The Interreg MED Green Growth, Renewable Energy and Efficient Buildings communities released a joint position paper with seven sectoral recommendations, based on the lessons learnt on the ground by each community.
The Interreg MED Green Growth, Renewable Energy and Efficient Buildings communities brought together their common knowledge and lessons learnt to help policymakers to make the most of this opportunity for the region’s green development. As an outcome, the three communities jointly defined a common position for a sustainable development of the Mediterranean region in a cross-thematic way, and regardless of country borders.
Their joint position is presented in the document “Strategic recommendations for sustainable use of resources in Mediterranean built environment“. The position paper aims to be a compass for local decision makers to transition towards the sustainable use of resources in the region. The document provides a common Mediterranean perspective on the current EU sustainable development policy, with a particular focus on the Next Generation EU recovery plan and the European Green Deal.
The Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable to climate change, being one of the world’s most rapidly warming regions. Environmental degradation and overexploitation of natural resources poses additional challenges for the regional development. The communities and institutions of the Mediterranean countries are now at a crossroad to turn this challenging situation into an opportunity.
As the document states, “the communities and the institutions of the Mediterranean member states are called to action in the challenge for a sustainable transition”. The region’s environmental challenge can also be seen as an opportunity to solve the contradictions that characterise this region. As the paper says: “[It is an opportunity to have] economic growth without environmental degradation, new industrial opportunities without overconsumption of natural capital, social wealth without territorial polarisation”.
The paper presents seven sectoral recommendations based on on-the-ground experience of the challenges of sustainable development in the Mediterranean, and the lessons learned experienced by the three Interreg MED Communities. The policy recommendations are directly linked to tools, data and information that can be leveraged to support policies in line with such recommendations. The recommendations are sorted according to the main themes shared by sectoral EU strategies within the Green Deal: Innovation and Digitalisation, Resource Efficiency, Skills Development, Social inclusion and Just Transition, Public procurement, and Governing the transition.
Circular economy for a more sustainable Mediterranean
The Green Growth Community (GGC) has among its outputs a series of policy recommendations, based on a holistic, integrated and cooperative framework for the development of circular economies. The definition of the recommendations involved various actors across different phases of value chains (production, consumption, management of waste, reuse of waste as secondary raw material) and scales (local, regional, national, European). The recommendations include 33 suggested interventions clustered into six thematic areas. Read the GGC policy recommendations here.