On March 23, 2023, ATLANTIS Environment & Innovation held one of a series of workshops undertaken within project ‘Blue-Greenway’ on the development of green criteria for agricultural and aquaculture products. The event was organised within the Blue-Greenway living lab which spans over four countries, namely Cyprus, Greece, Norway and Romania.
The BLUE-GREENWAY project addresses the interconnected sea-land challenges in coastal areas related to nutrient pollution resulting from land-based and other pollution sources and leading to the creation of eutrophic and anoxic coastal ecosystems. It focuses on managing eutrophication from diffuse sources through the implementation of green contracts.
The main objective is to develop and promote the implementation of good practices through a dual approach. First, short-term protection measures will be developed against the pollution of fresh waters and, by extension, the sea, through monitoring and nutrient load reduction systems. Water decontamination measures have been tested in two areas, Liopetri in Cyprus and Aitoliko in Greece.
A second series of actions focuses on the establishment of criteria for the selection of green products and services and the implementation of an electronic green contracting system to promote improved procurement practices to achieve a greener “BLUE-GREEN’ way for economic development.
During the event, the Project Team presented the results of the project with a focus on the selection of evaluation criteria and systems for assessing the level of environmental friendliness of products and services in the fields of agriculture and fish farming and the e-procurement system which is under development by the project team. Valuable feedback was provided by participants pertaining to the feasibility and practical application of the various types of green criteria and assessment methodologies.
Follow up events with industry and Public Authorities are planned in order to further fine tune the Blue-Greenway e-procurement system and to engage stakeholders in the development and implementation of e-procurement practices within the public and private sectors. The Blue-Greenway system aspires to constitute a state of the art e=procurement Tool which will be taken up t large scale both by public authorities and private companies within the EU.
NMP Global Innovations is proud to support this effort and to continue organising consultations and workshops in Cyprus.
The project is co-funded by the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.
