Building a European Zero Waste Academy Erasmus Project

Project Title

Building a European Zero Waste Academy

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Energy and resources; Environment and climate change; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Europe is transitioning from a linear to a circular model of resource management and the implementation of this change is taking place at the local level. These developments will require local authorities to accelerate and change gears in the coming years so that prevention and reuse policies are designed and implemented effectively, whilst the separate collection of high quality recyclable materials becomes the norm. A lot has to be done on the management level in local authorities; however, we have to admit that a need to educate municipalities is vastly underestimated. Thus, training in a network-type ‘academy’ would be most valuable for Member States.

Our overall aim is to create a European Zero Waste Academy with two main objectives:
– To create a strong curricula for advancing the zero waste cities movement in Europe
– To kick-start a European network of zero waste trainers to implement this framework in their local communities and increase the scale and impact of our work

We aim to reach these objectives by creating four intellectual outputs:
1) Training format for Zero Waste Ambassadors
2) Training format for Zero Waste Trainers
3) Zero Waste Training Toolkit
4) Zero Waste Ambassador and Trainer Diplomas

Additionally three learning, training and teaching activities will be organised, which will pilot and test the training formats. They will use blended forms of mobility, including both online working sessions as well as physical meetings and group work. Finally, three multiplier events will be organised in each participating country, to introduce and disseminate the results of the project on local, national and international level.

There are several target groups and participants of the project:
The first most direct target group are the people directly involved in all parts of this project, most of them being experts in waste management or education or both.
The second and the most important target group are the local zero waste ambassadors, both connected to the participating organisations and those in the networks of these organisations (mainly Zero Waste Europe network). As with the planned training formats, we see two sub-target groups in here:
– Starting zero waste ambassadors, who are still in the beginning of their advocacy work and need more support and skills to become more effective.
– Experienced zero waste ambassadors, who already have enough knowledge and experience working in zero waste, but who lack the skills to be efficient multipliers and trainers.
The participants of the multiplier events will be local zero waste activists and municipalities, decision makers in EU level, practitioners and experts in adult education for sustainable development.
Overall there will be 20 people from the partner organisations taking part of the different activities of the project. We will seek additional funding to open the two learning, training and teaching activities to about 25 additional participants from other zero waste organisations. The multiplier events are estimated to have around 175 participants altogether.

Besides creating the intellectual outputs, we aim to have by the end of the project:
– At least 10 zero waste trainers trained and ready to put the materials created in the project into practice
– At least 7 local workshops/training events ran by these trainers in their community and the trainers gaining the Zero Waste Trainer Diploma
– At least 15 zero waste ambassadors trained to be local leaders and support the implementation of effective zero waste policies within communities in their home country
– At least 9 local workshops/consultations/activities organised by these ambassadors with relevant stakeholder in their community and the ambassadors gaining the Zero Waste Ambassador Diploma
– A vibrant and well-resourced Zero Waste Academy section on Zero Waste Europe’s website is being actively used – at least 500 downloads of the toolkit and other project materials
– At least one follow-up project planned involving two or more of the participating organisations in this project
– All the partnering organisations are using some elements (new methods, skills, knowledge, materials) from the learning, teaching, training activities and/or intellectual outputs in their future work

The direct impact we expect to see from this is an increase in the number of zero waste policies and strategies implemented by European municipalities, which in turn would lead to a drop in waste generation, increase in recycling, more sustainable resource usage and lower GhG emissions from waste management.Nationally, we expect governments to follow suit of these pioneering municipalities to adopt ambitious zero waste policies. On the global level, he European Zero Waste Academy could also provide a good example and set a precedent for other continents to create their own versions of it.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 255212 Eur

Project Coordinator

Let’s Do It Foundation & Country: EE

Project Partners

• EESTI MAAULIKOOL
• TALLINN UNIVERSITY
• DRUSTVO EKOLOGI BREZ MEJA
• ZERO WASTE EUROPE