Romanian-Norwegian cooperation for improvement of Romanian SME’s environmental performance

A special program of the Norwegian Government, namely INNOVATION NORWAY, tries to transfer know-how and create cooperation and partnerships in various domains (social assistance, resource valuation, environmental protection, industrial competence, etc.). The paper details the results obtained in a specific project dedicated to Environmental Solutions Development (ESD). The Project joined SINTEF-Trondheim, INCD-ECOIND Bucharest and four SME from around Romania: ProAirClean – Timisoara, RITMIC – Suceava, DIREX-Bucharest, PRODINCOM – Suceava. The Project included support of the four partners to acquire state of the art equipment needed in their activities. ProAirClean Timisoara acquired a GC-MS system enabling monitoring of PCBs, DIREX-Bucharest bought a state-of-the-art car painting workshop together with other smaller equipment (lifting, oil-extracting, wheel removal), RITMIC-Suceava bought a greiffer for collecting wooden waste from remote forested areas, a splitter for large wooden logs, a press for plastic waste and a station for domestic waste sorting in view of recycling, PRODINCOM acquired a state of art heat recovery incinerator for animal waste. SINTEF and INCD-ECOIND provided assistance to all SME partners: help in identifying and deciding upon the correct equipment needed chemical analysis of water, ash generated, material and energy balance derivations, economic, social and environmental benefits assessment, etc. INCD-ECOIND and SINTEF assisted the partners in aligning their strategies to the sustainability paradigm and recommended future actions to keep the momentum.