“As part of WP6, SWAN partners will design and deliver a viability plan, which will evolve around the following pillars:

  1. The SWAN Digital Ecosystem (SWAN DE).
    Having 4 interoperable IT platforms forming the SWAN DE provides a good basis for scalability planning. We will identify structures and functions and explore the right balance between those controlled by a centralized team vs those that are best managed ‘locally’, under the control of each platform. The goal is to create and test flexible platform development guidelines (described in key outputs: functional and technical designs, operational manuals, business model reports) that will: a) account for actual parameters of the SWAN DE; b) balance centralized vs distributed approaches; c) guide future participants to develop their local platforms as seamless plug-and-play components of the SWAN DE. This will increase the attractiveness (and thus usage of) SWAN DE, as it will simplify provision to and access from the content stored in the ecosystem (e.g. upload waste flow details, search for suppliers or buyers, etc.). In addition, such an approach will make joining SWAN DE a process that is independent of the location of platform stakeholders/participants, thus directly contributing to the project’s viability and replicability.
  2. The SWAN Industrial Ecosystem (SWAN IE).
    All actors who will participate in project’s dissemination activities (and become recipients of related project outputs) will be encouraged to become members to the SWAN IE (which is one of the expected outputs of WP6). This network will bring together stakeholders in the Balkan Med region, in order to co-develop project ideas, search for future funding and eventually implement a local symbiotic network based on solid waste reuse. In addition, the development of policy recommendations for the promotion of solid waste reuse value chains, as one of the main deliverables of the project, and the presence in SWAN IE (as project participants) of two key policy makers (Greek and Albanian Ministries of Environment) guarantees that the main project outputs will inform or even guide future decisions on local policies and action plans. Finally, use of social media will aim at creating the virtual side of SWAN IE, through community development as a means of expansion of SWAN IE beyond the project area.

The above will be complemented by high-profile actions that project partners are already planning. For example, P2 (the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy) is committed to and coordinating with the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs for presenting SWAN to foreign ambassadors in Greece, in order to:
a) raise the profile of SWAN beyond the project area;
b) encourage their Commercial Attaches to promote SWAN in their countries’ Chambers of Commerce and other local stakeholders relevant to SWAN.