Digital Agenda Funding

Project Status: Completed

Project Leader: Anne Marie Mc Laughlin

EU Programme: Northern Periphery and Arctic (2014-2020)

Project Budget: €1,592,723

Start Date: Oct, 2018

Finish Date: Jun, 2022

Project Website: emergreen.interreg-npa.eu

The aim of the project is to:

Greener communities in remote areas by bringing new innovative models for participative, user-centred, quality and sustainable public services.

Specific objectives are to:

Introduce new emerging technologies that assist the provision of public services aimed to foster greener communities.
Find new sustainable business models for services provision based on new emerging technologies and shared solutions.
Serve as demonstrators for future adoption by other regions or service areas.

Donegal, Ireland
ERNACT Network(Lead Partner)
Overall project management, communications and reporting to European Commission

Jose Manuel San Emeterio
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Donegal, Ireland
ERNACT Network(Lead Partner)
Overall project management, communications and reporting to European Commission

Anne Marie Mc Laughlin
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Belfast, United Kingdom
Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful(Associate)
Learning from the work of the project with a view to implementing new services

Ian Humphreys
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Derry & Strabane, United Kingdom
Derry City & Strabane District Council(Partner)
Project Partner

Anne Carlin
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Derry & Strabane, United Kingdom
Rural Area Partnership in Derry Ltd(Associate)
Associate partner to Derry City & Strabane District Council 

Philip O'Kane
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Donegal, Ireland
Donegal County Council(Partner)
Project Partner

Daragh McDonough
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Faroe Islands, Faroe Islands
Umhvørvisstovan (Environment Agency)(Partner)
Project Partner

Bjarti Thomsen
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Galway, Ireland
University of Galway(Partner)
Project Partner

Adegboyega Ojo
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Helsinki, Finland
University of Helsinki(Partner)
Project Partner

Toni Ryynanen
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Helsinki, Finland

City of Mikkeli (Associate)
learning from the work of the project with a view to implementing new services

Aki Kauranen

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Västernorrland, Sweden

Regional Council of Västernorrland (Partner)
Regional expertise in development of technology-led models to develop greener and sustainable communities

Marta Bystrowska

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Västernorrland, Sweden

ALAV (Associate)
Associate Partner on EMERGREEN Project (Västernorrland, Sweden)

Jennie Olofsson

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An open market place of technology-led public services in the NPA area offering access to services on a transboundary basis.
New participatory green growth services piloted in 5 NPA regions.
Suitable models that permit the delivery of quality and sustainable public services adapted to the reality of remote areas.

The ERNACT regions focus on adapting and transferring services, approaches or digital knowhow between regions. Please examine the following table to see a list of specific items transferred over the past few years

Coastal Stories app and service

Donegal - Donegal County Council

Donegal Coastal Stories engages public participation as citizen scientists in the field of marine coastal erosion mapping through crowd-sourcing images of at-risk coastlines and provides vital data for the control and management of coastal erosion to help with the...

Donegal Coastal Stories engages public participation as citizen scientists in the field of marine coastal erosion...

Data story telling of green energies service

Faroe Islands - Umhvørvisstovan (Environment Agency)

A service displaying real time data on green energies, presented in a user-friendly and interactive way, to encourage citizens and businesses to invest in solar panels and heat pump solutions, leading to a reduction of the dependence on imported fossil fuel. Visual...

A service displaying real time data on green energies, presented in a user-friendly and interactive way, to encourage...

Green growth advisory services

Västernorrland - Regional Council of Västernorrland

A chatbot service called SolcEllen, that assists advisors in their task of providing solar energy advice to the community to assist them in becoming more energy efficient. The new service uses chatbot technologies to: 1) Improve communications on energy and climate...

A chatbot service called SolcEllen, that assists advisors in their task of providing solar energy advice to the...

Intelligent green participation service

Helsinki - University of Helsinki

A service that collects together good practices from various participatory projects and adapts the results and experiences into an intelligent participation system that can be applied in other geographical contexts sharing similarities. This includes a digital...

A service that collects together good practices from various participatory projects and adapts the results and...

Zero waste circular management service

Derry & Strabane - Derry City & Strabane District Council

A 3-component zero waste/circular management service providing a website, recycling app and chatbot providing focused sustainability information regarding waste, bin collecting, recycling services, etc. 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

A 3-component zero waste/circular management service providing a website, recycling app and chatbot providing focused...

Results coming from previous experiences demonstrate that approaches where the community is a key participant, are a very effective way of delivering more effective public services that respond to real demands. Nevertheless, additional factors should be considered to address the challenges faced by the NPA regions. Among them we identify:

Need of establishing a wider range of user-friendly channels for the community to access and participate in the co-production process. There’s not one solution that fits everybody.
Exploration of new models based on cooperation and open shared solutions to ensure quality and sustainable services.
Opportunity to introduce new emerging technologies assisting the public services provision and test their impact and viability within this changing landscape.

EMERGREEN addresses these challenges by bringing new innovative models for participative, user-centred, quality and sustainable public services aiming greener communities in remote areas.

A common approach involving the relevant stakeholders will be followed by the partnership to test different emerging technologies in the provision of green growth type of public services in the 5 participating regions including marine litter and zero waste circular management, green growth advisory services, intelligent green participation and real time visualisation of climate data.

In doing so, a transnational platform making the services accessible on a transboundary basis will be set up with the vision to be expanded and host other technology-led public services from other NPA regions and service areas.