Launch of the Villes et villages sobres en eau label
The State, the Association des maires, the Banque des Territoires and Verdeo are launching the departmental label.
The State, the Association des maires, the Banque des Territoires and Verdeo are launching the departmental label.
The Pyrénées-Orientales have seen repeated droughts in recent years, and climate forecasts confirm that these episodes will continue. Faced with a situation that leaves the resource fragile, the préfecture, the Association des maires, des adjoints et de l'intercommunalité, the Banque des Territoires and Verdeo are launching a new scheme: the Villes et villages sobres en eau label (water-efficient towns and villages).
The label pursues three objectives. To celebrate, by identifying and making known the municipalities in the department that are taking action. To recognise the water efficiency efforts already made. To encourage local authorities to scale up their action for sustainable water management.
The Banque des Territoires, for its part, is mobilising engineering funding for municipalities that hold the label or are applying for it, funding suited to supporting their investments, and privileged access to the Aquagir platform for sharing expertise and good practice between territories.
Verdeo provides the tools for the campaign from end to end. The application form is built on the label's framework and open to every municipality in the department, with weighted scoring and centralised analysis of the responses.
Each applicant municipality then has its own access: monitoring of its action plans, collection of documents and field data, read-only sharing with the partners of the plan, generation of summary reports for its local committees.
The scheme does not stop at drinking water. It covers roads, social services, education and safety, because a water efficiency policy is also played out in public buildings and green spaces.
Applications were open from 19 May to 19 June on the websites of the préfecture and the Association des maires.
The tools are made available to municipalities that want to report on their action, manage their funding allocations, or involve their departments. No entry cost, nothing to install.