SEEDS: Substance of circular Economy concept as Efficacious Determinant for the development of Successful entrepreneurship Erasmus Project

Project Title

SEEDS: Substance of circular Economy concept as Efficacious Determinant for the development of Successful entrepreneurship

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Environment and climate change

Project Summary

The circular economy is an enormous challenge for developing and emerging countries, in terms of capabilities to ensure efficient treatment of waste, the responsibility over social behaviours. Moreover, what can be observed across the EU, is the struggle of municipals over waste management, which is no longer the management of municipal waste, but industrial waste. The responsibility over this lies on the entrepreneurs themselves, which in most cases is the result of their unawareness on how to tackle the problem. The question is how to foster symbiosis and cooperation between municipalities and entrepreneurs to include their waste into those closed streams represented by the circular economy. Thus, circular economy has become a topic that cannot be ignored, but has been dictated. The circular economy will boost the European Union competitiveness by protecting businesses against scarcity of resources and volatile prices, helping to create new business opportunities and innovative, more efficient ways of producing and consuming (EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy). It will create local jobs at all skills levels and opportunities for social integration and cohesion. At the same time, it will save energy and help avoid the irreversible damages caused by using up resources at a rate that exceeds the Earth’s capacity to renew them in terms of climate and biodiversity, air, soil and water pollution. Member Countries should introduce measures to promote the prevention and reduction of food waste. They should seek to achieve an indicative Union-wide target for reducing food waste by 30% by 2025 and by 50% by 2030 (According to EU Directive 2018/851 of 30 May 2018 [15]).

Despite the growing importance of circular economy, the concept is not clear to everybody and not implemented at the level of countries. Taking for example the figures of waste generation per capita by country, the following appear: ES = 444kg, PL = 307kg, IT = 498kg, AT = 460kg, NL = 520kg, RO = 442kg. As much as the European Commission is striving towards a circular economy, the consciousness of the society on the topic is still at low. Not all realize that consumptionism and waste management impact what is having on the planet. Circular economy provides the solution for re-thinking processes and building a more environmentally friendly approach by individuals to follow. The idea behind circular economy actually goes back in time, with philosophical origins of several major schools of thought, among others the industrial ecology of Reid Lifset and Thomas Graedel, or the blue economy systems approach described by Gunter Pauli; moreover including mechanisms of unpredictable nature of the world, However, nowadays humans have more control over the impact of the activities they are involved in by taking wise decisions. This is supported also by technology development and noticeable steps of the European Commission towards a healthier and more economically safe planet. The areas of climate change, renewable energy or biodiversity are some other areas of key dominance addressed in the European Green Deal.

In view of the above, the project aim is to strengthen professional development of start-uppers, young entrepreneurs and VET trainers through adoption or improving knowledge and skills in the field of implication Circular Economy to modern Entrepreneurship reality. This aim will be achieved through development of the following results:
IO1 – SEEDS m-learning solution for startuppers consisting of six modules
IO2 – SEEDS Recognition and validation OER

Target groups: start-uppers, young entrepreneurs, VET trainers

The impact will affect participants, participating organizations, target groups and other relevant stakeholders – all actors targeted in the project. Taking into consideration all the mentioned actors at once, SEEDS will increase multi-cultural exchange, recognition of social aspects in partners countries, and facilitate mutual integration and opinions exchange, not only related to circular economy in VET, also in respect to the social sphere.

Project Website

https://seeds.erasmus.site/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 266297 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI & Country: ES

Project Partners

• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH
• LABC S.R.L.
• STOWARZYSZENIE CENTRUM WSPIERANIA EDUKACJI I PRZEDSIEBIORCZOSCI
• SC Ludor Engineering SRL
• QUARTER MEDIATION