbon markets. That’s an important step, although a framework alone doesn’t mean projects have already generated authorized or transferred emissions reductions.
Alignment with EU green standards is another important part of the reconstruction agenda. I would distinguish that process from saying Ukraine has already fully adopted the EU taxonomy and European Green Bond Standard.
I see strong forces supporting this investment. I believe Ukraine could attract well over $300 billion in climate investment over the next couple of years. That’s my outlook, and it depends on security conditions, investor participation, policy implementation, and the capacity to deliver projects.
Jacobsen: Is there a post-communist country outside a war scenario that has engaged in similar processes, with a similarly rapid timeline, where you’ve seen successes?
Kronmiller: There are. Look at Romania, for example. Romania had a lot of heavy industry. This is not unique to any one country. It’s not fair to call out any one country or put anyone on a pedestal, except for Ukraine.
Looking at this objectively, you have a transition to free markets, a race to embrace an open economy and closer ties with the West. You’re building as fast as you can and doing as many deals as you can. It’s about the volume, scale, and cadence of those deals.
If you’re a banker, you’re going to do as much as you can, as fast as you can. If you’re a real estate developer, you’re going to build at scale, with the quality the market demands. In manufacturing, you’re going to ramp up that manufacturing base.
A lot of economic activity was unleashed to meet market demand. If we’d known then what we know now, things probably would have been different. Some of that development relied on coal, oil, gas, and carbon-intensive materials.
Romania’s EU membership and European climate policies have helped drive changes. It joined the EU in 2007, and that transition has taken years rather than happening overnight.
The Romanians have some innovation. One example is the real estate sector. We assessed its existing condition. Think of older communist-era apartment blocks: concrete construction, insufficient insulation, gaps and cracks, and draughty windows.
Concrete has embodied carbon, much of it associated with producing the cement used to make it. Separately, poor insulation and draughts mean that, in winter, you’re pumping heat into a building and losing it through the walls and windows. Your operational emissions can go through the roof, no pun intended.
When we looked at Romania’s built environment, a lot of people said, “It’s never going to happen. You’re not going to get Romania to change in any reasonable period. You’re not going to get banks to do the climate deals you want. Green real estate? Get real.”
We worked on an approach that says, “If you’re developing a green building, let’s create financing incentives that reflect its performance and risk profile.”
An energy-efficient building can have lower running costs and potentially a higher market value. Those characteristics can support better financing terms, although a green building isn’t automatically a lower-risk investment in every respect. Romania’s Green Homes and Green Mortgage programme connects qualifying homes with preferential mortgage products.
People said, “You’re living in an ivory tower.” But the market embraced the approach because demand existed. Landlords wanted more energy-efficient buildings. People wanted higher-quality, healthier places to live, with more sustainable materials.
Romania is a good example. I’m sorry for the long explanation. It’s a very good example of how these changes can take hold.
Its built environment and energy systems are changing. That creates demand for changes in building materials. Then adjacent industries start changing because of growth led by those sectors. Those secondary effects can compound throughout the economy.
Jacobsen: That’s good. Let’s end that one there.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Canadian journalist and publisher who serves as Times Asian’s Editor for Canada and Ukraine Affairs and writes on international affairs.
