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European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency
News article9 November 2022European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency

The European Union launches a new advisory service with EUR 30 million to green investments

Green Assist - Launching event

Today the European Commission launched GREEN ASSIST, the Green Advisory Service for Sustainable Investments Support. Funded with EUR 30 million from the LIFE Programme, GREEN ASSIST helps beneficiaries to prepare green or greener investment projects, across diversified sectors, for instance by integrating nature-based solutions or circular economy principles.

At the launch of the initiative, Florika Fink-Hooijer, Director General at DG ENV said “Nature is a vital ally in the fight for biodiversity loss and climate change. Investing in nature protection and restoration is the most profitable investment in our future, and it also makes sense economically. For every 1 € spent on restoration we will get back a value of at least 8 € in benefits from the many services that a healthy ecosystem can provide. However, we fall short of significant investments to support nature, biodiversity and green infrastructure. (…) To meet the needs of our biodiversity strategy to 2030, at least EUR 20 billion per year should be unlocked for spending on nature. GREEN ASSIST will mobilise the best experts in the EU to help with that.

Available as of today, GREEN ASSIST will provide free, easy-to-access, tailor-made advisory services to those beneficiaries looking for help to invest in environmental priorities and green their projects, and to achieve tangible benefits from better integrating environmental considerations. Project promoters and/or their investment teams, financial institutions and their intermediaries will be able to count on the services of experts registered on a roster of experts to support them in developing their projects even at an early stage (i.e. capacity building, project design, pre-investment phase, etc.).

Dirk Beckers, Director of CINEA, said: “This initiative constitutes another brick in the Commission’s set-up to address the massive investments needs that are required under the European Green Deal. GREEN ASSIST will unlock expertise and know-how to reap the benefits of including more sustainable environmental practises in business models.

Examples of typical advisory services expected to be offered by GREEN ASSIST cover green investments and supporting activities such as nature and biodiversity restoration, flood protection and climate change adaptation, sustainable development of urban, rural, coastal, offshore areas and pollution prevention. On top of this, GREEN ASSIST can also contribute to the greening and environmental mainstreaming of non-environmental sectors such as transport, energy and agriculture.

The initiative has been launched on 9th November in Rimini (Italy) at Ecomondo 2022, a key event in Europe and the Mediterranean for technological and industrial innovation in the circular economy sector, with thousands of visitors from all over Europe.

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