Circular economy represents an opportunity to address labour market imbalances and threats. Circular economy policies are expected to help reduce environmental impacts while generating higher levels of employment. As we move towards a more circular economy, it is estimated that GDP in the EU will increase by almost 0.5% by 2030. According to the Cambridge Econometrics, Trinomics, and ICF report (2018), there will be an estimated net increase in employment of approximately 700 000. During the next few years, the sectors that produce and process raw materials will decrease in size, while the waste management, recycling and repair sectors will experience extra growth. If a sustainable circular economy is to be implemented, the quality of those jobs is essential to their success, improving that quality through improving worker skills, including environmental, health and safety skills. For this reason, the CE-IP project (https://www.ce-iperasmus.eu) has developed new training solutions that can help match the expected expansion of green job opportunities with skilled workers, to promote a shift towards a more sustainable economy. Our project has provided training solutions that can be used in the recycling sector, to provide new green and fair job opportunities for adults with low skills, including unemployed youth. The activities developed during the project have focused on the generation of new skills and opportunities to access green and fair jobs, mainly related to the circular economy of the textile sector in terms of garment waste management. Thus, the main objective of the project has been to generate training resources that can help to achieve a systemic change in the skills and capacities of these target groups, self-employed, unemployed and low-skilled workers from other productive sectors and trainers of continuous training systems that provide courses for adults related to new employment opportunities. The Circular Economy in Practice Erasmus project has promoted also the self-employment linked to these activities in low-skilled workers and the creation of new innovative training solutions related to opportunities in the circular economy. The Consortium that has developed the project is made up of six organizations from five countries: - Universitat Jaume I de Castellón as the project coordinator (Spain). - AEGARE- Asociación de empresarios gallegos en Aragón y riberas del Ebro (Spain). - Cologne Business School (Germany). - Social Innovation and Cohesion Institute (Greece). - Razvojna agencija Sotla (Slovenia). - CNIPA Puglia (Italy). A first output of the project has been a course on key concepts of Circular Economy for 18 sustainability experts from the partner organizations to exchange ideas and generate a mutual understanding of the key concepts of Circular Economy and sustainability. The project has generated three intellectual outputs: IO1. Training guide on circular economy management strategies for microenterprises (https://www.ce-iperasmus.eu/dashboard/). IO2. Multimedia training resources with a 360º web base on good practices and innovative ways of extending the useful life of textile products (https://www.ce-iperasmus.eu/360-website/.) IO3. E-learning course for trainers on circular economy (http://ce-iperasmus.eu/platform/). In the development of this intellectual output the scope of the pilot course has been 60 trainers that have designed a training course for unqualified adults. More than 180 unemployed, self-employed and low-skilled workers have participated in the tests of the intellectual outputs of the project. With this project we have tried: • To generate innovative training solutions in this field using digital technologies. • To promote the circular economy through the generation of educational contents for micro-enterprises in the activity of garment waste management (textile sector). • To promote the development and dissemination of the circular economy as an employment opportunity for adults with low qualifications and in a situation of exclusion from the labour market, from other productive sectors. • To develop teaching competences of adult trainers related to the circular economy.
The main objective of the project is to achieve a systemic change in skills and capacities of workers, who have lost their jobs in traditional sectors, in the circular economy from the perspective of these new jobs. Our project offers training solutions related to existing jobs in the recycling sector, and new green and fair job opportunities for low-skilled adults, including unemployed youth. The activities developed have focused on generating new skills and opportunities to access green and fair jobs, mainly related to the circular economy as it relates to clothing waste management. Other specific objectives are: - Promotion of self-employment related to these activities in low-skilled workers. - Creation of new innovative training solutions related to circular economy opportunities.
The circular economy represents an opportunity to address labour market disequilibria and threats. Circular economy policies are expected to contribute to reducing environmental impacts while generating higher levels of employment. By advancing towards a more circular economy, GDP in the EU is estimated to increase by almost 0.5% by 2030. According to Cambridge Econometrics, Trinomics, and ICF (2018), the estimated net increase in jobs will be around 700,000. In the coming years, the sectors producing and processing raw materials will decrease in size, while the waste management, recycling and repair sectors will see additional growth. The CE-IP project develops new training solutions that can help match the expected expansion of green job opportunities with skilled workers to promote a change towards a more sustainable economy. One of the sectors requiring increased attention in the waste management phase is the textile sector (Jacometti, 2019). Koszewska (2018) highlights that more than 50% of clothing waste is not reused or recycled. For this reason CE-IP focuses on the circular economy in the textile sector.