Green Innovation Vouchers putting down roots in Serbia

The Green Innovation Vouchers initiative marked its first anniversary with a ceremony in Belgrade today, awarding eight new local companies with a total of EUR 135,000 for green investments.

In its first year the scheme has supported 29 projects with vouchers worth a combined EUR 435,000. The successful projects come from sectors such as precision agriculture, energy and materials efficiency, waste management, renewables and eco-friendly products.

The Green Voucher Scheme was introduced a year ago in Serbia to promote green technologies and resource efficiency as core elements of the country’s transition to the green economy. The EBRD-led initiative is funded by Austria’s DRIVE (Delivering Resource Efficiency Investments) Programme and supported by Italy through the Central European Initiative (CEI).

The ceremony was attended by Viktor Nedović, State Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development; Filip Abramović, Assistant Minister for Waste Management; Katarina Obradović Jovanović, Assistant Minister for SMEs; and Zsuzsanna Hargitai, EBRD Director for the Western Balkans.

The EBRD has moved into a new phase of the scheme which will target projects with larger resource-efficiency impact, and increased the value of the vouchers up to EUR 50,000. A new call for applications for mega vouchers is open from 29 November 2018. SMEs and R&D service providers can apply through the web page http://inovacionivauceri.ebrd.rs.

This year, the vouchers were awarded to Desing d.o.o. Beograd, Grafostil d.o.o. Kragujevac, Green Day d.o.o. Beograd, NIP INOX d.o.o. Donja Mutnica, SABA BELČA d.o.o. Preševo, Stevanović trafo d.o.o. Niš, TRACO d.o.o. Beograd and Zlatibor Gradnja-Kop d.o.o. Užice