Enterprises and organisations today face rising expectations that they will engage with societal stakeholders and support sustainable development. It is widely accepted that in order to be considered responsible, an organisation must “do well and do good”. This idea is at the core of the most Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concepts which focus on integrating traditional business concerns with sustainable development concerns, such as impact on societal and environmental issues. Recently, CSR projects, and the challenge of how to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into work practices has led enterprises to engage more in societal projects. CSR and SDGs together have the potential to develop an interconnected model for sustainable growth. At the same time, unfortunately, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) relating to social, personal and organisational competences remains at a low level in many European organisations. Despite the necessity to acquire these skills and competences, the uptake of CPD which promotes their acquisition is low, apparently owing to a lack of convincing formats. The Time4Sustainable Development (T4SD) project addresses these issues in unison. It explores how the 17 SDGs may serve as a reference framework that can support organisations in improving their CSR engagement in a way that contributes to the Goals, whilst at the same time ensuring the engagement and development of their employees. The T4SD objectives are: 1. To develop an innovative European CPD approach that facilitates CSR initiatives that contribute to the SDGs through the integration of societal projects and personal, team and professional development. 2. To develop, test and validate a CSR/SDG based branch for professional development in European enterprises powered by specifically trained Adult Education Professionals. T4SD combines the three themes of a) CSR, b) working towards the SDGs and c) supporting the social, personal and professional development of Adult Educators and employees. It will offer enterprises and organisations attractive and meaningful formats of CPD for their employees and connects it to cultural, social, and environmental projects in which they “donate” the work and CPD time of their employees to serve sustainable societal purposes. The project involves three main target groups: 1. Adult Education professionals: Their professionalisation in T4SD will be facilitated by a modular, blended learning approach, based on competence oriented learning and validation. 2. Employees who will be offered attractive and innovative CPD and at the same time get opportunities to engage for society. 3. Professionals and volunteers from NGOs working in the cultural, social & environmental fields who will be offered possibilities for qualification and professionalisation in educational methodology and innovative instructional design. The concept of combining CSR with CPD was first developed by the organisation in Belgium and realised in an enormously successful project with support from the Flemish government. It has delivered more than 250,000 hrs of CSR in its Belgian association under the title of: Time for Society. In the T4SD project we will build on this successful concept, taking it one step further. Our proposal is simple: during CPD-hours employees give a part of their time to a non-profit organisation in need through the implementation of a project (e.g. cultural, social or environmental) that they are interested in, and they design, plan and deliver a tailor-made project that addresses the SDGs in cooperation with a societal organisation. Through a customised, blended learning programme the enterprises and their teams of employees are attracted to develop a CSR strategy and to regularly create sustainable societal impact together. Through this informal learning and development programme employees will acquire and further develop their skills in a practical and competence based learning approach. In terms of concrete products T4SD will develop: - A stocktaking report on the potential for a combining CSR/SDGs/CPD - The T4SD Competence Framework - The T4SD CPD Methodology - The T4SD Learning Platform - The T4SD Train-the-Trainer Programme - The T4SD Roadmap T4SD will implement a Transnational Training Activity with 18 adult educators who will then pilot the approach with enterprises and employees in their respective countries. 160 more adult educators and multipliers will be informed about the projects outputs and instructed on how to use them via multiplier events and at least 200 employees will be directly involved in the project. The main outputs will continue to be offered after the end of the project and designed in a way to make it easy for Adult Educators to apply the concept in different adult education settings. The partnership is led by Apricot (UK) and has experienced adult education providers from Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and Bulgaria as project partners.
The T4SD project sought to address these issues in unison. We wanted to explore and develop innovative solutions to: a) how the 17 SDGs can serve as a reference framework that supports organisations in improving their CSR engagement in a way that contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals, b) the methods and approaches that best ensure the collaborative engagement and development of employees in the implementation of the SDGs into working practices c) the skills and competences needed (by ‘Adult Educators’) to enable them to effectively apply these methods and to facilitate the implementation process. Our objectives were: 1. To develop an innovative European CPD approach that facilitates the implementation of CSR initiatives that contribute to the SDGs through the integration of societal projects and personal, team and professional development. 2. To develop, test and validate a CSR/SDG based branch for professional development in European enterprises powered by specifically trained Adult Education Professionals with the skills and competences to facilitate effective collaborative implementation of the SDGs into business processes.
Organisations today face rising expectations that they will support sustainable development and engage effectively with their communities. It is widely accepted that in order to be considered responsible, an organisation must “do well and do good”. This idea is at the core of the most Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concepts which now focus on integrating traditional business concerns with Sustainable Development. The challenge of how to integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into work practices has led organisation to engage more in societal projects. CSR and SDGs together have the potential to develop an interconnected model for sustainable growth. It is not enough for businesses leaders to be aware of the SDGs, to make a difference they need to engage their employees in taking action, to move from strategy into tactics and implementation within business processes. Unfortunately, competence in facilitating the implementation of sustainable development into business processes remains at a low level in many European organisations. T4SD addressed the clear need for updating the skills and competences of those who can facilitate implementation of the SDGs into business practice by engaging employees in action.