CO2FREE stems from the need identified by the partner regions to address the problem of climate change and the dependency on fossil fuels, and to seek ICT-based solutions for energy challenges and new approaches to make transport more sustainable; the partners have decided to tackle these issues through the exchange of good practices and their transfer into their Regional Operational Programmes.

The partnership has emerged from the ERNACT network, which has an established track record in developing and implementing Knowlegde Economy solutions in a regional context, and 5 of the CO2FREE partners (ERNACT EEIG, Donegal, Derry, ALAV and ARDI) had successfully implemented a previous Capitalisation project -PIKE-. The remaining 5 partners (San Sebastián, North Karelia, Carinthia, West Romania and Avila) all have important good practices to share in the energy efficiency and sustainable transport themes and have previously worked with some of the ERNACT and/or CO2FREE partners.

The aim of CO2FREE is to give the regional and local authorities specific instruments to address the challenge of energy efficiency and sustainable transport, by jointly developing Action Plans in close cooperation with regional stakeholders, to be implemented by making use of mainstream

Obj. 1 and 2 Structural Funds (SF) available in each participating region. Sub-objectives are:

1. To translate the best practices mastered by the CO2FREE partnership into regional Action Plans (APs) to be implemented under the Operational Programmes (OPs) of the EU SF (Obj 1 and 2 OPs) in each region
2. To have political commitment that regional APs will be actually implemented, both from the regional stakeholders and the Managing Authorities of the OP.
3. To involve regional and local stakeholders in the preparation of regional APs
4. To disseminate information about the project, its objectives, the approach, results and lessons learned to a large audience at local, regional, national and EU level. Each participating region will develop an AP to transfer the GPs into their mainstream SF programmes.

Main activities will consist of Selection of the GPs (GP Transfer Pack, GP Transfer Workshop) ; Adaptation of GPs (Study visits, GP transfer roadmaps, Thematic seminars) and Commitment to implement the GPs (Local meetings with MA, presentations to regional OP Monitoring Committees, AP development and regional AP launches)

OUTPUTS: Brochure, 4 newsletters; launch conference; closing conference; 500 GP Packs; GP Transfer workshop; 27 Local meetings; 3 Thematic seminars; 9 GPs made available;18 participants in study visits; 9 regional Action Plan launches; Project presented at OPs Monitoring Committee meetings.