AE4RIA Highlights is our monthly newsletter, delivering the latest updates, event announcements, research projects, and publications from the AE4RIA Network.

We invite you to peruse the content and encourage you to reach out to us with any collaboration ideas.

Access AE4RIA Highlights here.

Το άρθρο AE4RIA Highlights | September – October  2023 εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

The key pillar of the BRC functioning is the Climate Innovation Window (CIW), a reference portal for innovations on climate change adaptation which aims to bridge the gap between innovators and end-users in resilience to floods, droughts, and extreme weather events. The platform currently hosts 120 innovative solutions covering a wide range of climate hazards, solution types and areas of application.

The Climate Innovation Window enables users to browse the innovations database by hazards (coastal floods, droughts, heatwaves, heavy precipitation, river foods, storms, wildfire and multi-hazards, etc.) and topics (agriculture, disaster and ICT, energy, forests, nature-based solutions, rivers, urban areas, water availability, water quality, water safety, etc.). Maturity of each innovation is assessed through the Technical Readiness Level (TRL), a scale consisting of nine levels where each level characterizes the progress in the development of the innovation, from the initial idea (Level 1) to the full uptake of the product into the marketplace (Level 9).

Το άρθρο Climate Innovation Window | Brigaid Connect εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

Visit the HS4A website

What is human security?

Human security¹ starts with people and what it means for us to be safe and secure. It means security from harmful disruptions and calamities – in our homes, our jobs, our communities, and our environment.
It’s also about our needs and hopes, our chance to develop our potential, especially those of us who are the most vulnerable.
Human security is about empowering people to participate in making choices on how they can be most secure and resilient in face of current and future risks.
Often policies and solutions assist people with one aspect of human security. But when a crisis comes along, it affects us in many ways.
Consider COVID-19, which threatened our lives and health but also our economies – many lost their jobs and their ability to put food on the table. Others, confined to their homes, experienced threats to their personal security.
Or consider people who have been forced to leave their homes due to natural disasters. People who are displaced need places to live and be safe, jobs and income to survive, but also community networks, a sense of belonging and ways to sustain their culture and their dignity.
In response to these and other threats, our needs and hopes must be heard and heeded – our insecurities must be tackled together, comprehensively.
Without human security, there is no national or global security. Read more on HS4A campaign background

A proven approach to human security:

In ensuring human security for all, we draw on lessons learned from applying the human security approach in more than 295 programmes in 135 countries.²
The human security approach is a framework for assessing, developing and implementing comprehensive responses to complex challenges in communities, countries or regions. The approach puts a priority on prevention and creating early warning mechanisms to detect threats, minimize their impact and, when possible, prevent their occurrence. It is a valuable tool for tackling today’s interconnected threats and addressing their root causes before they become much bigger humanitarian, economic and environmental crises.

Seven dimensions of human security:

• Economic security
• Food security
• Health security
• Environmental security
• Personal security
• Community security
• Political security

Featured Events:

Το άρθρο Human Security for All | UN Trust Fund & World Academy of Art and Science εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

Agroforestry – a land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland – has varied benefits, including increased biodiversity and reduced erosion. The combination of agriculture and forestry in the Mediterranean is deeply rooted in a culture of tradition and niche production but fails nowadays to structure its knowledge to achieve an integrated system of good practices for the sustainability of production, the protection of the biodiversity of distinct ecosystems, the transfer of innovation and the increase in profitability for the territories/actors involved. Therefore, LIVINGAGRO will tackle these issues using an Open Innovation approach, based on the setting-up of two Living Laboratories making possible the co-creation of the economic and social values and the interactions between supply and demand, eliminating geographical and cultural barriers. A specific focus will be on olive multifunctional system (Living Laboratory 1) and grazed woodlands (Living Laboratory 2). Olive cultivation is representative of many Mediterranean rural areas, and traditionally olive orchards were and are often still managed as agroforestry systems, in combination with cereals, fodder legumes and/or pasture. Grazed woodlands are major agroforestry systems in the Mediterranean that highly contribute to sustaining Mediterranean local economies supplying both vegetal and animal products.

Athena – Research & Innovation Information Technologies, ATHENA RC – GREECE, will participate and work on a pre-competitive analysis as well as the preparation of e-learning modules for business startup creation, plus face-to-face educational presentations of that material in Lebanon and Jordan through a subcontract from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICh)

Το άρθρο ENI CBC Med Project | LIVINGAGRO: Cross Border Living laboratories for Agroforestry εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.

The Port of Lavrio would like to transition to a “green” paradigm through working together with its stakeholder community to develop breakthrough innovation with positive economic, social and environmental impact and thus advancing the contribution of the Lavreotiki region to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund has employed in 2021-2022 its HRADF ESG rating tool to evaluate the performance of all ports in their asset portfolio, including Lavrio. ATHENA Research centre together with HRADF and EIT CLIMATE KIC participate in the “GREEN PORT LAVRIO” project, to map the port’s stakeholders and develop a shared vision for the port, as well as developing further the contents of the current HRADF ESG rating tool.

More specifically, ATHENA RC is leading WP3 of the project, which includes:

• Integrate SDG’s in the current tool to measure the level of implementation of SDGs at the port level.
• Integrate benchmarking against EU/global Industrial Transportation Sectors. ATHENA RC will study and use the set of KPls of the HRADF ESG rating tool, and whenever appropriate, suggest other KPIs to be included in the tool, and will conduct a desk-research for the availability of National/ European and Global data to support benchmarking analysis. ESG/SDG scores will be benchmarked at various levels: against the other National Sectors of Economic activity, as well as European and Global Seaport Sectors.
• Expand HRADF ESG rating tool to include Hybrid Metrics, integrating valuation of Natural capital to financial accounts and performance measures. ATHENA RC will perform a monetary valuation of the underlying ecosystem services and propose a set of port-specific Hybrid metrics, integrating environmental and financial account measures.

Principal Investigator on behalf of the Sustainable Development Unit at ATHENA RC: Prof. Phoebe Koundouri 

Research Team: Dr. Conrad Landis, Dr. Artemis Stratopoulou

Funding Body: HELLENIC REPUBLIC ASSET DEVELOPMENT FUND SOCIETE ANONYME (HRADF)

Το άρθρο Green Port Lavrio εμφανίστηκε πρώτα στο Ae4ria.