The Operational Programme for North West Europe recognises that the quality of places and environmental and cultural assets is important for creating strong and prosperous communities. Europe's green & blue infrastructure (nature sites. parks. open space. woodlands & waterways etc.) forms an important part of these assets. which is often managed by local authorities or other public agencies. With the current financial crisis however there is increasing pressure on public sector funds. Therefore new. more cost-effective models for resource management need to be developed. An opportunity for doing this is through increased involvement of the social economy in resource management via not-for-profit organisational structures. Such an approach can have the added benefits of achieving greater involvement of local stakeholders with the resource & delivering social outcomes. such as employment for disadvantaged groups. The aim of G&BF is to develop a strategic framework for doing this in an effective way that can be promoted throughout North West Europe with the aim of widening adoption of such approaches. Lessons learnt through the project will also feed into furthering European policy (particularly Europe 2020) and input to future delivery of the European structural funds. The project will also develop an approach for assessing the benefits of such schemes. by relating cost savings to the publci sector (through the more efficient management of the infrastructure) to the wider benefits delivered to society (through. for example. increased employment amongst target beneficiary groups). Finally the project aims to develop opportunities for transnational labour mobility both for social entrepreneurs and for stakeholders and beneficiaries of schemes. Achievements: Scotland’s first canal college concludes with a splash! Since opening in June 2013, 165 young people have taken part in canal college, which was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the European Union Interreg IVB North West Europe project ‘Green & Blue Futures’, Scottish Natural Heritage and Scottish Canals.Of those taking part up to January this year, over 60% have already moved on to a job or training course, further education or a new volunteering role. The final intake completes their programme this month.As many as 24 volunteer mentors have taken part regularly with more taking part in one off activities. The final figures exceed the original target of 144 young participants and six volunteer mentors.Over the two years, the young volunteers contributed 14,712 hours towards work on the canals and the mentors contributed 4,856 hours.The total figure of 19,568 volunteer hours equates to £978,400 worth of volunteer time (calculated using Big Lottery Fund guidance).Social Enterprise ZoneThe Social Enterprise Zone was developed so as to provide a meaningful resource for aspiring social enterprises to learn from. Scottish Canals oversaw the work and development of the cluster of enterprises at the Helix and every project is now in the SEZ with both a summary and detailed description of the work they carry out and ‘lessons’ for other fledgling social enterprises.More information is available under: http://greenandbluefutures.eu