Once again this year, Innovation Camp brought together opportunities for capacity building and community engagement within the Innovative Sustainable Economy Mission. GREENSMARTMED was there to take part in the conversation, share experiences and connect with a community working towards a more innovative and sustainable future.
GREENSMARTMED with representatives from CUEIM and Technopolis Group Portugal participated in the 4th edition of Innovation Camp, organised within the Interreg Euro-MED Programme’s Innovative Sustainable Economy (ISE) Mission. The event brought together organisations and professionals from across the Mediterranean to exchange experiences, challenge existing approaches and explore practical pathways towards more sustainable economies. 
One of the most relevant concepts explored during the Camp was sufficiency, resource use and new perspectives on the Mediterranean sustainability transition.
Sufficiency refers to policy measures and everyday practices that reduce demand for energy, materials, land, water and other natural resources, while ensuring wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries. The concept adds an important dimension to the sustainability transition. Improving efficiency, reducing resource consumption and developing new technologies are essential, but sufficiency invites us to look at the question from another perspective: do we always need more in the first place?
This means going beyond the idea of simply making existing systems more efficient. It involves questioning consumption patterns, reconsidering needs and exploring what constitutes an adequate level of resource use to support wellbeing without exceeding environmental limits.
The second day of the Innovation Camp was structured as a working session, inviting participants to explore how Transformative Innovation Policy Labs (TIPLabs) can contribute to promoting sufficiency-oriented policy approaches and support the transition towards a more sustainable economy in the Mediterranean.
Within this framework, GREENSMARTMED brought its experience with its methodology based also on the constitution of Regional Core Groups into the discussions. The approach provided an opportunity to engage with other participants, compare experiences and identify common ground, potential synergies and opportunities for further development with other thematic projects.
The Innovation Camp practical approach, through working sessions and collective discussions, gave the chance to question some of the assumptions behind sustainability and think together about how change can actually happen recalling that that European projects are not only about activities and deliverables, but also about the people, relationships and exchanges that make cooperation possible.
Indeed, the event provided another valuable opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with colleagues from other thematic projects within the Industrial Transition cluster, in which GREENSMARTMED is actively involved.
