“Green Atlantic for Sustainable Development” is both a process of integration and development of competences and methods aimed at creating a European platform of expertise and action for maritime and environmental safety issues. “GASD” will integrate past and current work and use this as a basis for working on environmental issues and making recommendations, from a broader perspective (economic, human resources, science etc), on durable operational solutions built on the common policies of the Atlantic area – Europe. It will introduce for the first time within the framework of interregional co-operation, a concrete vision, integrated and operational from the perspective of sustainable economic development, based on an innovative approach to maritime safety and applied to the collective maritime activities of the partner regions. This vision will be translated into practical demonstration actions on which can be built European policies and regulations integral to maritime safety, technical, scientific and technological innovation, and economic development. This will lead to the creation of a multidisciplinary cluster that will reinforce the attractiveness of all regions in the Atlantic area, making it one of the world’s leading hubs for knowledge and competitiveness in the field of maritime and environmental safety – “The cluster of Maritime and Environmental Excellence”. GASD focuses on three top priorities for maritime safety: - Fostering a new level of cooperation for a transnational project addressing this world- scale issue - Building on experience and concentration of know-how to create the first European platform of expertise in maritime safety, with international exposure - Developing activities with significant added value in science and technology to attract the business, experts, investors and innovation that play an integral role in maritime safety sciences and activities. Achievements: Environmental policy aspects:- Integrating environmental issues into maritime activities and optimising maritime transport operators' environmental management. - Identifying and analysing the results of work at regional, national and EU level on maritime safety and maritime environment policy, in conjunction with the missions recommended by the CPMR, the aim being to integrate the different pre-existing work on maritime safety and to align it with the development strategies of the Atlantic regions and Europe to bring out the priority issues and the corresponding technical, technological, scientific, economic, financial and political resources in order to provide a response in the context of the future centre of excellence. - Matching the needs of maritime regions in terms of maritime safety and the environment with the technical, scientific, technological, economic and political resources to meet the strategic challenges identified. Defining a common position from a comparative analysis of the advantages of single- and double-hull vessels. Developing tools and programmes to evaluate economic activity in the port environment. - Defining networks and tools for cooperation between the Atlantic Area regions on marine environmental issues. Economic aspects: - Studying the levers and economic activities inherent to maritime security that affect employment, growth and innovation. Defining and presenting "European Maritime Monitoring" projects - Mobilising public and private maritime security operators to structure and develop a strategy for endogenous economic development and establish a comprehensive European centre of excellence with international influence, attracting international investors, experts, researchers, the best students, technologies and sciences in this activity sector to the territories of the Atlantic Area. Human aspects: "Developing skills and knowledge" - Analysing training institutions and the courses available in light of the needs expressed by the maritime professions. Four areas of activity: Transport (crew: monitoring traffic and coasts; port activities), fisheries and natural resources (shellfish, seaweed exploitation), shipbuilding, environmental management. Prioritising activities towards training in the field of marine pollution crisis management. - Designing a plan to develop these courses, both academic and professional, in response to the results of the analysis. - Setting up information systems and indicators relating to training systems in the Atlantic area and links with Europe. Mapping needs in each professional field in order to establish a harmonised synthesis between countries and participating regions. - Science and technology aspects: creation of a cluster - Analysing resources: detailed mapping of the scientific and technological actors in the projects developed and the existing technological resources. - Analysing needs: identifying priorities for research and development in maritime environmental security. Study to try to identify the levers of innovation through regional experiences. - Initialising the cluster: mobilising public and private sector research facilities in each sector of expertise around a common strategy for R&D, founding a regional centre of excellence to serve the Atlantic area and Europe, establishing a shared vision of research and development based on the needs and priorities expressed by the regions, producing a detailed, structured definition of the programme of work, setting up working groups by theme focusing on the R&D directions already established. Dissemination and promotion aspects: - Creating the website: www.greenatlantic.eu (public part and private part accessible using passwords for collaborative work), - Attendance at nine conferences and meetings on safety, security and sustainable development in order to mobilise actors, - Organising a GASD conference in La Baule (130 participants), an economy and maritime safety conference in Porto (130 participants) and a "GASD Networking Event" in Plymouth (55 participants) - Contribution from the GASD Consortium to the work of the Green and Blue Papers by the European Commission's DG Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, - 11 bimonthly newsletters.