Growing Green: Fostering green entrepreneurial mindsets based on the circular economy and green capital concepts in VET education

The Growing Green project directly responded to major policies of the European Commission and of the partner countries involved in the field of the green transition, such as the European Green Dea...

The Growing Green project planned to link the concept of circular economy with the need to boost entrepreneurial competences for future employees in Europe. The starting point was to raise awareness about environmental and climate change challenges and circular economy topics among VET teachers and students, by practically reinforcing at the same time their entrepreneurship competences through workplace learning. The plan was to bring education to life through practical experiential learning models, through game-based learning and through sharing experience with real-world entrepreneurs in order to give students hands-on experiences of green entrepreneurship and a clear understanding of what green entrepreneurship means. Specific objectives were to make teachers and students familiar with a new practical green entrepreneurship model by working on real cases in business and industry, to design innovative training materials to foster green entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, to equip VET teachers with skills for mentoring and guiding students towards green and circular entrepreneurial thinking, to encourage close cooperation between VET schools and local businesses to support each other to develop green and circular solutions.

The Growing Green project team implemented a set of tasks for of the four each of the four project results, which included and European teacher training activity, multiplier events in each country and in addition an international digital multiplier event. Management, monitoring and quality assurance activities were carried out throughout, including monthly virtual meetings, special meetings for the development teams, interim and final evaluations and evaluations of the project activities and meetings. There a well-defined sharing and dissemination strategy as well as a sustainability strategy to ensure open access to all materials and a long-time sustainability of all outcomes, which are available on the project’s website. Four main results were produced: The Growing Green Entrepreneur, a manual based on an experiential approach of teaching green entrepreneurship in cooperation with local business, the Growing Green Game with a gameboard, three sets of cards, a card with a green Business Canvas and rules of the game. Pilot activities were carried out and documented in all partner schools and their networks. The third result was a competence framework on green entrepreneurship including a pilot evaluation report, Green Entrepreneur Competence Framework along with Guidelines for the integration of the Growing Green approach and results into existing curriculums or VET courses in Europe. The fourth result was a compendium with green business ideas, pathways, innovative approaches implemented in all partner countries.

Four main results were produced and piloted: - The Growing Green Entrepreneur: A Teacher Manual, which included a collection of background materials related to sustainability and circularity with lesson plans, tools, activities and experiential methodologies. - The Growing Green Game: a board game with knowledge, activity and problem solving cards, a circular business canvas card and rules of the game. Many more cards than planned were produced. The game was combined with Lego® Serious Play® methodologies to ignite the curiosity in the teachers and students and empower them to design bold green and circular businesses- - The Growing Green Framework with tools and instruments to evaluate, assess key results of the pilot and integrate the Growing Green approach into the educational offer of VET schools, based on the EntreComp, DigiComp and GreenComp frameworks and linked to the Green Deal. - The Growing Green Compendium with a collection of prototypes and projects prepared by VET students participating in the pilots in each country. 227 students were involved in piloting activities from October 2023 to April 2024. Twelve teachers were directly involved in the pilots and a total of 51 educators were involved in the Train of Trainers event. More than 10 companies were involved exchanging solutions for greener and circular practices, which are documented in the videos and in the final compendium. All Results were shared on social media, in events attended by the partners and schools and are available for download on the website. There were 321 followers on Instagram and 135 on LinkedIn. Other tangible project outcomes were the teacher training activity in Slovenia, the four transnational partner meetings, the dissemination strategy and activity, a strategy for inclusion, multiplier events in each country and a large-scale final digital conference. The project achieved a major systemic impact, which is the integration of the lesson plans and the game into the daily practice of the the vocational schools involved in Italy, Spain and Denmark.