News and events published on the EcoAP Community Platform

• New upcoming event: Eco-Innovation Summit on World Efficiency (October)
• EEA 'State of the Environment' report emphasises success of green economy
• New upcoming event: Sustainable Innovation 2015 (November)
• Study: Rooftops could grow most of a city's vegetable needs

The ReNEW project (Resource Innovation Network for European Waste) has brought together a number of universities and research institutes, business development agencies and government departments, to study how links between researchers, business and public authorities can be improved to stimulate the take-up of innovation. Martin Doherty of project partner WRAP Northern Ireland, a resource efficiency advisory centre, highlighted some of the lessons so far from the ReNEW project.

The Lower Austrian Regional Government was one of the first in Europe to set up a voucher scheme encouraging enterprises, NGOs, municipalities, schools, hospitals and other public institutions to begin the process of environmental management. The Umweltsystem für Wirtschaft und Verwaltung (Environmental System for Business and Administration) started in 1998 and has since been renamed Ökomanagement Niederösterreich (Eco-Management Lower Austria). The programme's goal is to establish economically viable management systems that integrate environmental and climate protection.

A group of business federations active in agriculture and bio-based industries has established a new platform to call on the European Union to establish a more long-term policy framework that will foster the emergence of the bioeconomy.