| www.euronews.com Eco-innovation provides 3.5 million jobs across Europe, most of them in SMEs (small and medium sized businesses) which can apply for EU financing. This can help with the essential task of transforming an eco-innovative project into a real offer on the marketplace. Bamboo as a water treatment system was a creative idea for treating polluted water which was dreamed up by a small French company specialising in ecological water treatment plants. Bamboo filters water without creating bad smells or mud. The problem was, it wasn't adapted for industrial use - until Veronique Arfi, the company's deputy CEO realised that there were European grants for eco-innovation. Veronique Arfi explained: "We used this as an opportunity to gain access to the market, and to industrialise our process, and to get a shop window for future clients." With three other SMEs, Veronique submitted her idea for "Briter Water" to the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), which agreed to co-finance half of the 700000 euros needed to set up a pilot bamboo project. This was installed on the site of a large company which was also very involved in the projet. Romain Sadak, the Safety and Environmental Coordinator for Refresco France, said: "We put around 300000 euros into the project, so that it wouldn't only be a pilot project but a project which later on, could be a real industrial business, which is exactly what interests us." Since the launch in 2009, Veronique has ... |
