The Europe INNOVA Eco-innovation Platform. Orsola Mautone DG Enterprise and Industry Unit D.2 Support for Innovation

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1 The Europe INNOVA Eco-innovation Platform Orsola Mautone DG Enterprise and Industry Unit D.2 Support for Innovation

2 Europe INNOVA Around three themes: WHAT: Develop and test new or better innovation support tools and promote their wide adoption FOR WHOM: Innovation support providers in partnership with private service providers (public -private partnerships), with active involvement of companies Clusters Knowledge intense Services (KIS) Ecoinnovation Europe INNOVA is an initiative of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme /Entepreneurship and Innovation Programme (CIP-EIP). Europe INNOVA aspires to become the laboratory for the development, testing and promotion of new tools and instruments in support of innovation, with a view to helping innovative enterprises to innovate faster and better. The aim is to support all forms of innovation, taking into account the great societal challenges of today. Europe INNOVA has the ambition to become the main pan-european platform for innovation professionals, which will enable them to discuss, develop, test and exchange better practices in support of innovators and to contribute to a better understanding of the innovation patterns in different sectors. To this end, Europe INNOVA will be driven by innovation agencies and other public or private innovation support providers that are interested in working together in partnerships to search for new forms of innovation support at European level. Europe INNOVA intends to provide more and better practical information services about sectoral innovation patterns and match-making facilities in support of entrepreneurial innovation: it aims to contribute to the creation of an environment in which enterprises can start, grow and thrive, thus supporting the competitiveness and sustainable development that Europe requires. The new tools and instruments shall be tested under real life conditions in the field, involving as many innovative SMEs as possible. Three themes were chosen for this edition of Europe INNOVA: clusters, knowledge intense services (KIS) and eco-innovation. Around each theme, an Innovation Platform (IP) was established: the Cluster-IP, the KIS-IP and the Eco-IP. The IPs are composed of both sectoral partnerships, particularly public-private partnerships, and horizontal support projects.

3 Europe INNOVA: the European Eco-innovation Platform (ECO-IP) The Eco-IP is made of three elements: 1. Sectoral Partnerships of the Eco-IP and two horizontal actions supporting the partnerships of the Ec o-ip: 2. Eco-innovation Observatory 3. ECOLINK+ (steering group of the Eco-IP, Eco-businesses club): to strengthen the eco-innovation community The European Innovation Platform for Eco-innovation (Eco-IP) shall bridge between the demand for and supply of environmentally friendly solutions by addressing specific market failures that still hamper the wider take-up of eco-innovation. The Eco-IP is designed to support the emerging eco-innovation markets by strengthening the innovation capacity of SMEs: the principal objective of the Eco-IP is to support the EU Lead Market Initiative and the further implementation of the ETAP. The Eco-IP is addressed to intermediaries innovation agencies, chambers of commerce, industrial associations, local governments...- and asks them to take a role in facilitating the matchmaking between eco-innovators and potential users of ecoinnovative solutions, such as local industrial districts that need/aim to be green(er). Why? Because it is very difficult that a single SME will do alone an innovation choice: being in a system helps. That s why the focus on the role of intermediaries to facilitate the matchmaking of eco-innovators and users. And that s why the Eco-IP is formed by public-private partnerships, that will develop, test and validate tools and instruments to ease this matchmaking. Activities in the partnerships are around two dimensions: A) I dimension: Development of services to implement eco-innovative solutions in first-user enterprises. It is about the main idea explained above. The partnerships has the role to set up a system to facilitate the contact between the eco-innovator and the users. This would help the eco-innovator to further test and demonstrate its eco-innovative solutions and the first-user enterprises to adopt an eco-innovative solution. B) II dimension: Development of the support for dimension I. It is about support activities such mentoring, training, and advisory modules; self-assessment tools; train-the-trainers modules. Dimension II is about third parties, ie business consultants. Consultancy of interest is of two types: 1. On standard business issues (e.g. to make a business plan; to better internationalise; where to find funding) mostly useful for eco-innovators that want to grow. 2. On environmental issues, directed instead to industries that want/need to be green(er). This is meant to be advanced eco-innovation consultancy based on intense knowledge (lifecycle assessment of production processes; assisting firms to adopt eco-innovative solutions). A consultant who would just go and say, eg, what is EMAS, is out. Nowadays the main driver to use environmental consultancy is compliance to command and control regulation. The market is starting to be a driver, through concepts like carbon footprint, eco-design, LCA. Europe INNOVA aims to support this. The Eco-IP is complemented by two horizontal activities: 1) Eco-Innovation Observatory, providing strategic information on trends /opportunities (managed by DG Environment of the European Commission) 2) a measure to strengthen the eco-innovation community called ECOLINK+.

