“EUSAIR – Bringing the Green Deal to the Region”

 

Lead Partner
Forum AIC

Project Partners
t33
Università di Padova- Dipartimento di ingegneria industriale

Duration of the project
June 2021- March 2022

Project Budget
EUR 74 800

 

Context of the project:

The European Green Deal is about improving the well-being of people. Making Europe climate-neutral and protecting our natural habitat will be good for people, planet and economy. The EUSAIR community, through its governance and stakeholders, exercises large-scale purchasing power in contracts for goods and services and sets the tone on many important political files in the Adriatic-Ionian region. It shall therefore take the lead to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050 a reality, establishing sustainability principles and promoting environmentally friendly and resource–efficient goods and services (e.g. energy efficient electronic and electrical equipment supplies, electricity from renewable energy resources, low-emission public transport vehicles, cleaning services using environmentally friendly cleaning products, etc).

The project “EUSAIR – Bringing the Green Deal to the Region” funded by DG Regio aims to raise awareness among the Governance and the EUSAIR community on the adoption of sustainable consumption of the Green Deal, encouraging EUSAIR participating countries and their representatives to act in a more sustainable in work and in daily life, also by promoting eco-innovation and green growth through Green Public Procurement (GPP).

 

Objectives of the project:

The project in question foresees the consultation of the key implementers and main stakeholders EUSAIR of the 9 countries. It will analyse the way events were organised during the pre-covid period and it will develop monitoring systems and guidelines to organise sustainable events once the sanitary emergency will be over.

During the implementation of the project, we will analyze and compare the pre-Covid19 EUSAIR governance practices by acquiring information on the events organized in 2018. This will allow us to define the baselines and establish milestones and targets (2025-2030-2050). Subsequently, a monitoring system and a strategy / practical guidelines will be developed to organize sustainable events after the period of health emergency. In addition, 3 workshops are planned over the next few months in order to train and raise awareness among the wider EUSAIR community on the Green Deal and the results of the project and the use of the guidelines.

The objectives of this action are:

– to improve EUSAIR community’s knowledge and awareness on the adoption of sustainable consumption;

– to improve EUSAIR implementers’ capacities on implementing resource efficiency policies that promote eco-innovation and green growth through Green Public Procurement (GPP), mostly by using new award criteria in calls and tenders that pay particular attention to environmental considerations;

– to establish sustainability principles (restricting single-use, mobilising the potential of digitalisation of product information, circularity in production processes, making “recycled in the EU” an usual practice, etc);

– to reduce the carbon and environmental footprints of the EUSAIR community;

– to support the EUSAIR community’s green transformation, with guidance, training and dissemination of good practices and encourage this community to take part in the ‘Public Buyers for Climate and Environment’ initiative, which will facilitate exchanges among buyers committed to GPP implementation;

– to promote interregional learning and capacity building on the objectives described above through 3 interregional workshops.

This action would be an important flagship action in the perspective of the green and digital transformation of the Adriatic and Ionian region and beyond.

EXPECTED RESULTS:

Task 1 – Establish Indicators
– Establish indicators taking into account the following examples:
o Green Public procurement,
o Carbon and environmental footprint calculation and statistics.

o Green practices applied by the stakeholders of the EUSAIR Community in
their daily work life.

Task 2 – Establish baselines, milestones and targets (2025, 2030 and 2050)
– Establish baselines referred to the year 2018;
o Screen and benchmark pre-COVID EUSAIR governance practices in the
following areas

– Establish milestones and targets (2025, 2030 and 2050);
– Produce a comprehensive plan to increase the EUSAIR governance’s climate target to
at least 55% target for greenhouse gas emissions reduction by 2030 compared to
baselines and towards climate neutrality by 2050. The idea here is to consider the new
reality after vaccination has reached a level that will permit physical meetings again.

Task 3 – Monitoring Tools
– Establish frameworks for monitoring and analyzing the transition towards a green
functioning of EUSAIR and support the Facility Point and stakeholders /
implementers in measuring their progress in light of the indicators set up in Task 1.

Task 4 – Strategy and Guidelines for Governing bodies and EUSAIR stakeholders
– Produce both a strategy and practical guidelines for the new reality which will be
driven by sustainable solutions for physical meetings and adoption of new standards
that transcend EUSAIR partner countries’ constraints. Guidelines should:
o Promote environmental friendly behaviors among EUSAIR key implementers
and stakeholders
o Help them decide when a meeting in person is necessary or could be replaced
by an online one. Provide suggestions and tips how to run an efficient and
dynamic online meeting/workshop/conference

o Provide suggestions and tips how to run hybrid and sustainable meetings (this
should be an option that is always available)
o Provide information on how to develop better procurement practices in line
with the Green Public Procurement (GPP)

Task 5 – EUSAIR Green Deal
– Support the EUSAIR community’s green transformation, with guidance, training and
dissemination of good practices and encourage this community to take part in the
‘Public Buyers for Climate and Environment’ initiative, which will facilitate exchanges
among buyers committed to GPP implementation;
– Promote interregional learning and capacity building on the objectives described the 4
first tasks above through 3 interregional workshops

 

PROJECT DELIVERABLES:

  1. Discussion Paper
  2. Indicators, baselines, milestones and targets
  3. Guidelines for implementing the Dashboard of Sustainability Monitoring Tool
  4. Strategy and Guidelines to bring the Green Deal to the Adriatic-Ionian Region
  5. Final report

 

EVENTS ORGANISED:

 

 

Forum AIC  is the coordinator of the project and cooperates for its implementation with the T33 agency and with the University of Padua.

 

References and contacts:

E-mail address: eleonora.tramannoni@marche.camcom.it