Transitioning the existing economic system in Europe to a green economy in the long term requires making existing knowledge and best practice available to a wider community. The GreenEcoNet project will be initiating a web platform for SMEs to find relevant information, to identify potential partner networks and to receive potential solutions enabling them to proceed towards a green economy. Furthermore, the project aims to gather and generate knowledge support to policy making in order to facilitate enabling conditions for effectively fostering a green economy.

The unsustainable path of our current economic system in managing both natural and man-made resources demands a paradigm shift in our idea of economic development. We need to define an innovative, multidisciplinary and integrate approach to identify, develop and deploy technologies, tools and services promoting a transition to a low-carbon, sustainable, resilient and socially comprehensive economic development.

This new economic paradigm has been called "the green economy". The contribution of private enterprises and business communities toward the transition to a green economy has often been underestimated. Yet, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and corporate actors work as key players and they have the power to change the socio-economic and physical landscape. Many SMEs and corporate actors have introduced innovative solutions which have greatly contributed to our understanding of “green economy”, and have developed revolutionary organisational, behavioural and technological approaches to the problem of sustainability and human well-being. Despite these developments, a large part of the business communities lag behind the "best in class".

The aim of our project is to address two problems:

1. the disconnection between best in class / benchmark "green business" practices and the wider business communities
2. the disconnection between applied research institutions investigating models for a transition to a "green economy" and the business community.

We will do so through the design, deployment and use of a suite of instruments and a series of activities, i.e. a "platform", aimed at developing an exchange network of best practices involving the "best in class" private enterprises, the academic research institutions, business networks and the wider business community, with a special focus on SMEs. The GreenEcoNet platform aims at becoming the reference point of access for actors who desires to become involved in the "green economy".

In the context of GreenEcoNet, Ecologic Institute will set up a Pool of Experts providing advice and information both to the web platform as well as directly to relevant Green Economy actors through two workshops in Berlin.