History of CIR

Centre for Innovation and Development is a non-governmental non-profit civic association (until December 31, 2004 it held the name of Czech Cleaner Production Centre - CPC). 
Our organisation was established in 1995 within the framework of a Czech-Norwegian project financed by the Norwegian government. 
In its first years of existence the CPC focused on realisation of demonstration cleaner production projects, environmental trainings, providing support to environmental policy making, creating financial mechanisms for financing larger investments within the cleaner production projects, and last but not least, disseminating information about cleaner production and prevention.

During the years 1995-1999 more than 150 demonstration cleaner production projects were realised in different industrial sectors. These projects focused on non-investment measures and became a tool for improving environmental profile of companies.

The CPC activities were financed partly by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation) and partly by one-off grants from other countries, e.g. Denmark, the Netherlands, Japan, Great Britain and Canada.   
 
After the termination of this financial support in 1999, the CPC started to work under a new financing scheme - realisation of projects proposed by national and European institutions in a form of tenders and grants.
These projects dealt primarily with the following topics:
- system changes in management of companies - e.g. integrating EMS and CP
- methodology of implementing preventive measures within material and energy flows with the objective of contributing to sustainable development 
- integrating economic and environmental criteria when evaluating activities of companies
- environmental policy instruments
- building capacities for cleaner production in industrial companies in the CR and abroad (official development assistance projects)
- prevention in waste management
- creating tools and legal support for prevention strategies

In the years 2000 to 2004 the CPC established reputation of an internationally acknowledged organisation and carried out more than 50 projects for both domestic and international stakeholders. For more information about our past activites see Projects.