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June 2010

The AGROENVIRONMED project (www.agroenvironmed.eu) addresses eco-innovation in the Mediterranean agro-food sector, a very rich and articulated industrial sector, deeply rooted in the local economies and cultures. Through the exchange of knowledge and the identification of environmental technologies and best practices, the project aims to place the Mediterranean agro-food industry as a reference in eco-innovation, thus boosting the competitiveness of its enterprises. 

 

In order to manage effectively the complexity of the agro-food sector, the project has been segmented in five main sub-sectors that will be analyzed and studied by “twin” partner regions during the project, namely:

• Meat transformation,
• Dairy products,
• Fruit and vegetables,
• Wine and olive oil.

The idea behind this approach is that of carrying out a comparative analysis of each specific sub-sector in at least two different regions, envisaging the existing regional industry structure, more diffused processes, main environmental issues, environmental technologies and good practices in use and highlighting possible areas of know-how transfer and interregional collaboration.

 

During the first stage of the project, partners have developed a common template for their regional characterization analysis, following a scheme structured in three subsequent phases:

• General characterization of the production processes and of the regional sub-sector structure
• Identification of main environmental issues
• Identification of environmental technologies and good practices in use

 

The first phase provides an overview of the industry at regional level, describing the transformation processes in use, the main product and process innovation needs expressed by the local SMEs, the most relevant technologies and innovations to improve companies competitiveness, the structure of the regional industry and its economic performance in the framework of the national context.

 

 

The second phase addresses more technical aspects and provides a detailed description of the manufacturing processes, in terms of the constituent process stages and of the related inputs, outputs and technologies.

The final outcome of this analysis is the identification of those process stages/aspects that constitute a major environmental issue in the region and that therefore deserve a particular attention in the Platform.

 

The last phase is devoted to conduct a broad analysis of the most diffused approaches aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the transformation processes (technologies, good practices). A more specific and detailed analysis of this aspect will be developed in a later project phase.

 

During this phase, the project could rely on qualitative information and on the validation of the analysis by regional working groups made up by experts coming from the industry and research world.

 

On the basis of this regional analysis, partners are working now on the interregional characterization of the identified agro-food sectors, that will further develop and finalize the work described.

In turn, this will serve as input for the development of next project phase, “Catalogue of environmental technologies and best practices in the agro-food sector”, in which working groups in each region will identify the best environmental technologies and practices available in the market for the identified agro-food sectors, in order to develop an online catalogue that will be accessible through project’s website.

 

Enterprises and other agro-food actors interested in AGRO-ENVIRONMED and wishing to keep informed about its planned activities are invited to join the project platform through the project’s website

http://www.agroenvironmed.eu/?q=registration