Zero Waste Adriatic net for events and festivals

Events and festivals are an important element of the tourism offering, and an opportunity to increase tourist flows and offer a variety of entertainment opportunities for local residents and tourists, even outside seasonal tourism.In the Adriatic area, there are different events that attract thousands of people and, in turn,have a positive impact on the local economy. At the same time, however, these large gatherings produce an increase of water and energy consumption, together with a waste of food and various materials. Therefore, it must be stressed that events and festivals produce negative effects, too. A sustainable tourism policy can be achieved with the adoption of “green” actions to lower the negative impact on the environment caused by large gatherings, and to transform the waste originated by tourist flows into a new resource for local communitiesboth from a social and economic point of view. The key to transforming waste into a resource is to lower the waste produced at its source and to strengthen the recycling chain. The project indicates zero waste in festivals and events as a goal to reach. To this aim, ICT is a precious tool; ICT is considered by the project as a strategic support to face the negative impact of tourist flows by providing tools to public and private actors that organize, manage events and festivals. The Zero Waste project offers the opportunity to create a network of existing events and festivals in the Adriatic area, thanks to the adoption of green solutions through the use of ICT. Zero Waste exploits the results of experiences carried out by some of the partners on the reduction of waste in economic activities, and aims to benchmark the best practises with other partners - methodologies and concrete actions included. Zero Waste is also a new cultural approach that, through the use of ICT,may favour the creation of new jobs and new skills in the recycling chain in the partners’ countries. The project aims to create a “Zero Waste” Web-based network of events and festivals with a low impact on the environment. The assumption is to develop a jointly used ICT infrastructure to match environmental and tourist indicators with a new method for communities’ involvement and good practice solutions in the organization and management of events/festivals. Overall objectives of the project are to: •Create a permanent ICT application as a tool to exchange expertise and promote accessibility to information and communication services; •Strengthen the sustainable development capacity of the Adriatic area through the agreed Zero Waste strategy; •Lower the negative impact of events and festivals on local resources by converting this impact into an opportunity of growth for the local communities; •Promote a tourist economy where conservation, recycling and recovery are key words of a new cultural approach by developing integrated and specialised tourist packages; •Encourage and promote good and neighbouring relations and a harmonious sustainable development by matching more and less experienced Adriatic areas. The project objectives are coherent with public national and sub-national strategies and policies of the participating territories. The project will significantly contribute to strengthening the sustainable development of the Adriatic Area through an agreed “Zero Waste” strategy in events and festivals that are considered important as an opportunity to favour sustainable tourist flows and develop local economies.The project offers the opportunity to the beneficiaries to jointly increase their capabilities in the implementation of innovative actions in the management of sustainable tourist events by using ICT tools. Beneficiaries will collaborate to implement a new Web application that allows choosing and applying innovative solutions to reach the goal “Zero Waste”.