Thematic Group on Green Architecture: Designing Green Strategies
This Thematic Group (TG) provided an opportunity to share experiences about the different approaches Member States chose in the implementation of the Green Architecture. It explored the interactions of the different interventions and examined how green strategies work in practice.
Context
The CAP’s ‘green architecture’ is the suite of rules and tools for improving the environmental and climate performance of farming, food production, land management and rural areas. In their CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs), Member States have taken different approaches to address their climate and environmental needs, developing their own green strategies. This Thematic Group (TG) was an opportunity for a committed group of experts and relevant stakeholders to explore what lessons can be learned about the effective design and implementation of coherent green strategies using the interventions available within the green architecture.
The background document and the list of TG members are available in the Resources section below.
Objectives
The TG’s objectives were to:
- Share experiences on the design and implementation of green strategies, including how various elements of the green architecture have been utilised to meet the specific environmental and climate needs;
- Explore the relative merits of the approaches taken (focusing on specific examples), including the difficulties and challenges faced;
- Focusing on specific examples, explore issues relating to implementation and how the different elements of the green architecture work together in practice;
- Develop ideas and recommendations for further improving green strategies in terms of the interventions used, their design and funding.
Activities
The first TG meeting (11 April 2024, online) provided an exchange of experiences on how the different elements of the green architecture were used across Member States and explored positive experiences and challenges of the design and interaction of these. In the second TG meeting (04 June 2024, Brussels) recommendations about how the ambition of green strategies could be improved were developed.
In addition, two informal discussions further enriched the group’s work and focused respectively on simplification and enhanced environmental ambition, and innovative approaches and fostering innovation.
The outcomes of the TG meetings are highlighted in the event reports available below.
Key findings
TG members co-constructed ideas to improve the functioning of the green architecture and produced a factsheet summarising in detail issues identified, lessons learnt and recommendations on the way forward for the design and implementation of CSP green strategies. The factsheet is complemented by findings of an analytical work conducted in parallel to the TG on the use of green architecture interventions in eight selected Member States.
The recommendations can act as a useful springboard for ensuring that the CAP can create a green architecture that is more efficient, effective, and easier for farmers to engage with, ultimately leading to better environmental and climate outcomes. Key points of the recommendations include:
- Simplify the CAP structure or better integrate eco-schemes with ENVCLIM, making scheme design more flexible and easier for farmers to understand and participate.
- Ensure a stable CAP framework that allows sufficient time for rules to be finalised and time to enable the development, launch and implementation of schemes. Ensuring sufficient time for results to become evident will also be key.
- There should be greater use of the full suite of green architecture interventions (incl. supporting measure) and the interactions and synergies between them should be improved.
- Increase the flexibility for Member States to adjust target values for indicators or between the budget allocated to the two CAP funds if uptake for particular interventions are different to what was anticipated, as long as priority needs are addressed and related outcomes achieved.
- Reinforce advisory services based on regional action plans to guide farmers and advisors.
- Improve communication between all actors, including on the environmental benefits and need for action for the long-term viability of farms to improve uptake and acceptance.
- Transform payments to ensure they genuinely provide an incentive to deliver environmental and climate outcomes.
- Make greater use of result-based schemes allowing farmers to choose the practices suitable for their respective situation to (better) deliver the outcomes required (including at a landscape scale).
- MAs need to find a balance between environmental ambition and potential uptake.
- Explore potential of a 'Menu Approach' with payments for basic practices and top-ups for more advanced ones.
- Piloting interventions in the field helps to identify what works well before mainstreaming them into CAP interventions. Different programmes, such as EIP-AGRI Operational Groups, LIFE or LEADER can be used for this.
- Explore the potential use of other funding sources (e.g. private / blended finance). Attention must be paid to avoiding illegitimate double funding.
Learn more
Scroll down this page to find all the outputs of this Thematic Group and relevant resources related to this topic.
You can find other useful resources about this theme in our Publications section and in our Good Practice database.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at implementation@eucapnetwork.eu.
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Resources
Documents
Background Paper - TG on Green Architecture: Designing Green Strategies
(PDF – 714.62 KB)
List of Members - TG on Green Architecture: Designing Green Strategies
(PDF – 591.5 KB)
