Boosting Environmental and Social Topics – by strengthening employees and creating methods of participation in environmental and social change within the company Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boosting Environmental and Social Topics – by strengthening employees and creating methods of participation in environmental and social change within the company

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social entrepreneurship / social innovation; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In companies, from large corporations to SMEs, there is a great need for renewal, orientation and commitment to social, societal and ecological change with all its implications. This became very clear to the project partners in various activities and contexts around the topics of corporate social responsibility, sustainability and digital transformation.
The demand from civil society and politics for companies to adapt their strategies and concrete actions to the values of democracy and participation, but also to the goals of climate protection, is exerting increasing pressure. There is a growing need to develop the social design of economic cooperation in the course of the changes in our living and working environments.
The context of this project can be embedded in the concept of the VUCA world. For Prof. Dr. Michael Schmidt, graduate pedagogue and Dr. phil. professor for social economy and social management at the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, the modern, increasingly digitalised VUCA world is about thinking ahead in the future and strengthening cooperation in companies with contemporary solutions.
Powerful strategies, agile processes with practicable tools and trained actors are therefore necessary to deal with this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. Dr. Schmidt answers the challenges of Industry 4.0 with the urgent interaction of people, organizations and industry. He calls this Social Innovation 4.0 because “for all the meaningfulness of science, theories, methods and strategies, in the end, people always follow people.
This is where our partners come in. With the basic principle of putting people at the centre, they develop an implementation concept for social-ecological innovation, which is based on the qualification and participation of the actual capital of companies, the employees. In doing so, they will take into account that all energies are created or have to be reflected in the grassroots effect if the many-shoulder principle is to work for the growth and well-being of all.

For big changes, many must tackle and act concretely. Every single person is needed. However, people will only change their behaviour in the long term if they experience self-efficacy. This means that everyone must be able to share insights, develop effects, receive resonance and perceive change.

To make this possible, a qualification course for the European Social Impact Mananger (ESIM) (IO1) is being developed. The course is aimed both at multipliers and – in an adapted form – at all employees of corporations and SMEs. The new ESIM are able to give internal impulses within the companies and to sensitize colleagues to the topic. At the same time, ESIM are also scouts who recognise potential, consciously promote it and make it available for the transformation processes of individuals, workforces and companies. The feeling of appreciation, meaning and sustainability radiates from inside to outside and from bottom to top.

The project partners are addressing the desire for orientation by developing an Orientation Compass (IO2) for sustainable action within the company dedicated to Employee and ESIM. It is intended as a matrix over fixed periods of time to provide an overview of the use of theoretical and practical materials and tools, to locate and keep track of one’s own objectives. Time and chronological processes are facilitated and helpful impulses are provided, especially in the initial phase.
Dependencies, connections and consequences are shown and linked to best practice experiences from the ESIM community in the online Experience Billboard (IO4). The compass is part of a so-called toolbox, which optimally uses resources and collective experience.
In order to confirm the self-efficacy experience on a personal level and to meet one’s own demand for sustainable impact, a catalogue of measurement indicators for resonance and impact (IO3) will be developed. From regular employee surveys to the automated evaluation of user data (for example in the dashboard of the online Experience Billboard IO4), analogue and digital applications are available here, which are used in their interaction of qualitative and quantitative indicators for a continuous improvement of social impact.
Crucial for the participatory approach of the consortium as well as for the concrete impact on the European level and into the companies is the visualisation of the social-ecological innovation and impact. This is where the Online Experience Billboard (IO4) comes in. It is a common digital web platform that brings together the activities and successes of all ESIM.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 299920 Eur

Project Coordinator

STARKMACHER EV & Country: DE

Project Partners

• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
• Associação AMU – Ações para um Mundo Unido
• Associazione Italiana Imprenditori Per un’Economia di Comunione