As the Hungarian focal point of the SaveGREEN project, CEEweb organised the first online local cross-sectoral stakeholder Working Group (WG) meeting on 15 October 2020. The meeting marked the beginning of the project implementation for the Hungarian Associated Strategic Partners (ASPs) and Project Partners (PPs).

The participants included representatives from Szent Istvan University, the National Infrastructure Developing Private Company Limited, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate, all of them aiming towards the joint development of the local cross-sectoral operational plan (CSOP) to be provided as final output.

  
All in all, the discussion covered the following:

The Ministry ensured the involvement of the PPs in the recommendations process for the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Green Infrastructure as a whole is too complex an entity. Thus, to be able to analyse its capitalization possibilities, it should first be split into typical pieces and then start a trial to standardise these pieces — instead of aiming for a broad standardisation in the scheme of ‘one size fits all’. Within this exercise, field experts, landscape architects, and road designers ought to be involved.
(eg.: to approach a standardized cost-benefit analysis based on ecosystem services and their value, e.g., such a system:https://naturalcapital.finance/)

There already exist Hungarian standards related to green infrastructure, some of which were updated last year and extended with some of the suggestions brought forth by the TRANSGREEN project. However, there is a need for further improvement to effectively support the construction-development sector.

Associated Strategic Partners declared their commitment to the project stating they are open to integrating SaveGREEN’s results into their current activities.

The Danube-Ipoly National Park is currently working on nature conservation management plans for its area. The Ministry of Agriculture is working on a Green Infrastructure Mapping project following the NÖSZTÉP project on Mapping ecosystem services — its results will be open to the public and will be critical for the SaveGREEN project. The National Infrastructure Developing Private Company is expecting to receive strong science-based evidence as to why the current standard needs to be changed and, crucially, how this is to be achieved.

The final goal is to provide support for the sectors and to create a package of professional recommendations by the Project Partners, thus spreading the information to the wider public.

The next meeting has been preliminarily scheduled to take place in January 2021.