The Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), through the Biodiversity Foundation, has published a new call for subsidies from the Empleaverde Programme, which has 9.4 million euros for projects aimed at promoting the ecological transition through green and blue employment.
The Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO), through the Biodiversity Foundation, has published a new call for subsidies from the Empleaverde Programme, which has 9.4 million euros for projects aimed at promoting the ecological transition through green and blue employment. Of this amount, 90% can be used in the territories leading the energy transition and, in particular, in the coal regions.
Theaim of the empleaverde programme, co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF), is to promote sustainable economic activities in all sectors, promoting the just transition to a low-carbon and circular economy, integrating biodiversity into management and business processes and making more efficient use of natural resources, constituting an engine of sustainable economic growth and social progress.
To this end,support is given to entities that have training and advice actions, innovation actions aimed at unemployed people, entrepreneurs and/or workers, paying special attention to women and priority groups (young people up to 35, over 45 years of age, immigrants and people with disabilities). In addition, special interest will be given to people living in protected areas and/or rural areas.
The minimum amount of the selected projects will be €100,000 and the maximum of €300,000 and the deadline for submitting applications will end on April 30, 2019. This year, new subjects have been included on which special emphasis will be placed such as management, environmental improvement and eco-innovation in industry or business, industrial reconversion to environmentally sustainable activities and the fight against depopulation in rural areas.
Special focus has also been placed on sectors related to the blue economy , as training and training needs related to the management of marine protected areas and professional development possibilities around the marine environment have been identified. For these reasons, of the 9.4 million euros, more than 2.6 million euros will be allocated to projects framed in a sustainable blue economy.
The empleaverde Programme plans to allocate 67 million euros until 2023, of which more than 10 million will be allocated to promoting the blue economy. Thus, it is intended to create 600 jobs and support 400 companies, as well as train more than 3,200 people in sectors linked to the sea.
To date, the Empleaverde Programme has co-financed 339 projects, collaborated with 500 organisations and supported 1,300,000 recipients, creating 2,600 companies and lines of business in economic sectors linked to the environment. These figures will increase, since annual calls will be published until 2022. In total, more than 50,000 people and 3,000 companies are expected to be supported during this period.
