The PROTECT project is a Horizon Europe-funded project that enables public authorities to apply public procurement methods to solve the needs that stem from climate change, especially in climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience.
The project evolves around five climate challenge application domains i.e., Energy & Utilities, Sustainable Urban Communities, Agriculture, Forestry, and other Land use, Marine and Coastal Environments and Civil Security and Protection.
PROTECT assesses existing and high-potential climate service solutions and technologies that use Earth Observation data to prepare procurers for undertaking future Pre-Commercial Procurements that are fully funded by the European Commission (EUR 19 million) under call HORIZON-CL6-2024-GOVERNANCE-01-5: Customisation/pre-operationalisation of prototypes end-user services in the area Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation.
Project coordinator G.A.C. opened the meeting by thanking all consortium members for their great efforts in the project. Thereafter, Work Package leaders shed light on the project’s achievements thus far, as well as future steps to be taken.
Such steps include defining and categorising potential pre-commercial procurement challenges. The following is the preliminary shortlist of the possible pre-commercial procurement challenges:
- Predicting the freshwater demand to match supply & demand
- Flooding in coastal areas and flooding from rivers
- Predicting waste fires
- Illegal dumping of waste and tracing
- Detecting climate vulnerability to prepare resilience plans
- The expectation for the PCP
- Building and restoring resilient cities' infrastructure
- Predicting peak traffic times & CO2 emissions by types of transportation
These topics are being developed carefully considering the needs and demands of the procurers in the aforementioned climate challenge application domains.
As the project is now entering the phase of matching supply with demand, the consortium then went on to discuss dissemination and outreach strategies to engage procurers in this process. These activities include but are not limited to, the organisation of webinars, and the creation of an E-catalogue with useful materials such as PROTECT deliverables and relevant EU policy on the matter. The catalogue also includes a list of more than 110 climate services based on Earth Observation.
This catalogue is available to organisations that join the PROTECT community. besides access to the E-catalogue, the PROTECT community also enables members to gain insight into future procurements, free consultations, and insights into the climate services market, among many other things. Registration is still open to become a member of the community. Do not hesitate to contact the EURADA secretariat for more information when doing so.
Before concluding the General Assembly, the consortium went over the next steps the project is facing. In addition to organising webinars, the consortium is also arranging e-pitching sessions with providers to gain a better understanding of which climate services are already available on the market. The providers listed in the E-catalogue will be invited to the next round of E-pitching sessions, most likely to be held in October and November. Finally, the consortium touched upon the open market consultations that will be held to assess whether the needs of the procurers could be met and to finetune the abovementioned climate challenges.
The general assembly portrayed the passion the consortium has for the topic and the project more specifically. Valuable discussions were held on the future steps of the project ensuring that procurers gain the relevant tools to ensure stakeholders are attaining climate services that effectively address the climate challenges that are faced by our regions.
