THE PROJECT

Italian Version

The Life projects

What are they?
Life is aEuropean Union (EU) financial tool for the improvement, updating and development ofcommunity politics in the following areas: Environment, Nature and the Third World.
Environment Life operates in the area of environmental management, particularly theintegration of Environmental and other policies including sustainable development.
The fundamental characteristic of a Life project in its demonstrative, pilot or exemplary nature, regarding both the techniques and methods utilized.
They must be highly innovative and must foresee the possibility of applying said methods in different local situations both within the same sector of interest and other production areas, even outside the confines of their own nation.
(see http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/life/funding/life-env_call2004/part1_it.doc)

Aims
The purposes of Life are the protection of the natural habitat and the promotion ofsustainable development; it is restricted to projects which can be classified in the following thematic areas:

• Planning and improvement of the territory
• Water management
• Use of green technologies
• Ecological management of waste
• Integrated products policies

Results
Up to now the results obtained with the Life projects attest to how important theEuropean Community tool is for the EU countries, to finance innovative proposals for sustainable development.
A development therefore of increasing compatibility, environmental conservation andimprovement.
In almost 10 years of activity, the Life projects have obtained excellent results in allEU countries and a new operating phase will start in July 2004.

The PIONEER project

The PIONEER project – Paper Industry Operating in Network: an Experiment for Emas Revision
Total amount for the project: 1.224.382 euros.
European Union co-funding: 50%.

As its name indicates the project will experiment with new methodologies to obtain the voluntary certification proposed by the EU (the so called Emas regulations) of an entire industrial area (the Paper Industry of Capannori) as well as the single organizations, as in the past.
The PIONEER project represents a concrete commitment towards the Environment and its conservation, even where industrial activity is the prevailing economical resource.
Our aim is the creation of various resources, knowledge and technical solutions common to all companies of the cluster: this will represent an example of real co-operation for environmental protection and an actual conservation of our natural resources: water, air, landscape.
On this basis, the project will carry out some activities and will make common territorial resources available, to help the development of Emas as a territorial policy for the local supporting; this will be integrated with other policies of the EU (Agenda 21, voluntary agreements, IPPC) to facilitate the diffusion of the plan among the SMEs and the organizations of sectors where it has not spread yet.

Actions and subjects
The methodology of the project requires the realization of different phases in the same area (as per Emas regulations) to create a common base for every single organization which will use the collettive resources and the co-operative approach to obtain the Emas registration individually.
The project will serve to verify if in reality the Environmental Management System of the cluster andother collettive elements are useful to support individual participation in Emas.
Therefore the project will develop as follows:

• The initial level will be a preliminary evaluation of the practicability and applicability of the proposed methodology. After any improvements, a Promoting Committee will be created in the area of Lucca to provide the cluster operators with strategies for environmental management.
• The next step will be an initial analysis of the territory which will be used to identify the most important environmental facets for the area.
• Subsequently a representative sample group of organizations will be selected in the cluster to verify the effectiveness of the co-operative approach.
• The Promoting Committee will establish a cluster policy which will be the point of reference for the sample group of organizations.
• The cluster environmental programmes will arise from this policy and they will be continuously improved. These schedules will take the form of voluntary agreements among the local participants.
• The System for the cluster management will supply many resources and procedures to the representative sample group, to be shared and developed by the territorial organizations: emergency procedures, training, PMI audit, local supply management, etc.
• The cluster environmental declaration will be a support to the sample group in effective communications with interested parties.
• The experiment of these methodologies in the Lucca area will be further validated by a comparison with other EU industrial areas.

CALENDAR OF ACTIVITIES

The project started on 1st November 2003 and it will end on 28th February 2006.
All the activities will follow a calendar arranged by the partners and approved by the European Committee. The Committee will be informed of the development of the tasks and their time scale, through periodical reports on the progress of the works (Progress Report).

The Management of the Project

The Management of the Project will be carried out through co-ordinate meetings among the partners, activities of the Promoting Committee of the cluster and the continual interaction with the local Forum Agenda 21.
Furthermore the resident population will receive a questionnaire on the Environment to be completed.
Besides there will be an info desk to answer all the information, requests and complaints on the environmental matters of the cluster; the desk operators will collect the proposals and suggestions to improve the procedures.

For further information

life.pioneer@provincia.lucca.it