4 The projects of the Eco-IP and on environment horizontal projects Eco-Innovation Eco-Innovation Observatory Observatory ECOLINK+ (DG ENVIRONMENT) (DG ENVIRONMENT) partnerships KISPIMS KISPIMS Services Servicesfor for renewable renewable energies energies REMake Recycling Recycling and and resource resource efficiency efficiency in in manufacturing manufacturing SMEs SMEs GreenConserve Services Servicesfor for sustainable sustainable construction construction KIS-IP INNOWATER Sustainable Sustainable water water and and wastewater wastewater in in industries industries BIOCHEM Bio-based Bio-based products products Eco-IP EcoCluP Cluster Cluster organisations organisations around around eco-innovation eco-innovation Cluster-IP This is a detailled overview of the projects of the Eco-IP. It has three sectoral partnerships: REMake, about recycling and resource efficiency in manufacturing SMEs. A presentation from the project REMake itself is planned for this forum. Just as a small note, public innovation agencies partners in REMake are demea from Germany, Oseo from France and the chambers of commerce from Valencia in Spain and Milan in Italy. Demea is playing a big inspiring role, as in Germany in the last three years it has been assisting ecoinnovators and users with the same philosophy that the Eco-IP decided to foster. INNOWATER, about sustainable use of water and wastewater in industrial processes. Partners are public innovation agencies, water associations and technology specialists, innovation experts and eco-innovative cluster organisations. Partners are from countries that hold eco-innovative solutions in the water field (NL, DK) and countries that need more efficient solutions for the use of water (Spain, Cyprus). The approach is of matching together developers of eco-innovative solutions for water management and suitable clients for these solutions through first-user testing.this will happen in various industrial sectors, such as textiles, surface and food industries and will be accompanied by business support programmes and internationalisation tools. BIOCHEM is about driving Innovation in the sector of Bio-Based Products. It aims to test tools to support companies, and especially SMEs, to enter the emerging and highly promising market for bio-based products in the chemical sector. BIOCHEM is focusing on bio-plastics, bio-lubricants, surfactants, enzymes and pharmaceuticals. The proposed support solutions are referred to as the BIOCHEM Accelerator, which will comprise training programmes for innovators and potential first users, together with awareness-raising campaigns. Partners are from UK, Finalnd, Spain, Italy, NL. Many partners were part of the European Technology Platform SusChem and are among the most relevant chemical stakeholders in Europe. All the partnerships last for 3 years: INNOWATER and BIOCHEM started in February2010, while REMake in September2009. Each partnership has EU funds for around 3 million Eur, around 65% of the total budget. It also has two horizontal actions: The Eco-Innovation Observatory, led by DG Environment, that will support the Eco-IP by being a strategic knowledge resource on eco-innovation for businesses and policy-makers. You will hear more from another ppt. ECOLINK+ that aims to strengthen Europe's eco-innovation community. It will exploit synergies between the actions of Eco-IP and the relevant eco-innovation support policies of the EU through the set up of a steering group for the Eco-IP to ensure an overall coherence within the ECO-IP as well as with other EU initiatives within and outside Europe INNOVA. In addition, through the involvement of actors at regional level, ECOLINK+ will create a business club that will gather the 100 best emerging and promising eco-innovators in the EU and give them the opportunity to develop business relationships with their peers, investors and service providers. To complete the picture, other three projects in Europe INNOVA are about eco-innovation, even if placed in the other Innovation Platforms: KISPIMS and GreenConserve in the KIS-IP and EcoCluP in the Cluster-IP. You can see from the slide in which specific theme they operate.

5 What tools? the voucher schemes in the partnerships 1) To improve the competence (e.g. technology or business model trainings) 2) To get a service (e.g. energy audit, business plan) 3) to test a prototype solution How to spend the voucher? Sectoral industries or Service providers in the field Who gets the voucher to spend it? Intermediaries EU funding One important tool in the partnerships is the voucher scheme, especially for the matchmaking of eco-innovators and sectoral industries. In this slide you can see the flow of the funding: the intermediaries set up a voucher scheme, ie they provide to an enterprise a credit that they can spend in a certain way. The receiver of the voucher will then go to the intermediary to get the payment once satisfied the request of the enterprise. A voucher can be a double-step voucher. Who gets the voucher to spend it? And how to spend it? 1) It can be a manufacturing enterprise, which can spend it: a) for an energy/environmental audit on its production process; and/or b) with a ecoinnovator with a prototype technology who is looking for first users; and/or c) for a business plan. (projects in this typology: REMake and INNOWATER). This is typical for the Eco-IP projects, which focuses on greening industries. 2) It can be a service provider in a eco-innovation field that would spend it to improve the business aspects. Eg it can be: a) a solar panel installer who wants to set up a formula of periodical maintenance of the panel; b) a financer who wants to create a leasing formula to promote the installation of renewable energy devices; c) a brick constructor who wants to learn about the greenest materials; d) any producer (including start-up) of renewable energy technologies or green building materials that would like assistance for a business plan or how to internationalise (projects in this typology: KISPIMS and GREENCONSERVE). This is typical for the KIS-IP projects, more focusing on increasing the quality of the service.

6 Direct beneficiaries in the sectoral partnerships of Europe INNOVA Funding IS NOT for enterprises directly: beneficiaries are intermediaries, such as innovation agencies, chambers of commerce, industrial associations, i.e. SMEs multipliers This is one crucial difference with the CIP-EIP Eco-innovation initiative (where beneficiaries are primarily and directly SMEs) Links Orsola Mautone DG Enterprise & Industry Unit D.2 Support for innovation