I think the environment as an educational factor is very important for the green economy. A beautiful shed with colorful containers for different types of waste was recently built near the neighbor's house. No one will want to throw everything there. This place "tells" people how to behave here and therefore no other instructions are needed. It would be useful to hold contests of ideas on how to organize an environment for habit formation in the circular economy.

Pilnīgi piekrītu diskusijā paustajam viedoklim, ka svarīgi šo jautājumu risināt mūžizglītības kontekstā. Ikvienam sabiedrības loceklim, no ražotāja vai pakalpojumu sniedzēja līdz patērētājam, ir jāpiedalās ekoloģiskās pēdas nospieduma mazināšanā, tāpēc ir ļoti svarīgi vairot izpratni par aprites ekonomikas nozīmi un nepieciešamību attīstīt iemaņas videi draudzīgu paradumu veidošanai vai veiksmīgai maiņai.

Interesanti, ka aizbraucot, piemēram, uz Vāciju, pēc gada jaunietis jau šķiro atkritumus un viņam ir pārliecība, ka tas ir jādara. Varbut vajadzēto vairāk mini stāstu par to, kā un kāpēc. Noderētu arī filmas un multfilmas...

Thank you for the discussion and for bringing attention to the topic of sustainability for a circular economy. While it is unfortunate that we can now find ourselves in a series of challenging situations relating to a lack of energy resources and severe consequences due to climate change, it is encouraging to see the beginning of the collective agreement in realising the problems concerning the topic of sustainability within our daily lives, running of the businesses and organisations, as well as the shortage of the topic in the education overall.

In non-formal and informal training this topic is very much popular and there are plenty of projects developed with the green lifestyle in mind, but as some colleagues already mentioned, in formal education it is not mandatory and often in the hands of an enthusiastic educator to promote sustainability in many of its forms, which is not ideal and should be improved upon.

But with that being said, the younger generation is exposed to this topic much more than older generations have been, and are already thinking in the "green" direction, therefore, giving hope that all is not lost in my opinion.

Green Consumer and Environmental Passport is an interesting educational project from Slovakia. Activities of the project created a lot of methodological materials that facilitate the work of teachers. With the professional help of the staff of the Slovak Environment Agency, methodological materials, an environmental questionnaire and information leaflets were created. Information training and critical thinking can be developed by teachers and their students on environmental passports of more than 300 products. All materials are published on the A3S website. Read more: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/blog/education-sustainable-consumption

A lot of interesting comments, I saved some links to look at them closer, later. Thank you all for this.

I liked the words of Ms. Mayri Tiido that the teachers or adult educators need to have the needed know-how themselves. That will be a key and we need to discuss about the content of that know-how, what should educators know exactly. 

Thanks for the fruitful discussion. As mentioned, there are so many trends, topics and new projects regarding green transition and skills associated with it. I would like to stress one approach which has been succesful in many European countries – intergeneration education. The youth can not only learn from the elderly and vice versa, but the intergeneration discussion and mutual learning will largely help to heal social and psychological barriers which are increasing unfortunately. There is one such project raning in the Czech Republic called Finding the routes to schools. The task is to map local routes to schools in discussion within your family and community, involving especially the oldest members but also the youth. It had a strong accent on sustainability, enviroment protection, but also geography, history, nature etc. 

Manuprāt, daļai Latvijas un citu valstu sabiedrībai ir nesaprotams jēdziens aprites ekonomika un sākumā ir jāstrādā pie sabiedrības informēšanas, kas tad tas vispār ir un kā tas var palīdzēt ikdienas dzīves organizēšanā. Tāpat ir jāaicina iedzīvotāji dalīties labās prakses piemēros par ikdienas paradumu maiņu un aprites ekonomikas principu pielietošanu ikdienā.

Jau vairāk kā 5 gadus ikdienā šķirojam atkritumus un arī bērniem mācām to, bet ar vien saņemu jautājumus no kaimiņiem un paziņām, kam tev tas vajadzīgs un ko tev tas dod... No sākuma skaidroju, bet šobrīd jau saprotu, ka pietiks ja pateikšu, ka man un mani ģimenei tas ir svarīgi un aicinu arī tevi par to padomāt....

