Objectives

The strategic objectives of the GREEN project are:

• To contribute to the improvement of environmental performances of SMEs in Europe

• To support the Enterprise Europe Network in tackling environmental issues in the

following specific economic sectors:

• food industry

• manufacturing of building materials

The food industry is one of Europe's most important and dynamic industrial sectors. It is made up of about 310000 companies, and provides jobs for more than 4 million people.

The farm to fork approach aims at guaranteeing all aspects of food safety, but the production of food and the health of consumers is not only bound to the quality and safety of the final product. The food industry lies at the very heart of sustainability as food production sustains the world's population, nevertheless many are the environmental threats of this production, two of them being the management of the large amount of waste and the high consumption of energy related to transformation processes and refrigeration.

It is a sector where environmental services can improve immediately the performances of SMEs, and it is also a sector where innovation is necessary. That is why the Eco Innovation programme stresses the relevance, with its choice out of 4 priorities, of the drink and food sector.

In fact the food industry has great margins of improvement which can have a direct impact on the European population. Actions in this sector focus on clean production and packaging processes, water-management processes, waste reduction, recycling and recovery, methods to improve an efficient use of resources. The dairy and meat industries in particular have been given priority since they generate sizeable environmental impacts.

The partner countries have a long tradition in agriculture and related food industry, with peaks in the Plovdid region of Bulgaria (38% of industrial gross production in 2008) and Serbia (5.2% share in national GDP) and the region of Arad.

In any case, the food industry ranges within the partnership between 10 and 40% of the industrial gross production of 2008. Nevertheless, often times the production is in the hands of Small and medium sized enterprises that do not have the skills and economic and human resources to face environmental threats and improve their performances.

Specific support will need Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro which face a wide range of environmental problems which must be related to recent social and economic experience at the domestic and international levels. Former policies have combined with specific physical and demographic conditions to create a highly varied pattern of degradation, with very serious problems encountered in a few relatively small and geographically isolated areas. But significant progress has been made and different national strategies have been adopted in accordance with EU legislation and the Kyoto Protocol. The strategic documents highlight some of the main priorities for future enhancement of environmental quality, including development of comprehensive pollution monitoring systems, better economic incentives for sustainable development, increased energy efficiency, technology transfer and transformation.

From this point of view, the partnership aims to create a network of EEN member that face different levels of environmental problems and there is a different compliance with EU environmental laws and regulations, bringing together EU 15 Member States, EU 25 and 27 New member states, Accessing Countries and NON-EU countries.

The same approach is true for the Manufacturing of building material sector as well.

The industry for construction materials is a very diversified field in the sense that there is a variety of products and a variety of conditions that can produce environmental damage.

All countries involved in the project have a strong construction sector which sustains the constant growth of the building materials sector.

The key sector ‘Manufacturing of building materials’ can also be related to the ‘Sustainable Construction’ sector of the Lead Market Initiative which is of particular relevance for the Commission and within the CIP in specific. As underlined by the DG Enterprise and Industry, the EEN sector groups are cooperating on the basis of the LMI action plans (including, in fact, sustainable construction) to develop activities in regions and countries that complement the LMI activities, (ie. in public procurement, regulation, standardization) which are great chances to have the offer side (mostly SMEs) understand the new requests of the demand and find a key to include environmental standars and procedures in their production.

The ‘Manufacturing of building materials’ sector is also related, with its relevance, to the Eco Innovation programme activated within CIP. Innovative products for the construction sector and the production of sustainable construction materials are now, more than ever, a priority for the EU.

Finally, the 2 sectors have been chosen considering the high environmental impact that they have at EU and national level, the strategic relevance from the economic, health (food industry especially) and environmental point of view and the opportunities related to innovative EU policies such as the Ecodesign Directive and its work-programme 2009-2011, the environmental certification standards for buildings such as Green Building, Challenge, Green Building Council, BRE, Ecolabel (draft).

The Coordinator and the partnerships agree that those sectors of activity are basic for guaranteeing a sustainable development in the Countries where the economic growth can be still very high yet (Eastern European Countries) and in the Countries where strategic unsustainable development mistakes have been made.

The specific objectives of the project and the expected results and impacts are presented in the following table:

As part of the objectives of the project, the following table summarises the involvement of target groups and of key actors in the project activities: