GREENday - Youth Entrepreneurship, Environmental Start-Ups

Background Employment in green economy sectors has increased a lot, employing 4.5 mln people. And numbers are rising. Concerning employability, enterprises in Italy employ up to 68% of the active workforce, in Greece over 80%, in Estonia 55%, in Hungary up to 53%, in Denmark up to 64%, according to Eurostat; the mentioned data showed us that there were grounds for initiatives. Youth unemployement in 2018 was decreasing by an average of 5% across all participating countries, meaning that the grounds was fertile to establish enterprises. According to statistics, green economy sector and environment appeared to be the top priority of EU and one of the main concern for teenagers and young. Therefore in this scenario we decided to apply for this project. The needs addressed were and are manifested by young striking for climate, demanding environmental justice, and the concerns that youth in Europe and beyond have and are manifesting about the environment.This project wanted to create a win-win scenario: promoting and sustaining the dedication to the cause, while fostering the creation of green start up enterprises, through an envisaged EU support system, made of community events, capacity building, networking and replication of the initiative. Objectives The objectives we wanted to achieve implementing the project were: 1) To foster attitudes and competences of young people to create their own Green Start-up enterprises, following through their realisation 2) To create a local and international support network around the young people's green business ideas that foster their implementation. 3) To create a pilot project that was easy to budget free create local replications and multiplication of the activities, with usability of the tools we created. 4) To digitalise tools and tailor them around the target group to allow reusability and sustainability of the long term perspectives 5) To provide visibility and disseminate EU opportunities for young people in the field of mobility, employability and entrepreneurship. 6) To foster a new entrepreneurial culture among young people which fosters environmental responsibility and sustainability Implementation The activities implemented were: TRAININGS: 1-Youth Entrepreneurship Competence Development Training 2-Green Startupper - Competences on applying Green and Circular Economy to youth enterprises 3-Marketing and Promotion of youth green startups MULTIPLIER EVENTS: 1)Meeting with the business world 2)International Event held in Tallinn and organized in cooperation between Strauss APS and the organizers of the CLIMATHON 3)Introducing EU opportunities for youth employability and entrepreneurship. 4)Young Entrepreneurs Adoption INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS: 1)Green Entrepreneurship for Youth - user's and trainers manual 2)Green Start-Upping MOOC 3)4P+PR - The Four Musketeers to promote a Green Start-Up 4)Business, Management and Administration tools for Young Green Startuppers 5)Green Startuppers - Business Online Database 6)Participation Brochure and Presentation at the International event TRANSNATIONAL MEETINGS: 1) Kick Off Meeting 2) Coordination meeting 3) Editorial Meeting 4) Closing Meeting Achievements -11 green startups were completed, in terms of business and marketing plans, and since the conclusion of the final activities a minimum of 8 are registered and active -3 international trainings -6 intellectual outputs -4 transnational meetings -13 multiplier events,1 out of 13 was international -5 participants pitched their business start up idea at the international event -Creation of innovative training methodologies -creation of literature, toolkits and handbooks -around 100 young across all involved communities directly reached concerning EU opportunities for mobility, education, employment and entrepreneurship -Around 50000 people reached via social medias -Since its recent launch, the MOOC has already registered about ten subscribers, given the interest rates it is expected to exceed a thousand users in the short term -Outcomes, outputs and results have handed over to the beneficiaries' start-up enterprises -Local and regional public authorities from the partner’s organization are in the process to endorse the initiative -Most of the local community from the partner’s org. across Europe offered cross-sectorial support to the young green entrepreneurs in knowledge and in kind, from the private, public and third sectors.