The core idea of the project was to empower the partner organisations — Centre Miko Tripalo, Bernays University of Applied Sciences and Förderverein Europa Zentrum Baden-Württemberg — to recognise and prevent negative practices of greenwashing and youthwashing, and to raise awareness of the importance of ethical conduct. The project was also directed at young people, with the aim of providing them with knowledge and concrete tools for critically evaluating educational institutions and future employers. The transnational dimension of the project, combining experiences from Croatia and Germany, was intended to enable a more comprehensive insight into the prevalence of these practices and to support the development of higher-quality educational and organisational tools.
Centre Miko Tripalo and its partner organisations applied for this project because their previous work with young people had revealed a growing need for a better understanding of greenwashing and youthwashing. Although an increasing number of organisations and companies formally embrace principles of sustainability and youth inclusion, these values are increasingly used merely as a marketing strategy to improve reputation and increase profit, without any real impact on actual business practices. Young people had identified these phenomena as important for their future, but lacked the knowledge and tools to recognise and critically evaluate them. At the same time, the partner organisations themselves were not entirely immune to latent tokenisation practices, which is why the project was also conceived as an instrument of institutional learning and self-reflection for the consortium.