On February 7th and 8th/2017, the 6 partners of the Interreg Europe project ENHANCE, "EMAS as a Nest to Help And Nurture the Circular Economy", celebrated the first Project Meeting at the offices of the Catalan Ministry of Territory and Sustainability located in Barcelona.
ENHANCE aims to improve the implementation of regional policy instruments oriented to increasing company competitiveness through resource-efficiency, by the exchange of practices on supporting EMAS environmental registration.
The project also supports public authorities in the identification and implementation of incentives for those organizations that decide to adopt EMAS as a tool for resource efficiency in the context of the transition towards a circular economy.
The Kick Off Meeting was organised by the lead partner in order to provide general instructions regarding the project activities and to coordinate technical and financial tasks, in particular on project’s work plan, reporting, communication strategy, and monitoring.
It was a great opportunity to meet the whole partnership and discuss together the work plan, where we established the methodology to identify, collect, analyse and assess the most innovative policy experiences and practices of the participating regions and to “prepare the ground” for the exchange process. During this first meeting, the partners’ representatives have already highlighted key aspects that will probably be studied along the project as for example the consideration of EMAS within public procurement and its potential obstacles.
One of the first project activities will be the definition of Stakeholders Groups in each region and the preparation of two specific meetings to start the discussions about the most relevant and effective incentives to promote EMAS.
The next partner meeting will take place in Seville in June 2017 to share the Exchange of experience with the Stakeholder groups.
