PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project consists of the creation of a collaboration system between public and private entities to maintain and promote multitasking of the territory.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenges 1 and 6
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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Perform a strategic comparative surveillance of other experiences of purchasing centers in Europe.
• Perform a diagnosis of the purchasing power of the Public Administration in the Basque Country to identify the most relevant families of products or services in which to intervene. Identify the environmental impact of the purchase made.
• Establish a dialogue with City Halls, Provincial Councils, Basque Government departments and other government entities to know what their main demands, needs and difficulties are regarding the purchase and hiring of products and services.
• Establish a dialogue with suppliers to know their view of the project and establish jointly the assessment criteria of products and services.
• Assess the products of greatest interest for centralization based on possibilities and impact criteria.
• Promote and ensure the existence of a green product offer.
• Conduct a pilot in any specific purchase sector in which there is driving power, in which there are local suppliers and small companies, and in which sustainability criteria of products and services are adequately defined. Share the pilots with different administrations.
• Define a methodology or purchasing system for each type of product or service, and select the features for each one of them.
• Digitize the purchase system, adapting the acquisition periods, the delivery times and, where appropriate, time to market.
• Define annexed services that could be offered, such as specialized advice to the Administrations to help them prepare their specifications, technical training to their purchasing teams, technological risk analysis of sustainable local products, among other areas of expertise.
• Provide the pilot with an evaluation system and relevant and coherent features to estimate the generated impact and to perform an adequate accountability. Ensure effective monitoring of the implementation of green public procurement.
• Develop an awareness-raising process aimed at citizens that values the importance of proximity and green purchasing.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project consists of the creation of a collaboration system between public and private entities to maintain and promote multitasking of the territory.

The project will involve to:

• Guarantee the ecosystem services of the territory.
• Promote balanced social and territorial development.
• Preserve the landscape diversity of the Basque country.
• Emphasize the importance of the territory as a source of well-being.
• Facilitate and significantly progress in the development of Green Infrastructure Strategies.
• Achieve effective inter-institutional coordination.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenges 1 and 6

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Identify the different situations in the preservation in each historical territory and in each region, as well as the structure in land ownership.
• Establish criteria for the identification of multifunctional areas that guarantee the capacity of the territory to optimize the provision and maintenance of multiple ecosystem services.
• Correctly define what a compensation system could consist of and what are the multifunctionality criteria to be compensated, using formulas or models to compensate good practices through specific funds, tax formulas, and other technical parameters. Perform strategic monitoring of the operation of the different formulas.
• Provide strategies and give continuity to the promotion work of green infrastructures.
• Develop a participatory process with local institutions and citizens to assess possible pilot projects.
• The compensation should encourage both the maintenance of existing good practices and the elimination of bad practices.
• Develop training processes through practical workshops.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project aims to improve knowledge on the link between health and environment in the Basque Country as a basis for better decision-making, by creating a common area where to centralize and give coherence to all this information and knowledge. The project will allow to:

• Incorporate the One Health and adaptation view to climate change in the health care and in the health system.
• Make visible the benefits of acquiring healthy and environmentally friendly habits and a well-preserved environment on health.
• Improve health of Basque citizens.
• Generate significant savings to the Basque health system within the medium term, in addition to positive economic and social impacts.
• Train health professionals in health and environmental matters.
• Define and implement a cutting-edge and cohesive training offer in health and environmental matters.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenges 2 and 6

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Conduct an assessment of the state of the art and a diagnosis of the initial situation. Benchmarking with other countries or regions that already have systematized models for monitoring health and the environment. Contact and synergies with pilot projects that may be developing in the environment.
• Definition of the environmental features of health, both physical and chemical and biological, and of features linked to them (features of exposure to the urban environment, psychosocial features, features of climate-meteorological change, features of exposure to toxic substances, features of factors of
• biological origin, among others).
• Development and implementation of methodology on health impact features. Take into account the features related to the different ecosystems, from the point of view of one health.
• Generate a stable workspace between health and environment that allows the analysis of results for the design and implementation of preventive environmental health measures.
• To develop investments in research focused on the generation of knowledge.
• Build a plan of training cycles and university training in scientific and technical studies, health sciences and social sciences within the field of health and environment.

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PROJECT 4. CIRCULARITY IN VALUE CHAINS

The project aims to involve companies in the same value chain to develop demonstration projects of digital tools for the capture, sharing and data analysis on the use of raw materials and life cycle, which facilitate decision-making aimed at reducing the environmental footprint. The project will allow to:

• Develop a solution based on an information and communication platform that can be used in other value chains or sectors.
• Encourage collaboration between companies within the same value chain and between them and service providers.
• Generate new knowledge and innovation on circular economy, use and life cycle of materials and energy.
• Identify specific areas of action for the increase of material productivity, the adoption of innovative solutions and technological development.
• Promote the saving of resources and waste reduction.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenge 3

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Identify value chains and companies that help drive the project and that are strategic for the Basque economy, and where there is a relevant potential for progress in the circular economy and in the reduction of GHG emissions and environmental footprint. For example, chains related to the primary sector (forest resources, food, etc.), different industrial sectors (cement, steel, metal, construction, etc.) and transport sector.
• Develop a circularity index for circular systems that includes technical (material), economic, social, environmental and regulatory features. These features will allow to measure the capacity to move towards sustainable and systemic models and to perform diagnostics on the  maturity/disposition/ challenges/capacities of companies/value chains/sectors to address a transition towards more circular
• productive and logistics processes (similar to what is done to measure the digital maturity of companies and their proximity to technologies that define industry 4.0).
• Define and develop digital tools for the automatic acquisition of pertinent information to ensure traceability of materials upstream and downstream in the value chain, aligned with the new Digital passport of the European Union.
• To define a legal and contractual environment that guarantees confidentiality and integrity of the generated information.
• To develop new aids for investment in this area.
• To carry out training and awareness-raising processes aimed at companies.
• Innovation around blockchain technology for information management between value chain agents, identification of business opportunities, adjustment between supply and demand and development of
• new service models.
• Identification of synergies and opportunities with other ongoing projects in the Basque Country, and assessment of capacities and needs in other cross-cutting areas such as infrastructures, knowledge, technologies, training programmes, promotion and support for business initiatives. Alignment with other funding programmes in European regions with similar characteristics.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

El proyecto pretende ayudar a la transformación de las pymes vascas para que sean más sostenibles. El proyecto permitirá:

• Help Basque SMEs design a roadmap for their sustainable transformation and estimate their
• environmental footprint.
• That, applying this roadmap, companies reduce this footprint, improving their competitiveness through sustainability.
• Promote integration of sustainable financing concepts within the field of SMEs.
• Encourage public-private cooperation.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenge 3 and 5

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Carry out a diagnosis of the capacity of Basque SMEs in terms of sustainability, analysing their characteristics and specificities.
• Perform a competitive search of existing models for the assessment and monitoring of sustainability in SMEs.
• Develop a model that allows to quantify the contribution of SMEs to sustainability (environmental, social and economic) and that includes an assessment methodology of the environmental impact and the development of specific strategies, compatible with the assessment when accessing financing, as well as the assessment of sustainability in the supply chain.
• Select driving agents so that, with the economic and communicative support of the Basque administrations, facilitate the knowledge of this model and subsequently support companies in the implementation of these sustainability agendas, disseminate the model among them and channel those interested and need accompaniment.
• Include the necessary support for the implementation of sustainability roadmaps with openness and bidirectionality so that SMEs become part of this improvement process, in a collaborative environment between the administration and the private sector in which clear metrics and long-term agreements exist.
• Define the competences and knowledge plan for the transition towards more sustainable activities. Accompany the process with access to necessary knowledge and skills. Provide knowledge and educational infrastructures. Training people in sustainable development. Accreditation of competences. This process will incorporate the concepts and possible future risks arising from the application of the Green Taxonomy Regulation 2020/852.
• Strengthen competitive surveillance systems and the development of knowledge on sustainability and on methodologies which favour training of people.
• Cascade transfer, specifies each vertex of the triangle. Develop a sustainable communication programme.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

This project promotes an advanced social involvement model in terms of sustainability based on the following processes:

• Comprehensive information system (health, social, environmental and economic), open and transparent where Big Data allows fair and efficient decision-making. This will allow to define new needs to be monitored and to have reliable, current and easily manageable information through new technologies.
• Development of advanced models of social deliberation on environmental sustainability. This will allow to take a new step in the model of citizen involvement making society feel heard, it will also allow to provide citizens with the necessary tools so that they can perform their own data analysis and encourage networking between people and interested entities.
• Facilitate social co-responsibility, where children and youth play an essential role in ensuring the future of sustainability. Two lines of work are proposed: (1) Educate in sustainability from the early stages of life, taking into account the specific needs and realities of primary and secondary school students. (2) Integrate different initiatives aimed at raising awareness among young regarding sustainability from multiple perspectives.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenge 4 and 6.

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

Comprehensive, open and transparent information system

• Identification, mapping and in-depth analysis of the information/features already available currently in use.
• Analyze the integration of data provided by the European Union Earth Observation Programme (Copernicus).
• Feasibility study of the design and calculation of ad-hoc synthetic features.
• Dissemination of the Open Data Environmental portal within Open Data Basque Country. Assessment of the impact of the Portal and the valuation of people, companies and agents.

