Through SwitchMed, the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) analyzed the situation in each of the Mediterranean countries, conducted a consultation process and developed policy recommendations on which the preparation of the set of regional measures was built. The resulting documents such as the Regional Summary of Policy Recommendations and the Country Profiles can be found here.

Through this decision, the countries also adopted the definition of a Sustainable Business as follows:

“A sustainable business provides commercial solutions which create ecological value and/or safeguard the environment (addressing environmental challenges and/or reducing environmental impacts) and are economically viable and socially empowering.”

The approval of the decision by the countries at COP22 is expected to promote a common understanding of the definition of criteria for circular and green economy businesses and facilitate the formulation of measures to support the development of these businesses at the national level.

Through these regional measures, all the knowledge and experience generated by the first phase of SwitchMed (2013-2018) is being transferred to a more permanent framework that is the Barcelona Convention. This includes experiences such as the Switchers Support Programme (Measure E1: Programmes for sustainable business development.), the creation of Switchers Support National Partnerships (Measure B1: Mediterranean Network of Networks of Business Support Organizations), or the Switchers Community (Measure E2: Mediterranean community of eco-entrepreneurs).

SwitchMed is also working on the creation of the Switchers Policy Hub, that represents one of the measures adopted (Measure P1) and will help to achieve other measures in the Mediterranean region by supporting policymakers to make the transition to circular green and blue economy in the region a reality.