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Our Projects
 Background:
This project focuses on the Stara Zagora region in Bulgaria, which has been facing great environmental problems in terms of air pollution over the past 10 years due to environment-unfriendly industries. Stara Zagora is among the priority regions of the DG Environment because of the permanent air pollution from sulphur, nitrates, and carbonates.
Environment stakeholders in the Stara Zagora Region can be found in both the public and private sectors. In the past couple of years the role of NGOs in dealing with environmental problems has become increasingly recognized in the region. Many of them are concerned by the deterioration of the environment and are committed to act. Even though in many cases the various stakeholder groups do their best to overcome the environmental problems, they all face specific problems which hinder their success.
Civil society structures are actively addressing the issues but lack a coherent partnership strategy. Without one, their actions have only limited success. There is a lack of synergy, but some successes have been achieved where partnerships have managed to be established. The general problems identified by the BG partners are an insufficiency in :
- Ecostrategy planning – insufficient knowledge of the specific strategy topic – environmental policies, relevant actions, ecology, etc.;
- Relevant skills and attitudes in interacting and partnering with the environment stakeholder groups of authorities, industries and volunteers. The Stara Zagora Chamber of Commerce and Industry has experience in assisting companies in doing business but was not accustomed to approaching their social responsibility. This requires knowledge and observation of specific perceptions and attitudes, and strong awareness of the very sensitive field of particular interests.
- Lack of awareness about EU practices on NGOs’ participation in environmental problems. The project partners need to study the international experience in the role of the NGOs in environment problems, and good managerial and methodological practices and patterns of successful partnering approaches.
Beneficiaries:
In response to this situation, the Eco-bridges project targets several groups. First and foremost, three Bulgarian NGOs based in the Stara Zagora Region, who have been working together over the past couple of years under the leadership of the Chamber to contribute to solving the regional ecological problems. These are:
Final beneficiaries of the project shall include civil society structures and a wider audience:
- the members of the Ecocouncil established within the project Partnership for Ecopolicies, and involving over 30 organization and institutions, local and regional authorities, companies, citizens, and media.
- Bulgarian NGOs dealing in environment and ecology,
- Stara Zagora community citizens
Activities:
The project involves intensive awareness-raising and experience transfer of best French practices in eco-strategy planning and specific related issues, and in interacting with environment stakeholders during workshops, meetings, discussions, and online follow-up. Enviropea signed on to share its experience and that of its partners in interacting with authorities, industries, and volunteers. Our knowledge of environmental policies and relevant issues which are needed for eco-strategy planning, and the experience transferred in interacting with stakeholders, is intended to help the Bulgarian organizations overcome the aforementioned insufficiencies in these fields.
In this project, Enviropea provides continuous coaching to the Bulgarian organizations so that they may start to adapt the French experience into their fundamental documents and interactions with stakeholders in the Stara Zagora Region. In the process of learning by experiencing, the Bulgarian partners shall develop these relevant skills and attitudes, which are currently lacking.
Furthermore, by developing their eco-strategy and Action Plan, the BG project partners shall enhance their capacities and shall better manage to streamline the civil society resources in the region for effective participation in regional environmental policy-making and implementation.
In addition, the regional community shall benefit from the results which the strengthened NGOs can produce in influencing policy decisions, environment reanimation actions, and finally an earlier regeneration of the deteriorated regional ecology.
Expected Outputs:
Among the outputs of this project will be four practical guides: the Bulgarian partners are developing these under guidance from Enviropea and employing their own experience gained throughout the project. The topics of the guides are:
- How to Develop an eco-strategy
- How to interact with authorities on environmental issues
- How to interact with industries on environmental issues
- How to motivate and work with volunteers in environmental actions
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 The ECREIN project – European clusters and regions for eco-innovation and eco-investments – seeks to offer the European Commission proposals for the framework and conditions for implementation of financial and economic instruments in support of the eco-innovation approach for SMEs at the regional level. It provided the opportunity to create a network of regions working on the theme of eco-innovation. The ECREIN network thus aims to become the European network of reference for regional policy in support of eco-innovation.
Enviropea was brought in by the Rhone-Alps region to provide technical and administrative coordination for the project. Our staff have been involved in the organization of conferences, the publication of reports and the identification of future perspectives.
Context:
Eco-innovation carried out by SMEs at the regional level is at the heart of the political and strategic priorities of the European Union:
- The Lisbon Strategy for competitiveness, innovation and the economy of knowledge towards sustainable economic development and the Göteborg Strategy: the European Strategy for sustainable development.
- Action Plans for Eco-technologies (ETAP) and Energy Technologies (SET-Plan).
- The Territorial Agenda of the European Union – towards a Europe of more competitive regions.
