Greco Initiative - Green competitiveness

The GRECO Award has been created to recognise and promote the efforts of companies that have contributed to improve the environment through Cleaner Production and to share their successes achieved with other firms.

The biennial competition has been set for awarding a prize to the company with the greatest economic and environmental benefits from implementing one or two cleaner production techniques. The winning company's results is published in the GRECO Annual Report so that other companies can access this information and be encouraged to implement cleaner production mechanisms.

The objective is to dispel the notion that Cleaner Production is expensive and require heavy investments without returns. On the contrary our aim is to show that many Cleaner Production solutions are low cost or even no cost and can generate huge savings, often with short payback periods.

On January 2009 an Adjudication Committee is created aiming at selecting a winner out of the100 companies that have successfully applied Cleaner Production techniques or best environmental practices filed on the Med Clean Cases report.

The committee’s first task was to establish the criteria for the award. From the objectives of GRECO Initiative, it was clear that the winner had to be an organisation able to show that it is possible to implement Cleaner Production mechanisms at minimum cost and maximum savings while increasing environmental benefits.

The main selection criteria were established as follow:

- Low investment and high environmental benefits (precondition)
- Short pay back period
- High net benefit after one year
- High return of Investment

A winner was chosen from a total of 100 success stories, with a shortlist of 10 firms and the first three were invited to the prize-giving ceremony for the GRECO Initiative Award.

The GRECO Award was finally awarded to an Egyptian company, producer of edible oil and called Sila Edible Oil. This company carried out several energy-savings measures and many process-optimisation changes. With a total investment of €13.500, the company’s annual energy-related economic saving reached € 174.888 with a payback period of less than a month and the enormous environmental benefit of not generating 5.346 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The award consists of a certificate from the CP/RAC signed by each member of the scientific committee that carried out the selection, recognising the good work achieved by the firm, as well as a financial sum to implement a new audit process or apply a new measure, and the firm's promotion among Mediterranean countries.

The Award ceremony took place in Egypt in May, 2009, within the framework of the Global Forum on Green Industry. Finalists were invited to the Ceremony: Egypt Edible Oil (from Egypt), Zica Sarajevo (from Bosnia & Herzegovina) and Water and Sewage Utility-Konjic (from Bosnia & Herzegovina). The winning company was announced during the ceremony and Dr. Anton Pizzuto, chairman of the Adjudication Committee, addressed the floor with details about the committee members and the selection criteria established for the award.

The second GRECO Initiative Award Ceremony will be held throughout 2011.