European Sustainability Council (ESC) Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Sustainability Council (ESC)

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

Sustainable Consumership – Guidelines for consumers and producers with the help of labels.

The immeasurable range of products is a everyday challenge for every consumer, which is often mainly influenced through the amount of money one has to pay for a product. Most of the consumed products in Europe are still neither produced sustainable nor traded fairly. Although there is a positive development, the percentage of goods produced sustainable lies at about 4% (Sustainable shopping cart, www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de).

A stricter focus on sustainability is one of the three priorities of Europe 2020 (cf. European Commission, http://ecuropa.eu/europe2020).

Within Europe, Sweden is a role model in terms of Sustainability (vgl. Ranking of states by ESG-Criteria, imug Consulting Agency).
With its exports and world-renowned products, Germany is a trading partner that, from its position, should also be a pioneer in climate protection and sustainability.

Objectives of your project:
Goal of the project was the education on the one hand to responsible and mature consumers, which know about their influences on the market by their decisions and are able to judge the choices they make and on the other hand to future entrepreneurs, which should consider aspects of sustainability and fair trade within their decisions.

Number and profile of participants:
About 120 students at the age of about 16 to 18 and 4 to 8 teachers have participated directly in the project. 20 students from each school in every year of the project lifetime were involved. The age of the students was significant for the success of the project, because in that age students start with an specific vocational choice.

Description of activities:
There were two project meetings every year during the lifetime of the project in advance of the short-term exchange activities. In every year there was one short-term exchange in Sweden and one in Germany, except for the last year. Due to Covid 19 retrictions there was only one mobility. Concerning the methodology, every short-term exchange followed different aims.

Methodology used to carr out the project:
After a prepatory phase, the actual project work began with a project meeting to determine the milestones at hand and to set everything up for the first short-term exchange of pupils.
During the implementation, there were three levels that were dealt with, one level a year.
In the first phase, the students learned about the basics of production processes in selected examples, in order to get a sense of how complex the relationships and effects of the production of consumer goods are and to work out the criteria that can be applied to sustainable production and fair trade.
In the second phase the Swedish students went to work on a product that they were willing to bring to the market, while the German students tried to develop a proper label. This was done in accordance to each other.
The third phase was the evaluation. They were looking for an answer to the question in what amount the work of the producers and the wishes of the costumers can be to conciliated by the use of labels and in what extent this had worked out for their products and labels. Additionally there should have been an intense dissemination period during the third year of the project. As mentioned above, the Covid 19 restrictions made this output smaller than planned.
The last level was a teacher evaluation of the project work.

Short description of the results and impact envisaged:
It made students sensible for the responsibility of every individual as a consumer and the particular responsibility of entrepreneurs and educated the students to become critical and reflected participants in the market.

Additionally they:
– Improved their language and presentation skills
– Established international relations
– Understood other cultural backgrounds
– Improved teamwork and project-oriented work

The school communities with about 1500 students and about 130 teachers combined, did and still do benefit indirectly from the project and there was and will be an additional impact on associated parents and partners to the schools. But the desired impact still goes further, because the project wants to have an effect on future consumers and producers.

The potential longer term benefits:
It will also have a delayed effect on all the participants and people that in some reason are effected by the project. By making possible consumers aware of their influence on the market and producers sensible of the responsibility they have.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 62645 Eur

Project Coordinator

Clemens-August-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Calmare Internationella Skola