Happy holidays from CINEA's Communication team and all the best for 2023! We’ll be back on Friday 13 January 2023.

The EMAS team, including the CINEA Green Team, decided to organise a reuse/repair/upcycle collection campaign during the Christmas period in collaboration with the social organisations CYCLUP and Cyréo. If you want to join the campaign, bring your damaged clothes, textiles and electrical appliances and deposit them in one of the boxes in the W910 extension cafeteria by 14 February.

In our series of short interviews - ‘Meet your colleagues’, this week we met Matjaz Kacic from Department A. Let us know if you would like to be next!

On 13 December the Commission decided to appoint Paloma Aba Garrote as acting Director CINEA from 1 January 2023 until the arrival of the new Director in the course of the year. Paloma will also keep leading Department A. We take this opportunity to wish a happy retirement to Dirk who starts a new chapter in his life!

If you have a new or used device lying around the house, give it a new life in the hands of a Ukrainian nurse, teacher or student. Your donation could support a hospital to provide essential care, help children to continue their education, or assist a local government to deliver vital services.

The Aquaculture Assistance Mechanism has just reached a milestone with the publication of its website. An Aquaculture Technical Seminar was also organised on 13-14 December gathering representatives from the EC and EU Member States. The Assistance Mechanism was established in July 2022 to support the Commission in the implementation of the Strategic guidelines on EU aquaculture.

Christmas is usually associated with increased food consumption and, as a consequence, huge quantities of unwanted, but still in-date and edible food going to waste each year. Big savings could be made by thinking carefully about only buying the quantity of food that you and your family actually need. If you are still having leftovers over Christmas despite careful planning - read the Green team’s tips to find some inspiration.

The newly built and #CEFTransport supported Wendlingen–Ulm line in Germany was inaugurated on Friday 9 December. The line covers a distance of 60 km, of which 30 km run through new tunnels. It is located on the Rhine-Danube TEN-T Core Network Corridor and overcomes an existing bottleneck.

On Thursday 8 December, ArcelorMittal inaugurated its flagship carbon capture and utilisation project, which includes the development and testing of a technology that allows for the capture and reuse of a portion of carbon emitted by the steel industry. The event was attended by over 200 people, including the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, the Vice-President of the European Investment Bank Kris Peeters and Director Beckers.

Every year the Commission honours staff who have completed 20 years of service with a medal and a certificate in recognition of their contribution. Among them were CINEA's Estelle Coornaert, Fabio Leone, Julie Parry, Marie-Christine Haube, Nadia Chellafa, Nathalie Brunner, Paloma Aba Garrote, Sylvie Zachariadis, Vanessa Marinof and Vincent Favrel. Congratulations to all of them!

The European Sustainable Energy Week will take place from 20 to 22 June 2023 in a hybrid format. Don't go on your winter break before sharing with your networks how to play an active role in the conference: call to organise a policy session (deadline 1 February), call to run in the EUSEW Awards competition (deadline: 9 February) and call to have a stand at the Energy Fair (deadline 2 March).

Today is the last day to visit the exhibition hosted in room W910 00/41. The exhibition shows some of the most innovative, inspirational and successful LIFE projects to date. This travelling exhibition has been ongoing since September 2022 and consists of 30 pictures. Check out the photos from the exhibition vernissage at CINEA.

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CINEA has received the Best EMAS rated Award in the summer's Paperless Photo Competition, whose award ceremony took place on 30 November. Marisa Sanchez's entry (a document including a QR code to replace publications in events) was one of the winners in the 10 categories of the competition.

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We're nearing the end of 2022, but our 30th anniversary will forever be remembered. From all corners of Europe, we've received countless pictures, videos, and birthday messages. Discover how the LIFE community celebrated this very special year!

Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilița, jointly signed an agreement that will support the country in its green transition and to fight the climate crisis.

The fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15) will be the biggest biodiversity conference in a decade. Discover how the LIFE programme's work is allowing nature and biodiversity to thrive in Europe!

LIFE to alvars worked with local farmers to restore 2 500 hectares of alvar grassland in Estonia.

The team behind LIFE CLIMARK in Catalonia, Spain, has found a potential solution to help manage forests sustainably.