PLANT offered an answer to the needs of companies and organisations in the area in relation to the Circular Economy by focusing its action on Human Resources, as a recognized driver of innovation and a fundamental factor for competitiveness, with the aim of enabling an update in the content of the training services provided through an internal rethinking of the services offered, of teaching methodologies and of knowledge transfer tools. Specifically, the medium to short term objective pursued by the PLANT project was the development of a network of VET experts, partly initiated through the community www.factoryofknowledge.net/plant, capable of applying and using the tools acquired to support their own economic reference value thanks to the training interventions carried out at centres of excellence in Sweden, Spain, Poland, Estonia and Germany, by exploiting the know-how learned. In the long term, the PLANT project's objective has been and remains that of accompanying the manufacturing enterprises towards the reorganization and transformation of the Human Resources management and production processes, producing a strong impact on the territory both at National and European level, thanks to new skills transmitted.
The project PLANT “European Mobility: Circular Economy Innovation Network for SMEs” originated from the training needs expressed by the region regarding the Circular Economy.In the Italian green economy, there are 3.1 million green jobs, occupied by individuals applying green skills (13.4% of the national workforce). This demand is expected to increase with 521,747 contracts activated in 2019, requiring professionals such as energy engineers, green procurement experts, mechatronics technicians, and low-impact heating system installers.The difficulty of finding is an aspect that characterizes green jobs: it reaches 41.1% of cases against 24.5% for non-green professions. Veneto has requests for green jobs of 296.4 thousand (9.6%). Forward-looking staff training policies, based on the identification of green skills and the professional skills required, are the basis for maintaining competitive and job occupational levels in the coming years. The National Consortium, composed of ConfindustriaVenetoSIAV-Project leader, FondazioneNordEst, Culture d’impresa inFormazione, EnaipVeneto and GalileoVisionaryDistrict, expressing the need for the IFP staff’ upskilling in relation to the Circular Economy, wanted to provide an answer to this demand.