Sharing and transferring Product Environmental Footprint experiences and methods to neighbouring countries of the Adriatic agri-food sector: this is the objective of the PEFMED PLUS project, coordinated by ENEA and co-financed by European Regional Development Fund.

PEFMED PLUS will exploit the expertise already gained by the previous PEFMED Project, which focused on agri-food sector of the Mediterranean countries, by replicating its culture and methodology and transferring a set of ready-to-use outputs (National Roadmaps, PEF Wiki Platform info, Socio-Economic KPIs tools for olive oil, bottled water, wine and cheese) to companies in selected Adriatic countries (Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro).

A bottom-up approach will follow to raise awareness among economic operators, public authorities and regional municipalities, including local agri-food clusters.

A number of horizontal actions such as capacity building, training and capitalisation will be matched with a series of vertical ones focused on some selected food supply chains.

Each project partner will have a specific role and responsibility in order to:

• Increase awareness about the environmental impact of traditional food productions
• Deliver a "Training the trainers" programme on PEFMED former outputs
• Run knowledge transfer to agrifood producers and clusters, public institution and regional authorities
• Ratify Protocols and MoU with the above listed target groups in order to ensure an "after-life" plan beyond the end of the PEFMED PLUS duration including the organisation of a final event.

The Product Environmental Footprint and its methodology will be reformulated and adapted into practical and ready-to-use tools, already tested in the previous PEFMED Project, for agri-food companies, regional clusters, and national policymakers. Mr. Nicola Colonna, Coordinator of the PEFMED PLUS Project, said at the project's online kick-off meeting on Friday, July 9th (ENEA):

“Faced with the challenge of sustainability, the agri-food sector has the ability to put in place actions and solutions to reduce its impacts from field to table, and PEF is a great tool for companies to help them make better decisions and actions. Our effort will contribute in the spread of a sustainable culture among agri-food companies, while raise awareness and share know-how in the Balkan area”.

PEFMED PLUS activities will continue until June 30th, 2022.

The approach of PEFMED PLUS will prepare the ground to accelerate the incorporation of green practices by agrifood supply chains in areas that are currently less exposed to PEF mainstream and improve companies’ capacity to respond to consumers’ needs and expand the market for green products.

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