PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Life SVOLTA BLU project stems from the challenge of finding a balance between the need for sufficient and high-quality water for human health, economic activities, and nature in the context of climate change. To this end, the proposed project will develop and test an innovative approach that has the ambitious goal to increase the interest and awareness of businesses and citizens about water topics, and to make available larger financial resources for effective water management actions, in synergy with the EU strategy for sustainable finance and related initiatives. Taking the carbon credit market as a reference, the project intends to replicate it in the water sector, designing and activating a water credit trading system (blue credits) in which the demand, i.e. those who use water and want to reduce their water footprint, meets the supply, i.e. those who invest in saving, protection and valorising actions according to criteria of equity, transparency and affordability. The overall objective of the project is to verify the feasibility, validity and sustainability of such a management architecture, laying the foundations for its effective implementation and dissemination in the post-LIFE phase. More than 30 organisations, including private companies, primary sector operators and municipalities, will be directly involved in the testing phase of the proposed system, about 500 000 € of external fundings mobilised and used for effective water savings initiatives during project course, and 200 000 m3/year of savings in water usage. Both values are expected to increase ten times in the post-LIFE phase, when the system will be widely open. In addition the project will: issue 40 water footprint certificates; train more than 120 public&private bodies on water savings, NWRM, sustainable finance, ESG ratings; ensure the after-LIFE sustainability of the proposed system in Vicenza territory; develop and sign 3 Replication Plans with other territories.