ECOfit

ECOfit is a funding programme offered by the federal state of  Baden-Württemberg with the objective of promoting environmental and climate protection. It is based on the Heidelberg environmental management project entitled "Sustainable management" and is supported by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector. 

A project sponsor must initiate an ECOfit project. The project sponsor may be an industrial organisation or public corporations (e.g. chambers, associations, guilds, local authorities, churches or companies and clubs whose shareholders come solely from public corporations). It has been shown in practice that the funding programme is very attractive, above all, for towns, local authorities and districts since it can often be ideally incorporated in local climate protection activities.

CMC has ten years experience in successfully implementing the ECOfit funding programme. We regard ourselves here as a full service provider and assist the project sponsor with every stage of the project. The internal effort for the project sponsor is therefore minimised. At the same time, the project sponsor only incurs very low costs.

When advising the project participants, we can draw on the experience gained from ten years of ECOfit consulting. However, we can also include our experience from other projects (introduction of management systems, process optimisation, mobility projects, etc.).

Companies of any size and from all industries, clubs, local authorities, schools, universities, church parishes, church institutions and other organisations can take part in an ECOfit project.

The main objectives of an ECOfit project are:

• The project participants are encouraged to implement measures in operational environmental and climate protection.
• Specific measures for reducing energy consumption and energy costs are initiated through the project.
• Resource conservation by reducing water consumption and waste volumes is also considered.
• The project participants gain legal certainty in regard to environmentally relevant questions.
• A monitoring system (keyword: environmental indicators) is essential in order to permanently evaluate the project results.
• Positive PR relating to the topic of environmental and climate protection.
• The project also creates a good basis for introducing - with only very slight additional expenditure - a complete environmental management system according to EMAS or DIN EN ISO 14001, and/or an energy management system according to DIN EN ISO 50001 at a later date

An ECOfit project comprises three programme components:

• Staging of 6 to 8 workshops on various environmental protection topics such as energy conservation, waste management, use of water, air pollution control, etc.
• Provision of individual advice to project participants locally
• Final site inspection by an independent commission (members: for example, representatives of chambers, representatives of the local authority, consultants, etc.) and presentation of a certificate by the project sponsor.

You can find further information, also relating to project results and successes, on the ECOfit website (German).