The President of EMEA, Prof. Rym Ayadi, was the keynote speaker at SwitchMed Connect 2021 Public Conference “Together We Rise”, which took place on 20 October 2021 at Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau, in Barcelona, Spain.
The event was organised by the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC). The conference started with welcoming remarks by Enrique de Villamore, SCP/RAC and H.E. Teresa Jordá I Roura, Regional Minister Climate Action (Generalitat Catalana).
At her keynote speech ” The Euro-Med Blue and Green Transition Scenario” Prof. Ayadi emphasized: “The future is within reach. Clean green transition started and must accelerate in Europe the Mediterranean and Africa. What we must aspire is green growth, green employment and green development in all sectors of the economy. We must step up strategies and enforceable mechanisms to protect biodiversity in the oceans and lands. Revaluation models of land and oceans resources, based on the capacity of nature to contribute to the green transition and accelerate it must be put in the forefront during the COP26 in Glasgow.”
The conference highlighted the key objectives of the SwitchMed programme, the services it offers, and the results achieved so far by all 4 thematic areas, namely Policy, Industry, Green Entrepreneurship and Networking facility. It concluded with the announcement of the winners of the WeMed 2021 awards (Mediterranean Sustainability Awards).
SwitchMed Connect is the flagship event of the SwitchMed programme. This biennial gathering of Mediterranean stakeholders aims to build synergies, exchange knowledge and scale up eco and social innovations. It hosts leading start-ups and entrepreneurs, industry agents, initiatives, change agents, policy and financial institutions working on applications of productive, circular and sharing economies in the Mediterranean.
