ENI CBC MED is the European Union’s programme designed to promote the equitable development of the coastal regions of fourteen countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The CARISMED project, an acronym for CApitalisation for Re-setting Innovation and Sustainability in MED-Cities, which ended in December 2023, continued and integrated the initiatives developed in the framework of three projects financed by ENI CBC MED itself: Innomed-Up, MAIA-TAQA and SME4SMARTCITIES.
Each of these projects offers valuable resources, tools, contacts and knowledge to pursue more sustainable urban development objectives in Mediterranean cities in the energy, economic and environmental fields and, more generally, to improve the quality of life and working conditions of the inhabitants of the partner countries: Greece, Palestine, Spain, Italy, Tunisia and Jordan. CARISMED has also contributed actively and with a multi-level approach to the modernisation of the policies of the territories involved.
The inefficiency of waste management mechanisms, the insufficient or late adoption of circularity practices, and the lack of adequate policies to face the environmental challenges of our time are among the most frequently encountered criticalities in the countries of the Mediterranean basin and are often the result of a low level of education of both policy makers and local communities.
CARISMED led to the creation of a toolkit and a guide on the reuse and redevelopment of underused or abandoned buildings, using the circular economy practices developed by Innomed-Up, MAIA-TAQA’s innovations in green energy and the experiences and tools developed by SME4SMARTCITIES. The ultimate goal was the elaboration of a low-cost ‘Adaptive Reuse Strategy’, a strategy for adaptive reuse that aims to minimise the expenses involved in adapting and reconverting existing buildings in order to maximise their efficiency and give them a new lease of life.
Through clustering operations, more than eight small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from each participating city were involved in the project, benefiting from the support of a team of researchers; more than 500 citizens per city took part in communication, training and dissemination events; and a digital online learning platform is being developed that will provide educational tools, resources, results and good practices to facilitate dissemination and large-scale transmission.
