The Environmental Service Package of the City of Vienna

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The EcoBusinessPlan Vienna was launched in 1998 by the Municipal Department for Environmental Protection on behalf of the Vienna City Administration. To date, 1,113 enterprises have participated in the EcoBusinessPlan, implementing around 15,000 environmental projects and actions. Through appropriate environmental management practices, these enterprises have been able to generate substantial cost savings totalling about EUR 127.6 million. The success of the EcoBusinessPlan illustrates that the voluntary move to apply quality standards that exceed legal requirements creates significant environmental and financial benefits. The EcoBusinessPlan supports companies in the implementation of environmental measures and helps to reduce operating costs and enhance their competitiveness. The EcoBusinessPlan Vienna is one of the flagship of the Vienna Sustainability Coordination Office, it is among the Smart City projects of the city and is closely linked with similar initiatives around the world to promote the transfer of knowledge between urban and regional administrations. The Danube Region EcoBusinessPlan project is based on the extensive experience of the City of Vienna with this environmental service package and will transfer the developed know-how in a “place based approach” to selected metropolitan regions and cities in the Danube region. The transfer is based on already existing cooperation projects in the region. With this project we are addressing the core of the Danube Region Strategy and the goal of supporting the development of interacting of metropolitan areas and cities . Targets: • the implementation of measures to strengthen the sustainable urban development • the establishment of stable structures for the ongoing management of a program modelled according to EcoBusinessPlan Vienna in a place passed approach • the involvement of the civil society in this project as model for a multilevel governance • to reduce energy and resource consumption of businesses while increasing their competitiveness , • capacity building in the field of sustainable consulting and -development • a reduction of environmental risks • the strengthening of cooperation between the participating cities and metropolitan areas The project EcoBusinessPlan Danube involves cities and metropolitan areas where already pilot projects have been realized during the last years like Bratislava, Györ and Novi-Sad as well as new partners like Ljubljana, Budapest, Brno, Timisoara, or Sofia.

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