The Project:
At the end of 2006, the Rhône-Alpes region headed a project gathering the region of Andalusia, (Spain), Bade-Wurttemberg (Germany), Ile de France (France), Lombardy (Italy) and Malopolska (Poland).
This project was supported by the DG Environment of the European Commission.
During 2007, the ECREIN project was organized around three events:
- Two interregional exchange workshops devoted to the needs of the research and demonstration phases (in the Bade-Wurttemberg region) and to those involved in the development and export phases (in Andalusia) provided the opportunity for each partner to share their analyses, for the network to reflect as a whole and to work on proposals.
- A final conference took place in Milan in December 2007. A meeting for summarizing and presenting the proposals of the ECREIN project and network, this conference provided the opportunity to present and structure the network, in view of its enlargement and development.
For these events, material was provided by the Regional Platforms for eco-innovation and eco-investments, which were created in each partner region and which constitute the base of the “ECREIN approach”.
These platforms bring together all public and private actors intervening in policies and actions supporting eco-innovation at the regional level. Each one carried out an inventory of financial instruments available to support the eco-innovation approach, and made suggestions for the creation of financial tools adapted to this approach at the regional level.
A few major elements:
The six regional ECREIN platforms highlighted four main types of problems to overcome if an effective regional policy for support of eco-innovation is to be developed:
- Clarify existing aid
- Improve consistency between policies lead by various services within each region (R&D, environment, economy, etc.) and adapt these measures according to the specificities of eco-innovation
- Set up coordination between the various regional actors involved in eco-innovation (actors from the public and private sectors, financiers and entrepreneurs). Create a federation of eco-enterprises at the regional level
- Designate a single spokesman in charge of helping enterprises in their search for appropriate funding
Proposals and perspectives for the ECREIN project
The ECREIN financial support instrument for eco-innovation
The goal defined for this instrument is firstly, to improve the visibility of the orientation and priorities of regional policy for eco-innovation and secondly, to establish a public-private partnership.
The final proposal is not a finalised instrument, but rather a sort of a guide to implementing one or several instruments that each region will specify according to its needs. This methodology was inspired from the methods employed throughout the ECREIN project.
A Network of Regions for Eco-innovation
The Charter of the ECREIN network, signed by the 6 partner regions during the conference in Milan, defines the political framework and conditions for adherence to the Network of Regions for eco-innovation. It reiterates the main elements of the ECREIN approach, such as the creation of a regional platform of public and private actors involved in eco-innovation.
The work programme gives the focus and the work themes the ECREIN partners hope to develop through their actions and exchanges.
The dissemination plan provides the details of the communication and information activities which will assist and support the development of the ECREIN network.
Find these documents on the web site: www.ecreinetwork.eu
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 The Enviropinfo project was created in response to the call for proposals by the European Commission in 2006 for an NGO “Twinning” project linked to the exchange of information on the environment between NGOs of the UE and neighbouring countries. It was presented jointly by Enviropea, the MKP of Athens (Mediterranean Centre for the Environment) and two other NGOs: BlueLink (project leader) for Bulgaria and TUCEV (Türkiye Cevre Vakfi – Turkey Environmental Foundation) for Turkey (please see our Partners page for more information).
The aim of the project was to transfer the knowledge, expertise and tools of Enviropea and the MCE to these countries. It consisted in building international networks of information, exchanges, projects and bases on environmental European policies.
Thanks to their experience, the MKP and Enviropea were able transfer their methodology and experience concerning:
- The diffusion of information on EU environmental policy and EU policy on Sustainable development
- The building of capacities of local actors to carry out European projects and access EU financial support for environmental projects
- Networking with EU environmental partners and the research of partners
- The involvement of Youth and Volunteers through the organisation of European Campuses for the Environment and Sustainable development
This transfer enabled the creation of a technical support force for EU project development in Bulgaria and in Turkey.
Actions
- Skill development workshops: meetings between partners to exchange their experiences and methodology.
- Tools development for transfer of capacities and knowledge: this concerns the creation of training modules and methodology as well as communication tools to develop technical support to have better access to information on EU environmental Policy and Programmes and develop Environmental projects.
- The creation of a correspondent’s network for Enviropinfo to set up the aforementioned technical support in Bulgaria and in Turkey. This guaranties exchanges and future collaboration among the different members, and enables them to strengthen the impact of the project’s outputs among respective networks for the partners.
- Management of the project and diffusion of the results and communication: creation of a web site for Enviropinfo, to diffuse information on the project, and its results, creation of posters, leaflet…to communicate information about the project and the network.
Results
- Improved networking among the beneficiary NGOs, increased exchanges of information, diffusion of good practices for a better management of environmental issues.
- Promotion of partnership opportunities among environmental NGOs in the 4 countries of the project
- Improvement in the dissemination of information on EU environmental policy in Bulgaria and Turkey.
- Greater number of actors involved in the implementation of this policy in these countries.
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The Association 
