An innovative and open learning resource for professionals of the furniture industry to expand their knowledge and provide added value for the Green Public Procurement Erasmus Project

Project Title

An innovative and open learning resource for professionals of the furniture industry to expand their knowledge and provide added value for the Green Public Procurement

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 2016

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The Roadmap to a Resource-Efficient Europe outlines the significant impact of manufacturing goods on natural resources, energy, the environment and climate change. In this way, significant improvements in furniture manufacturing processes and materials have the potential to contribute to a competitive furniture sector and related industries, as well as to their sustainability and energy efficiency. Thus, the Commission set in its “7th Environment Action Programme” that by 2020 50% of all public tendering procedures should endorse common core EU Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria. For that purpose, it has already been established a set of GPP criteria for different aspects of the furniture, such as production, use and waste.

The GPP-Furniture project established an innovative partnership in four European countries (Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Spain) formed by six partners: clusters, chambers and professional associations with a strong relation with the furniture and the procurement administrative bodies; Universities specialized on wood technology, design furniture and public procurement legislation; and a SME specialized in IT learning solutions.

GPP-Furniture project had for objective to design and develop an e-learning training course to cover the skill and knowledge needs on green public procurement for current and future managers and workers of the furniture industry and habitat sector.

To achieve this objective the partnership has carried out the following activities:

– Analysis to identify the needs on the furniture sector related with public procurement and green public procurement. For this task it was done a survey to 65 respondents from the different consortium countries. As a final result, a report with survey results and main conclusions was launched.

– Definition of the GPP-Furniture Joint Curriculum. Starting from the results of the previous survey, firstly it was defined the specific learning outcomes that the GPP-Furniture has to cover. Secondly, all learning outcomes were grouped into different units and modules. Finally, the different units and modules were weighted in accordance to the ECVET points, in order to facilitate future workers mobility and training course recognition. Three reports were drafted during the development of this task.

– Study of the training methodology to be implemented in the GPP-Furniture course, taking into account the final audience or target group, and the distance learning methodology. During this activity it was decided the specifications of the training course, such as the duration of the course, the certifying assessment, distribution of the work among partners, etc. As result of this task a final report was drafted.

– Development of all training materials: videos, slides, scripts, quizzes, additional materials, etc. that constitute the core of the training course. Training materials have been developed in English and the different Consortium languages (Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish, and Romanian).

– Development on a e-learning platform for the GPP-Furniture training course. The platform is open to all interested students and is the main contact point between Consortium partners and learners.

– Realization of a pilot test with a group of students to know their comments and suggestions about training materials and training platform in order to detect possible improvements and mistakes. As a result of this task a report has been drafted.

– Development of a joint curriculum with the integration of different learning modes (distance, face to face, etc) and innovative approaches.

Apart of these activities, consortium partners have been carried out an intensive dissemination activity on the different project steps and achievements, besides of different multiplier events that all partners have organized.

GPP-Furniture has demonstrated a great impact. It has been performed the Impact+ Exercise developed by the UK National Agency that demonstrate the wide number of benefits in short, medium and large scale for the partners´ organizations, staff involved in the project, learners and general system or society.

Thanks to GPP-Furniture project European furniture SMEs has a new tool to foster modernization and knowledge expansion aligned to the needs and opportunities offered by the increasing number of “green” tenders by the public administration.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 230735 Eur

Project Coordinator

AGRUPACION EMPRESARIAL INNOVADORA DE FABRICANTES DE MUEBLES Y AFINES DE LA REGION DE MURCIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Globalnet sp. z o.o.
• ASOCIATIA PRODUCATORILOR DE MOBILA DIN ROMANIA
• SDRUZHENIE BULGARSKA TARGOVSKO-PROMISHLENA PALATA
• UNIWERSYTET PRZYRODNICZY W POZNANIU*
• UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA