The main goal of the ALFA project’s co-creation workshops within the 6 ALFA Hubs was to gather insights from #experts and potential beneficiaries in order to shape the design of tailored #support services for facilitating #biogas adoption in each country. Across a two-month timeframe, these workshops engaged stakeholders actively, yielding insights and recommendations.
Key points regarding support measures emerged:
- Business Support carries significance across diverse regions. Streamlining permits and evaluating financial aspects stand as crucial elements for administrative support, especially for ensuring the feasibility of biogas projects in farms. The need for financial assistance is particularly notable in #Greece and #Slovakia, where biogas implementation faces challenging potential obstacles. Tailoring business models and planning services is imperative for clarifying economic viability and strategizing for success.
- Technical Support takes on a critical role in ensuring the smooth operation of biogas systems. Expert advice for implementation and monitoring holds paramount importance. Slovakia’s emphasis on digestate handling showcases the essentiality of waste management optimization. In Italy, technical expertise and research funding are required for optimizing #fermentation processes and #waste valorization.
- Awareness raising and Capacity-building activities are in general vital, although the specific needs vary per country. Italy, Greece, and Slovakia can benefit from localized seminars and workshops that effectively engage stakeholders. Collaborative efforts with associations and farmer groups boost capacity-building initiatives. For instance, the importance of organising visits to farms that successfully operate biogas systems was highlighted in Belgium. In Denmark and Belgium, workshop participants called for increasing the offer of targeted educational programs as a means to resolve labor shortages in the sector. In Greece and Spain, life-cycle analysis training assumes significance.
In conclusion, the success of the six co-creation workshops held across ALFA hubs can be attributed to the active engagement of external stakeholders. These workshops effectively leveraged the expertise of farmers, biogas associations, and subject matter experts, who played a pivotal role in broadening outreach and facilitating knowledge dissemination. The insights generated from these workshops cover a wide spectrum, addressing areas like service delivery, compliance, and information dissemination. Importantly, these workshops yielded significant outcomes both in terms of organizational enhancements and substantive contributions.
For the promotion of widespread biogas adoption, a holistic strategy encompassing business, technical, awareness, and capacity-building support is essential. ALFA’s future endeavors encompass a multifaceted approach, including an open call to select the cases to support, the provision of business and financial services, technical assistance, capacity-building initiatives, and awareness campaigns. These collaborative measures will collectively contribute to the realization of a greener and more sustainable future.
