EcoSME

Project Number: 2021-1-IE01-KA220-VET-000025089
Start Date: 2021-11-01
Date of Completion: 2024-05-01
Project type: Erasmus+ KA2
Project sector: VET
Project topic(s): Environment, European Values, Training of Trainers

Erasmus+ KA2

Project description

Hospitality (accommodation and food & beverage businesses, is in a deep crisis as a result of temporary and permanent closures and loss of its customer base linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. Together with tourism, the hospitality sector is the 3rd largest socio-economic activity in the EU. The travellers, tourism businesses and destinations all need to be supported in working towards a sustainable tourism recovery. The future of tourism is green, digital and inclusive. The hospitality sector plays an important role in social inclusion, offering the first job experience for many young people.

EcoSME considers the Council Recommendations on VET and the New European Skills Agenda and aims at supporting and strengthening the links between SMEs & VET/HE/Adult education providers in line with the EC focus to boost innovation through education-business cooperation. Partners will work towards raising awareness of sustainability challenges and current & future skills needs of SMEs to encourage adequate educational provision, inform/support SMEs & alert policy makers. Working closely with professionals in the sector, they will support the hospitality and tourism ecosystem, focusing on local communities, by developing sustainable tourism strategies that benefit people, business and the environment. Besides, they will providing new practical examples and recommendations for public authorities and policy makers to support decision making.

Project objectives

– Raising awareness of the advantages of sustainable business management & green skills for business, society/community & the environment.

– Supporting SMEs in their green transition by upskilling/reskilling staff and encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship & practices.

– Contributing behavioural change and understanding that sustainability is not a nice to have by-product but can be integrated across all aspects of business operations.

– Developing business sustainability competences of academics & educators.

– Supporting hospitality/tourism schools with expanding their CVET training offer for SMEs & hospitality professionals.

– Expanding the offer of relevant resources & training materials available to academic/educators to support changing skills needs.

– Supporting the adaptation of existing training offers/programmes to recent developments in the industry by providing new highly relevant content.

– Supporting the integration of (business) sustainability into hospitality curricula.

Project results

– EcoSME Consultation – A comprehensive report about the post-Covid 19 sustainability challenges and skills needs of hospitality SME staff (PR1) to inform all subsequent project activities.

– Catalogue of Innovative Practices – a comprehensive set of transferable good practices to be integrated into the training programme or consulted separately in order to make more informed and sustainable business decisions and strengthen resilience.

– Competence Framework and Curriculum

– EcoSME Training Programme – A multilingual training programme and hands-on learning resources/toolbox for SME staff, academics/educators that will lead to the uptake of sustainable practices that benefit businesses and their local ecosystem, the community as well as the environment.

– Toolkit for Change – A raise awareness campaign on how sustainability benefits local businesses and their staff, the community, immediate environment (through all training materials, events, guidelines and policy recommendations).