New cohort of sustainable and social entrepreneurs selected in Italy. In total, 11 green business ideas will join the training sessions launched by GIMED in the Southern Mediterranean country. The Fondazione Comunità di Messina, the Italian partner of GIMED, launched a second call for green innovators in the month of February with the goal of attracting a second group of entrepreneurs with sustainable business ideas in the south of Italy. In this sense, the selection for this second call is already done.

Most of the ideas selected come from the region of Sicily. Along the month of April 20 applicants were received in order to start the process for the selection of the second cohort of entrepreneurs. The digital development sector (3), sustainable tourism (3), waste management (1), recycling (1), sustainable housing (1), green food (1) and green and social territorial cluster development (1) are the main subjects behind the 11 projects selected.

The evaluation that has been followed in order to select the entrepreneurs is composed by these main four criteria:

• The social and green value of the idea (maximum 50 points)
• The economic feasibility and viability (maximum 20 points)
• The quality of the team (maximum 20 points)
• The timing of the project (maximum 10 points)

From the 20 applicants received, 11 projects reached the minimum score for participating in the Green&Social Business Model Canvas Training developed with the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC), the Lead Beneficiary of GIMED.

The second group of entrepreneurs will start the training sessions on the 11^th of May 2021 until the end of June. For this second cohort of green innovators, materials from the first training sessions will be adapted and improved. In general terms, trainings will be offered both offline and online, still under COVID-19 constraints and following the recommended restrictions.

At the end of the training in June, half of participants will be chosen to continue their enterprise creation with the coaching sessions scheduled for September 2021. At this stage, both common and individual coaching will be designed to help green entrepreneurs to bring their business ideas into a feasible and sustainable business project which could be presented to potential investors. GIMED is a project funded by the EU under the ENI CBC MED Programme.