EMERITUS aims to create a single-entry point platform for law enforcement authorities and border guards to improve investigative proof collection capabilities against environmental waste crimes
AMBITION OF THE EMERITUS PROJECT
Environmental crimes such as the discharge of substances into the air, water and soil as well as the shipping and trafficking of waste and hazardous materials have enormous impacts on the climate, human health and the environment. However, these crimes are still considered highly profitable for criminals since most feature relatively low risks of detection and penalties for the perpetrators, given the complexity of preventing criminal wrongdoings and delivering distinct proofs to law courts to punish the authors.
Aim
EMERITUS aims to lay the foundations of a new generation of technological tools orchestrated via a single-entry point platform at the service of Law Enforcement Authorities (LEA) and Border Guards (BG) to improve detection and proof collection capabilities against waste-related environmental crimes.
To do so, EMERITUS will create and implement a protocol for effective environmental crime investigation, Mainly combining innovative monitoring and analysis technologies with a complementary training programme to foster LEAs and BGs’ intelligence and investigation capabilities at both the national level and cross-border levels.
The ambition of EMERITUS is to explore and demonstrate how these technologies and specialised training could improve the efficiency of environmental crime detection and intelligent risk profiling to optimise resources, reduce the risk for operators and provide a deterrent for offenders.
Methodology
To archieve these goals, the consortium will implement 4 coordinated workstreams each of which will correspond to one or more Work Packages
The workstream will leverage on four selected highly relevant use cases (UCs):
Main results
EMERITUS platform consisting of external system connector, integration layer, data storage, processing component, dissemination layer, system extensions components and real-time mission components.
(Co-created) Protocol for waste-crimes investigation
Training programme for environmental crimes investigation (more than 20 agents to be trained, frontal lessons, tabletop exercises, train-the-trainers).
UCs-bases simulation exercises (approach, results, datasets)
EMERITUS community of practice (stable network)
Evidence-based recommendations for decision makers/policy
