Activation of youth to circular and zero-waste economy and promotion of European circular youth networks

Background A circular economy is a sustainable economic model in which the usefulness of products and materials is sought to be maintained for as long as possible. The European Commission has drafted a Green Deal in December 2019. The project aimed at promoting and raising the awareness of youth and youth support organizations across EU countries about circular economy fundamentals and zero-waste economy thinking building the circular economy youth networks in project countries. We wanted youth in Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Italy to follow zero-waste philosophy in sorting trash, changing purchasing habits and recycling, reusing and reducing waste. Zero-waste trend is having actually a good ground for building society thinking about circular economy as basis for environmental change.By activation of youth and youth support organizations internationally this project helped to open new thinking paradigm nationally and internationally that would be beneficial to local communities in partner countries. The youth needs were to follow real case studies to learn in practice circular economy cases and exchange experience in this field. Objectives Project aimed to 1) collect project related activities/ materials in each partner country; 2) create framework for zero -waste and circular economy capacity building online course; 3) validate this framework with youth participant from 4 countries; 5) create circular economy & zero waste youth network in partner countries. We wanted to promote understanding of youth in our countries about real circular economy cases, help them to detect circular business models to be able to engage in future greener Europe creation. Implementation To achieve projects aims, partnership did the following tasks: 1. Conducted transnational projects meetings and project management to supervise activities under tasks 1,2, 3, 4, total 3 meetings (1 online KoM due to Covid19 travel restrictions and 2 onsite); 2. Conducted blended mobility of youth to implement T3; 3. Developed national Circular and Zero waste network by establishing the national contact list and mapping national partners to implement T4; 4. Communicated project results in partner countries to disseminate T1, T2, T4 for wider public. Achievements During 12 months’ period we implemented managerial and training activities to deliver: 1) collect project related activities/ materials in each partner country (T1), report in English; 2) create framework for zero -waste and circular economy capacity building online course (T2) and validate this framework with youth participant from 4 countries (T3), framework document in English; 3) create circular economy & zero waste youth network in partner countries (T4), information available in report.