The Interreg MED Green Growth Community will celebrate its final event in person on the 1st June in Brussels. The event will highlight the role of businesses and public authorities in the transition towards climate neutrality, sharing the Community’s best practices in supporting these actors across the Euro-Mediterranean region. The final event will also emphasise the importance of cooperation to boost the circular economy and provide exchange opportunities in relation to the upcoming Interreg Euro-MED Programme’s calls.

The Green Growth Community has in the past six years achieved tangible results contributing to national and regional policy frameworks in the Euro-Mediterranean region. Community projects such as GRASPINNO – which focused on eco-innovation, competitiveness and skills and has a follow-up project called GRASPINNO Plus – contributed to the Greek Growth Strategy for the Future and the National Action Plan for the Promotion of Green Public Procurement. Others, such as EMBRACE – working on food systems – shared its outcomes and resources with the government of the Spanish region of Aragon, to support the implementation of its circular economy strategy.

Over these six years, the Community has also focused on the key role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the transition toward a circular economy across the Euro-Mediterranean region. The community project PEFMED – which has a follow-up project called PEFMED Plus focusing on the Balkan area – supported SMEs in France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain to reduce their products’ environmental footprint. The ARISTOIL project – which also has a follow-up project, ARISTOIL Plus – worked as well over these years with SMEs in Greece, Italy, Spain, Croatia and Cyprus to reinforce the competitiveness of the Mediterranean olive oil sector.

The Community’s final event will be an opportunity to meet representatives from these projects, and hear their experiences first hand. The event will emphasise the importance of cooperation between different stakeholders and the need to change the operations approach of businesses and public authorities to transition towards climate neutrality.

The event will be held on the 1st of June from 9 AM to 6 PM CEST in TownHall Europe, Brussels, and will gather a wide range of stakeholders interested in the circular economy to showcase its activities in boosting the circular economy locally. The event will gather public authorities, researchers and representatives of organisations working to upscale the circular economy.

The Green Growth Community final event will be held within the framework of the EU Green Week as a partner event. This year’s edition of the EU Green Week will take place from 30 May to 5 June 2022 in a hybrid format. This edition will focus on the European Green Deal – the EU’s sustainable and transformative growth strategy for a resource-efficient and climate-neutral Europe by 2050. The EU Green Week is an annual opportunity to debate European environmental policy with policymakers, leading environmentalists and stakeholders from Europe and beyond.

The Green Growth Community final event will be an excellent opportunity to network, discover successful case studies, and exchange opportunities in relation to the upcoming Interreg Euro-MED Programme’s calls for new thematic projects.