‘Living’ portal for eco-friendly innovation
The growth of eco-friendly projects has increasingly become a priority for many – policymakers, enterprises and civil society in general. The objective of the GREENXPO (Maintaining all green and eco-innovation results in a living portal) project was to assist these actors in remaining up to date with developments in the eco-innovation world. Using a common methodology, GREENXPO grouped together for the first time eco-innovation knowledge from different sectors including technologies, services, business models, processes and policies. Potential functionalities were highlighted and readiness level for market success and implementation in policy measures was also evaluated by applying the Generic Maturity Scale as a new and unique feature. To complement the utility of the portal, information-sharing events were organised and a social media interface was integrated into the portal. To maintain the portal's activity after GREENXPO's lifetime, the consortium set up a business plan, allowing the portal to be maintained as the eco-innovation knowledge portal for researchers, policymakers and business. To disseminate information and best practices, more than 190 cases of eco-innovation were published on the portal in the areas of technology, non-technology, policy and networks, and counting. The project has reached out to Asia covering Asian eco-innovation cases as well as featuring European ones at the GREENXPO.tw site. Feedback gathered from the participants of the events and meetings and from the visitors of the website played an important role in the success of dissemination. The most impressive cases presented in terms of quality and quantity were positively highlighted, while stakeholders expressed their interest in contributing to the project and getting their own best practices put forward on the portal. An analytical framework guided the production of guideline documents. Policymakers, in all more than 5 000, and public bodies at various levels (EU, MS, regional and municipal) were contacted as well as representatives of industry. Policy guidance is available on efficient measures to support uptake of eco-innovation by all interested parties. Moreover, cases that successfully contributed towards eco-innovation across five traditional sectors (construction, chemical industry, pulp and paper, food and drink and energy) were identified for each sector. Failures were also useful for an analysis geared towards learning purposes. The GREENXPO project has exceeded its expectations in fostering collaborations and teamwork at all levels. The INNOVATIONSEEDS portal has established an open virtual community which registered over 3 000 visitors in April 2015, exceeding the initial target. Moreover, in excess of 800 people have met in face to face meetings to discuss approaches for the acceleration of eco-innovation uptake. At the business level, networks have involved almost 100 000 enterprises globally.
Keywords
Web portal, eco-innovation, GREENXPO, policymaker, network