Social involvement advanced models

• Mapping of working groups and networks that are already carrying out debates on environmental sustainability in the Basque Country.
• Study the lessons learned during the implementation of the “I-lab” commitment of citizen participation in the Basque Country deployed with the 2018-2020 Action Plan of the Open Government Partnership in the Basque Country (Open Government Alliance).
• Joint and coordinated work with the development groups of commitments 3 (Open Eskola: development and strengthening of citizenship) and 4 (tool to promote the collection of proposals and adhesions for popular legislative/normative/regulatory initiatives in the Basque Country) of the 2021-2024 Action Plan of the Open Government Partnership in the Basque Country (Open Government Alliance).

Social co-responsibility (childhood and youth)

Childhood

• Study what has been done so far in the field of sustainable consumption within the area of education and non-formal education, as well as good practices in other territories.
• Define an aspirational curriculum model from the point of view of sustainable consumption, for primary and secondary.
• Design a pilot in the field of food.
• Build a support network for the project, which provides knowledge and tools to carry out the curriculum modification and its application. Socialize the project in schools, families, institutions and agents involved.

Youth

• ENVIRONMENTAL ANTI-RUMORS: fight false myths about climate change and sustainable development, providing objective and truthful information about the negative and positive impact of daily practices and consumption habits on our environment.
• ERRONKA GARBIA: initiative focused on integrating environmental measures to minimise negative impacts on the environment in events aimed at young people. It is also proposed to extend it to infrastructures and young areas, with an important focus on its dissemination.
• RECOGNITIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE: support by the Administration to people, entities or small companies in the youth field that have performed or have an idea of the future to advance in sustainability. Facilitate the emergence of sustainable young projects in universities, incubators, work groups, among others.
• YOUNG SCIENCE: involve young people through volunteering in scientific activities related to sustainability and in close collaboration and coordination with the university.

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

This project seeks to empower Basque citizens in their role as consumers as a lever for changing the products and services they acquire, to achieve a more sustainable production and consumption model in a coordinated manner. The project will allow to:

• Address all areas of consumption, prioritizing those with the greatest impact that urgently need to be transformed.
• Establish a sustainability standard, aligned with European policies, based on transparency and complete information on the life cycle of products and services that serves as a comparative assessment tool.
• Promote the application of this new standard in both supply and demand so that Basque citizens can make use of it in their options both for purchasing and for contracting services.
• Raise awareness among the population of its ability to transform the market, through the power of its purchasing and hiring options, identifying global improvements that can be obtained.
• Take advantage of the complementarity with the Basque strategy against food waste and the Green Purchase and Hiring Programme of the Basque Country 2030.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenge 4.

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Establish a joint working table between local supply agents, the distribution sector, consumer organizations and the administration to jointly design priorities and the promotion of sustainable consumption in the Basque Country.
• To jointly design the required tools to transform the current production and consumption patterns towards a more sustainable model, including the design of a standard of information and transparency on the sustainability of products and services, which serves in a simple way for a comparative
• assessment in purchasing processes.
• Generate incentives and accompanying plans for producers, distributors and commercial establishments so that they can implement the new tools developed, with the aim that they can be available for Basque citizens in their purchase options.
• Develop awareness-raising and training campaigns for Basque citizens to learn about and use the new tools developed.
• Identify with producers and their value chains those actions that could improve the sustainability positioning of their products and services, in a continuous improvement process that allows a greater acceptance by citizens of their products.
• Develop catalogues of products and services with the best levels of environmental performance, as recognition and incentive for the development of new improvements

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PROJECT OBJECTIVES

The project seeks to transform our economy so that it is more sustainable, adding the Basque financial system in this process. It will also promote the quick adaptation to Regulation (EU) 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investments. The project will allow:

• The Basque Country to comply with the obligations already arising from the Regulation and foreseeing those that have not yet been developed.
• To generate knowledge and strategic teams in the Basque Country for the deployment of the Regulation.
• To assess the risks and opportunities presented by the Regulation and carry out the transformation maps for the adaptation.

CHALLENGES TO WHICH THE PROJECT CONTRIBUTES: Challenge 3 and 5.

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MILESTONES/STRATEGIC ACTIONS OF THE PROJECT

• Measurement of the level of alignment of the Basque Government’s budgets with the Taxonomy (REGULATION (EU) 2020/852 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT and OF THE COUNCIL and its amendments).
• Diagnose the initial situation in the Basque Country and draft a knowledge map of sustainable finances, above all from the most environmental point of view of the Regulation. Address the performance of Transition Maps by economic sectors.
• Deploy exchange formats with other European regions to share knowledge and experiences.
• Provide training between different agents, especially stressing the push to the business fabric to promote the transformation of the production model.
• Create a working table with listed companies to generate knowledge that can then be transferred to SMEs.

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