Investing for a greener future : ETRA was there for you !
The 2016 edition of Green Week, the biggest annual occasion to debate and discuss European environment policy, took place from Monday, 30 May to Friday, 3 June. It focused on the theme "Investing for a greener future".
Investing is about more than money. It is about creating jobs and taking people out of unemployment. It is about ensuring our children breathe cleaner air on their way to school, it is about using raw materials and resources more efficiently, it is about preventing waste, and much more besides.
Many facets of green investment were featured throughout the week. Events and activities took place across Europe, centred around a high-level conference in Brussels on Wednesday 1 June, with a wide variety of organisations and partners taking part. To show how the investments of today can help a "greener future" become a reality, each day of the week focused on different aspects of the theme.
In the morning, in the section "How can we get bankers to finance more environmental projects? How will the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) help?", One of the most followed presentation was on tyre recycling. Pieter Ter Kuile, Chief Financial Officer of Black Bear Carbon presented the case history of their project on Pyrolysis.
On other days many qualified speakers from the Commission explained in detail the most successful EU funded programs and how to apply to them.
In the afternoon an exciting closing section was participated in by Vice President of the EU Commission Jyrki Katainen, Commissioner for Environment Karmenu Vella and Director General for Environment Daniel Calleja Crespo, who outlined the EU policy on green investment and confirmed the engagement of the Commission to foster the Circular Economy.
ETRA together and its partners is analysing all the various finance opportunities proposed throughout the week to identify and select those that are most appropriate for the sector and for the projects submitted to us by our members.