+ BACKGROUND, CHALLENGES AND OBJECTIVES

In the past, Nadee had a predominantly agricultural economy. However, since the late 1960s, the Sub-district has been experiencing significant changes in land use, with most of Nadee having been transformed to support the expansion of industrial activities. In recent years Nadee has been characterised by rapid industrial expansion and is currently home to approximately 543 factories, down from a high of 686 in 2016 (Department of Industrial Works, 2021). Industry growth has driven population growth by attracting migrant workers from other provinces and countries. This large influx of migrants, a majority of whom have come from Myanmar, has significantly increased the area’s population density, subsequently increasing the demand for improved environmental facilities, particularly for improving the treatment of wastewater and solid waste.

Nadee’s waste challenges included the following:

• Rapid urbanization and industrialization have attracted large numbers of migrants from other Thai provinces and neighboring countries, contributing to unsustainable solid waste, wastewater, and natural resource management.
• Nadee Sub-district produces 32,850 tons of household waste per annum (excluding industrial waste).
• Lack of systematic arrangements for sustainable resource management and absence of monitoring mechanism to identify types of industrial waste contribute to the problem.
• Urgent need exists for e­ffective planning and implementation of innovative solutions to manage increasing amounts of solid and liquid waste from industrial, commercial, and residential sources.

Under the Project, after assessing the challenges key recommendations were as follows:

• Review the city’s vision, mission, and environmental management approach to identify strategies to promote more sustainable waste management.
• Recruit personnel with knowledge and competence in environmental management and allocate sufficient budget to support operations.
• Advance the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) principles to minimize wastes going to the sanitary landfill.
• Provide a transit center for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to optimize resource use between waste generators and waste users (e.g., agriculturists) and serve as a learning center for waste composting.
• Share knowledge among large-scale firms and SMEs in similar industries in the city.
• Support income generation from industrial waste.

+ ACTIONS AND IMPLEMENTATION

Nadee localized the SDGs through SURM, which involved the following overlapping, reiterative steps or phases:



1. ORIENTATION & SCOPING PHASE:
Nadee Subdistrict Municipality began working on this Project by participating in a 2018 Inception Workshop that involved Pilot Cities identifying and framing issues with the SDGs at the centre of the process. Discussions on engaging stakeholders, raising awareness, and building knowledge on SURM linked to the 2030 Agenda were held. Participants also examined existing research and data to help identify an urban resource sector to focus on for the duration of the Project and Nadee selected solid waste management.

2. ENGAGING STAKEHOLDER PHASE:
Given the importance of collaboration in localizing the SDGs, EARTH Foundation and Nadee Subdistrict Municipality have been working with representatives from the Samut Sakhon Irrigation Project, Regional Environmental Office, Internal Security Operations Command (Samut Sakhon), Department of Public works and Town & Country Planning, Head of Nadee Village, Nadee Subdistrict Health Promotion Hospital, Mueang Samut Sakhon District, Samut Sakhon Provincial Administrative Organization, Labour Rights Promotion Working Group Foundation (LPN), Suphan Buri Waste Revolution Network, The Children and Youth Council of Nadee, Samut Sakhon Technical College, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Nadee factories and industries (e.g. Tep Kincho Foods Co. Ltd., N&N Foods Co. Ltd. and Red Bull Distillery (1988) Co., Ltd.), and the broader community to build meaningful engagement to co-create change through all stages of the Project.

3. BASELINE & STRATEGIC PLANNING PHASE:
To better understand Nadee’s waste management challenges, baseline research was conducted to gain a general awareness of the policy and institutional landscape, identify priority problems and data gaps, and evaluate the accessibility of waste-related information and datasets. The Multi-Stakeholder Network, representing the community's diversity, gathered for a Strategic Planning Workshop to brainstorm areas of intervention and address problems surrounding waste management. Participants agreed that additional research was needed to determine:

• Material flow and management of industrial waste in Nadee
• Existing policies in place for waste management and areas for improvement
• Capacity of the private sector and government agencies to monitor solid waste management and the circular economy

They also arrived at an initial vision statement to guide the Project and agreed to preliminary activities and milestones needed to fulfil their vision.

4. EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION-MAKING:
Gathering information, analyzing data, and disseminating knowledge have been ongoing activities for Nadee throughout the Project. Researchers from EARTH Foundation and KMUTT addressed the gaps identified at the Strategic Planning Workshop by analyzing material flow of waste management in Nadee City and assessing the private sector and government agencies' institutional capacity and needs in industrial waste management monitoring circular economy approaches in Nadee. The research results were presented and discussed at Nadee’s Systems Thinking Visioning Workshop.



Participants used tools including SDG Cluster Analysis; Root Cause Analysis; Pilot Project Prioritization Matrices; and Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis to identify links between SDGs and industrial waste management, develop a shared understanding of the underlying causes of waste management problems, map actors and potential solutions and score proposed projects based on factors including the feasibility of implementation.

5. IMPLEMENTATION & FOLLOW-UP PHASE:
Nadee Subdistrict Municipality’s Pilot Project involves the following key activities:

• Developing a management system for circularization of waste with planned locations for waste segregation, waste collection routes, linking up supplies of recyclable wastes with demands from local industries.
• Drafting guidelines to promote Green Industry standards along with certification to be awarded to participating factories who adhere to these standards.
• Establishing new Key Performance Indicators to evaluate waste management in the municipality and its alignment with the 2016–2022 national action plan.
• Raising awareness on waste separation and circular waste management for public and private sector stakeholders.

+ OUTCOMES AND IMPACTS

The Project was completed with the successful results:

• The Project built formal collaboration between Nadee Sub-district Municipality and multi-stakeholders on urban and industrial waste management by establishing the Sustainable Urban Development Working Group for Nadee Sub-district, which consists of 29 representatives from local and provincial government, the private sector, civil society, and academia. The working group and the core team committee have become mechanisms for multi-stakeholder coalitions.

• The Project integrated Sustainable Urban Resource Management (SURM) solutions through systematic approaches into the Project meetings, studies and activities, and pilot interventions, including technical training and building capacity, and database development. The learning process built the capacity of the EARTH Foundation, Nadee sub-district Municipality, and multi-stakeholders.

• The Project facilitated evidence-based decision-making through an evidence collection analysis and dissemination process through a rapid assessment, stakeholder analysis, an assessment on sustainable industrial waste management for a circular and inclusive economy, and a study on Strategies on Environmental Rehabilitation and Pollution Mitigation in Samut Sakhon Province Using Circular Economy Principle and a case study of the Nadee sub-district Municipality.

• The campaign to raise public awareness for the local community and general people was created. It actively changed local mindsets and behaviour such as ‘This household Circularized waste into Capital.’ Extensive work was undertaken to reach out to people with  disabilities, elderly, the poor, and women. The establishment of the local community-based network on environmentally friendly products provided not only benefits for the local environment but also empowered the local women leaders members of the network. This should be highlighted as a significant accomplishment in terms of changing mindsets and behaviours, as well as promoting inclusiveness.

+ REPLICABILITY AND SCALABILITY

Proposal for sustainable considerations, replication, scalability and transfer of knowledge/best practices:



• With multi-stakeholder engagement, Nadee Municipality will continue their commitment to reducing 10% more waste each year. This continuation will be done by replicating and scaling pilot activities to larger locations, including larger numbers of villagers and factories into their rolling annual work plans, projects, and programmes with a sufficient budget starting from the 2022 fiscal year.

• In 2022, Nadee Sub-district will be qualified to apply for national recognition as an “Eco and Sustainable Industrial Town” of the Department of Local Administration, the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion and the Department of Industrial Works. This recognition will encourage Nadee Municipality to maintain its best practices.

• The Core Team of Nadee Sustainable Development Working Committee, and Project networks/partners and Nadee Municipality will be a knowledge and best practice centre for Samut Sakhon Provincial Office of Local Administration and other provincial offices to promote the “Healthy and Zero-Waste City” development model with the principle of Sustainable Urban Resource Management (SURM) and circular economy. The Nadee Pilot Project development model will promote inter-city collaboration with neighbouring sub-districts and other provinces under the Eco and Sustainable Industrial Town concept, guided by the Provincial Committee on Mitigation of Pollution under the National Pollution Control zone area.

+ BUDGET AMOUNT

UN ESCAP provided $73,920 to this Project, and Nadee provided in-kind $39,862.