Between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic: GreenSET is advancing sustainable tourism innovation 

Heraklion, May 2026 — The nine partners of the GreenSET project met in Heraklion, Crete on 20–21 May 2026 for the third Steering Committee Meeting, reviewing progress and next steps following the first round of pilot activities. 

After completing the first round of piloting with nearly 30 tourism SMEs across nine partner regions, partners came together to build on the results. The pilots demonstrated a wide range of applications: a perfume experience inspired by the identity of Nicosia, a slow-travel pilgrimage route along the Croatian Camino, a Cretan distillery transforming its by-products into jams and fertilisers — illustrating the diversity of sustainable tourism innovation across the Mediterranean. Other pilot projects included a walking tour in Venice inspired by the concept of flânerie, an eco-tourism experience at Skadar Lake, a family-oriented sustainable resort concept, a zero-waste retail experience in the Algarve where visitors measured their waste footprint, a distributed heritage accommodation model in Kruja, and a circular economy training experience for tourism businesses in France. 

The methodology is currently being refined based on partner and participant feedback, and a second piloting round is underway. This time, GreenSET will train Business Support Organisations across the region to carry MEDSSIM forward — expanding its reach beyond the project partnership and embedding sustainable service innovation into the Mediterranean tourism support systems. 

The next project milestone will be the next Steering Committee Meeting, scheduled for November 2026 in Faro, Portugal, followed by the final conference planned in Valencia in 2027. These events support the development of the transfer strategies and expert certification schemes that ensure the sustainability of the project results. 

The GreenSET project is co-funded by the Interreg Euro-MED Programme 2021–2027 and the European Regional Development Fund. 

The consortium brings together nine partners from across the Euro-MED region: STEP RI Science and Technology Park of the University of Rijeka (Croatia, Lead Partner), R2M Solution (France), SINLOC (Italy), CEEI Valencia (Spain), FORTH/Science and Technology Park of Crete – STEP-C (Greece), Nicosia Tourism Board (Cyprus), Tertulia Algarvia (Portugal), RDA Tirana (Albania), and BSC Bar (Montenegro).