Introduction

Methodology of PHAROS guidelines have been experimented on 10 facilities, many heterogeneous on what concerns company and organization (in the various phases of planning/activity start-up/operations), size, territory, and on 7 Cities, 6 of which belonging to a homogeneous territory.

Objectives and target audience

The project was developed with the following specific objectives:-

• Integrate, in a context of Mediterranean coastal governance, the environmental policies of tourism facilities with City environmental management policies;
• Define and experiment innovative techniques for high-quality environmental management in golf courses and marinas;
• Experiment the adoption of EMAS II Environmental Management Systems at golf courses and marinas;
• Define guidelines for the adoption of Environmental Management Systems and for the development of sustainability policies in facilities both during operations and planning stages;
• Strengthen regional planning and programming with reference documents thanks to information related to experimentation already underway.

Financial Resources and Partners involved

The total eligible budget of  life04/EN/IT/000437 PHAROS amounted at € 1.444.986,00. 50% of which (€ 722.493,00) was financed by the EU.  The Beneficiaries of the project were Regione Liguria and Regione Piemonte.  The partners involved were: University of Genoa – DIPTERIS; University of Turin – Centre Agrinnova; ARPAL (Environment Agency of Liguria), SIGE srl (a SME) with the following Municipalities: Arenzano, Cogoleto, Varazze, Celle Ligure, Albisola  Superiore; Albisola Marina, Garlenda.  Furthermore the project involved six Golf and sporting clubs, and four Marinas.

Process

The methodology implemented consists of using environmental certification to:-

1. Raise territory environmental quality, by lowering environmental impact from marinas (quality of water, waste management, energy savings), and golf courses (management of greens, water and energy savings, waste management and protection of biodiversity). To achieve these objectives more easily to determine best practices for operators of marinas and golf courses.
2. Develop governance between tourism facilities and Local Bodies, in order to build a new model for sustainable territory development based on regional and local features.  The method consists of two phases:

Integration of City EMS.  The six Cities on the Riviera del Beigua, all ISO 14001 certified or EMAS registered, have developed workshops between experts and politicians to define a local sustainability plan to improve the environment on a territorial level.  Indeed, environmental issues should be solved on a territorial level, which is often not marked by city borders.

Results

• Guidelines for operators of marinas and golf courses towards environmental certification
• Facilities that developed environmental management systems and best practices to obtain ISO 14001 and the latter two facilities that are awaiting the EMAS II quality mark from for Ecolabel and Ecoaudit.
• Agreements for territory environmental management between Cities and Golf Club and Cities and marinas and lastly between the City and Marina of Varazze (signing of three memoranda).
• Spread of best practices for environmental management for facilities operators, facility users, Local Bodies, research institutes and residents through: international and local conferences, workshops and  open groups, happening, events, information points, interviews with a questionnaire, environmental education, brochures,  Web site, promotional video and a final publication (8000 copies).
• Creation of 8 new jobs for collaborators that worked on the PHAROS project at Regione Liguria, 7 Cities and SIGE srl and are currently still employed even if the project has ended.

Critical Success Factors / Challenges

The key issue was the contextual Integration of City EMS with those of tourism facilities.  A memorandum of understanding drafted which includes a comparison between facilities and Cities currently reviewing their Environmental Management System, to determine common environmental improvement objectives to start up shared action plans.  This enables Cities and facilities to achieve results with ease and optimise resources.  A critical factor – and the main challenge was great number of partners and their different locations in the Liguria territory.  Methodology resulting from the project may be transferred: 1) to several territorial realities on national and European levels, in particular for countries along the Mediterranean coast; 2) – On an administration level insert recognition in the new EMAS II to Local Systems; 3) over time, thanks to determining and applying flexible, dynamic and updatable methods, which can be brought into line with future standards and plans.