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The European coast guard community is one of the major protagonists of the Green Deal – every day the coast guards and authorities deal with the greatest environment on earth – that of marine ecosystems and biodiversity and address the challenge of climate change. The Greening Award Initiative is meant to award those who have risen to the challenge and proposed greening activities in their daily mission, work, and campaigns.
The Greening Award Initiative aims to celebrate the sustainability actions that are carried out and developed across more than 300 authorities that make up the European Coast Guard community.
This initiative recognises projects and activities developed by authorities carrying out Coast Guard Functions which empower a green transition, contribute to a more sustainable future, and which directly or indirectly support the goals of the European Green Deal.
Announced in the framework of the Annual European Coast Guard Event held in Lisbon in 2023, the Greening Award Initiative is open to any entity or institution executing Coast Guard Functions within the European Union, Norway, and Iceland.
The Greening Award Initiative is jointly organised by the three European Agencies tasked with supporting national authorities carrying out Coast Guard Functions: the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA); the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA); and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex).
Award categories
The Greening Award Initiative has three different categories: Greening Operations; Outreach and Awareness; and Greening at Work.
Greening Operations: this category encompasses operational actions and projects that have led to an improved environmental footprint. Actions and projects that have engaged and involved communities internal and external to the submitting organisation are covered by this category, as are collaborative actions which may involve knowledge transfer inside or outside the organisation.
Outreach and awareness raising: this category showcases the public-facing activities that authorities engaged in Coast Guard Functions and have activated on sustainability themes. Public campaigns, open days, events, etc., are all covered by this category.
Greening at work: this category focuses on the practical application of sustainability in the workplace. It can include individual actions (for example, banning single use plastics, offsetting emissions) or larger-scale projects (for example, Eco-Management and Audit Scheme –EMAS registration for an organisation).
How to enter
Entries can be submitted through the Greening Award Initiative entry form before 31 March 2024. For more information on the Awards, the Rules, and the application process, please consult the Greening Award Initiative web page on the European Cooperation on Coast Guard Functions portal.
The Awards
The Awards will be presented at a special ceremony during the Annual European Coast Guard Event 2024, organised by the European Fisheries Control Agency.
The European Fisheries Control Agency has presented the new tools to develop a culture of compliance in a reformed Common Fisheries Policy at the European Parliament. Indeed, in the context of the new policy being designed, the EFCA, within its mandate, is ready to contribute to the success of the new CFP and the key features of regionalisation and discard ban and develop the necessary tools.
During 2013, while addressing its core tasks coordinating operational control activities in the European Union, the EFCA is focusing on new developments that shall enhance the culture of compliance and level playing field across the fisheries sector in Europe. In this regard, there are particular tools that will allow for new impetus towards this objective, ensuring that there is a level playing field across Europe and that fisheries control is done in the most cost-efficient way:
- Regional Joint Deployment Plans (JDPs): The Agency applies its budgetary resources towards JDPs as the vehicle through which the Agency organises the deployment of the national human and material means of control and inspection pooled by the Member States. JDPs promote the cost-effective use of human and material resources of Member States in a coordinated way and the Agency has started to extend JDPs to cover regional, multispecies joint deployment plans (NEAFC, NAFO and Pelagic species in Western Waters). EFCA wishes to move to regional, multispecies and permanent fisheries in a very near future.
- Discard ban control strategies: The measure would be preferably implemented through the regional JDPs, enabling strategic decisions to be taken at steering group level, and then EFCA can help monitor it effectively. Depending on the characteristics of the fishery, different methods could be applied and available tools would be used and tested.
- Cost-effectiveness and Compliance evaluation Focus Groups: Two focus groups have been set up to evaluate compliance and cost effectiveness in control operations.
- Core curriculum: The near completion of a core curriculum for the training of the fisheries inspectorate of the Member States for the first time ever will contribute to and apply the Common Fisheries Policy effectively and in a uniform manner.
- EFCA ICT Systems: They are designed to complement individual national systems. These are unique systems developed by the Agency and made available to Member States to support control of the CFP at the EU level. These electronic tools allow for a continuous real time exchange of data and intelligence, thereby restricting the possibilities for the manipulation of information and helping in limiting non-compliant behaviour.
“EFCA model has been successful in improving compliance through the coordination of actions and assets. The 5 year external evaluation of the EFCA confirmed the relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of its activities,” said Pascal Savouret, EFCA Executive Director. “The EFCA, in its coordination and assistance role, will be a strong driver of compliance.”
As part of the project PESCAO, two workshops organised by EFCA on the analysis and preliminary recommendations resulting from the Fisheries Committee for the Western Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) and the Sub-regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) Member Countries’ legal review were held on 22 and 23 May 2019 at SRFC headquarters in Dakar, Senegal.
The main objective of the workshops was to present the analysis and preliminary recommendations resulting from the FCWC and SRFC Member Countries’ legal review carried out by an external expert contracted by EFCA.
Officials from the FCWC and SRFC Member States, in addition to representatives of the FCWC and SRFC Secretariats, the European Commission, the European Union Delegation in Senegal and EFCA attended the workshop.
During the workshop it was provided an overview of the international, regional and sub-regional instruments applicable in the context of the fight against IUU fishing as well as an analysis of the relevant legislation of each country of the two sub-regional organizations.
The workshop also focused heavily on discussing the needs in terms of legal updating and/or implementation for each country, and a preliminary set of recommendations to address those needs.
Following the workshop, EFCA, in collaboration with its PESCAO partners – FCWC and SRFC - will support selected countries in drafting and amending national legislation
The third workshop of the European Coast Guard Functions Forum (ECGFF) on "Multipurpose Maritime Operations" (MMO) held in Catania, Sicily, Italy from 3 to 5 June, highlighted the coordination between the Italian Coast Guard, the Guardia di Finanza, and the cooperation with Italian Navy.
The workshop was organised with the support of the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) and welcome around 90 delegates from 16 Member States and from the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), which are supporting national authorities carrying out Coast Guard functions with EFCA.
Since 2009, the European Forum of Coast Guard Functions voluntarily brings together several national organisations implementing Coast Guard functions in the European Union (EU), European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and Schengen area, with the aim of strengthening the so-called Coast Guard cooperation.
The event addressed the issue of complex multipurpose maritime operations, in which several Coast Guard functions are implemented simultaneously, in order to prepare effective and efficient responses to multiple challenges that may arise in a given area of operations. In these contexts, the coordinated participation of units belonging to the different Coast Guard organisations and to the three EU agencies is crucial.
The agenda of the first day's work included a plenary session and three working groups on the different aspects of this activity, with a particular focus on risk management, training, operational and logistical implications.
The concept of MMO was concretely tested on 4 June in the context of an exercise at sea called COASTEX19. Under the operational coordination of the Italian Coast Guard eleven naval assets, three aircrafts and three boarding teams created a complex scenario that simulated activities to combat illegal fishing, fight pollution, search and rescue operations and illegal trafficking.
The human resources and means of the Italian Coast Guard, Guardia di Finanza and Italian Navy, the three EU agencies as well as the Portuguese Navy, the German Federal Police and the Spanish Customs intervened in various moments of the exercise, cooperating with high standards of interoperability and synergy. The delegates participating in the workshop were able to attend as privileged observers all the operations directly from four of the ships engaged in Coastex19.
The workshop concluded today with the presentation of the exercise outcomes during the last preparatory meeting of the Plenary Conference of Heads of Coast Guard organisations to be held in Venice, Italy from 12 to 15 November 2019