GREENROSE Project: Knowledge Transfer

Background

The GreenRoSE project was a sector-specific partnership intended to transfer knowledge  to enable SMEs comply with environmental legislation.
Environmentally sound electronic production is an environmental and business  challenge as reflected in European legislation - RoHS (Directive on the Restriction of Certain Hazardous Substances), WEEE (Directive on Waste Electrical and  Electronic Equipment), EuE (Directive on establishing a framework for  Eco-design of End Use Equipment) - and in the worldwide trend  towards “Green Electronics”.

Aims and targets

The main technological objective of the GreenRoSE project was to provide European SMEs in the electronics sector with the knowledge & tools to produce electronic equipment free of hazardous substances (in particular lead-free soldered and halogen free) with guaranteed quality and reliability.

Strategy and actions

Activity included:

• Surveys of the trend to “Green Electronics”
• Strategic guidance for SMEs in compliance issues
• Providing the teaching material necessary for effective communication of project ideas and results
• Enabling pedagogic teaching according to the level of existing previous knowledge and working conditions
• Increasing the awareness of  European SMEs in th sector
• Publicising the GreenRoSE project.
• Spreading the results from the project to IAGs and SMEs outside the project
• Enabling  SMEs to prevent technical problems and economic losses during the process of technology change

Monitoring and evaluation

Funding/Cost effectiveness

Total Cost 2004/2007 €3.28m, of which €2.2m was provided under the EC VIth Framework Programme for Research & Technological Development.

Sustainability/Transferability

The project itself was limited term, though the nature of the project, enabling SMEs to comply with regulations,  means that the impact of the activity continues to benefit the sector.

Outcomes/impacts

Achievements

As an example: 
The Polish PCB company ELDOS SP, which reported that the GreenRoSE project helped ELDOS right from the beginning to get a thorough understanding of the RoHS Directive, and enabled them for timely and well targeted preparation of the transition. The GreenRoSE webiste offers detailed downloads of the partner impacts and experiences.

Success factors

Success came from bringing together a numbr of expert actors to concentration on developing and providing sectoral response to specific EU legislation.

Unintended impacts

Strengths and weaknesses