Tāpat izvēlos arī sadzīves priekšmetus, kas veidoti otreizējās pārstrādes procesā.

It is never too late and never too early to learn about sustainability and the circular economy. The sooner we start, of course with simple actions, the sooner it will become a part of our life and our habits. It seems to me that sometimes the elderly do not have enough ideas/knowledge how to transfer this to everyday life. Maybe you know of some short videos on how to integrate sustainability and the circular economy into our everyday life?

We can talk about the green lifestyle both very globally and locally. However, I believe that the skills to implement it are rooted in the skills to first understand the importance and sustainability of this lifestyle. The knowledge to promote this movement is already very widely available. However, the problem basically lies in people's personal desire to burden themselves and practice both waste sorting and household chemical sorting, based on a sustainable nature policy. In educational institutions, children have been encouraged for many years to learn this skill and use it in everyday life, but parents themselves often do not implement it, and this creates a certain dissonance between the taught theory and practical life. I believe that family values ​​have a great influence and that these activities are instilled as basic values ​​in children at an early age. It is significant that also at the national level, nature-friendly management is not only discussed theoretically, but is also encouraged with practical opportunities to carry out actions promoting waste sorting and recycling. I admit that our society still has a lot of work to do with itself, and then by getting practically involved and regularly updating this issue, we will achieve the desired result in the long term. May we all succeed!

If you are curious to know how education and training can help build sustainable societies, have a look at LLLP's Position paper on Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Societies.

This position paper seeks to encourage a debate and provide recommendations on the strategic role of education, training and lifelong learning in paving the way towards a sustainable future for Europe and beyond, including how this may be reflected in the implementation of the European Skills Agenda, European Education Area, Digital Education Action Plan, European Research Area, European Green Deal, EU Recovery Plan and other EU strategies.

https://lllplatform.eu/lll/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LL4SS.pdf

Greetings from Turkey. We are a complete urban country and I am very proud of it. But we need to strive for our country to be a little greener at the same time, GREENWASHING is becoming a big problem around the world, as many organizations and companies perceive the GREEN issue and SUSTAINABILITY as a trend, but sometimes it's just a beautiful slogan. I think adult learning also needs a focus on being really green in action. Here we are talking and learning about greenwashing at Koç University in Turkey. We indicate that the students' respect and great importance for such activities is safe and important

Hello to all
Actually, what bothers me in all this is always the term "economy".
Why not talk, in response to all those people who have noticed, like Jana Galova, the despair of young people in the system that our "evolved" society has put in place.
As if the "economic" system was inescapable, as we try to make believe that of technology, of new technologies.
Have we looked for something else? Have we tried to think differently? Have we imagined that happiness could come from thoughts other than Cartesian and economic ones? When we look at Nature, have we not seen for a long time that there are things that go beyond us, that amaze us without us being able to explain them? Do we not have many writings that mention this "unexplained world" that we do not want to see or hear? Is what we call today "freedom" really freedom? Are you aware of it?
I am astonished by this imprisonment in a single form of thought. Doesn't this single culture make us handicapped?
Skills required? Openness
Education and training ? To show the marvellous, the one that shakes you, that takes you to the heart, to the roots, and that all of a sudden makes you discover the meaning of your life.
It is to get out of this that, with 12 partners, we have submitted the Erasmus partnership project "Inhabiting the Wonderful Garden", of which you will also find the community of practice group (open, changing our way of life) and Erasmus group (for partners, inhabiting the wonderful garden) on Epale.
If you are interested, look, and you will find.

Greetings from Latvia! We are green country and I am proud of this. But at the same time GREEN WASHING is becoming a huge issue across globe as many organizations and companies pick up GREEN topic and SUSTAINABILITY as trend but sometimes this is just a nice slogan. I think adult learning needs also focus of being really green in action. Here in Latvia Senior University we speak and learn about green washing. 

Mēs teorētiski visu labi zinām - kā šķirot atkritumus, ka plastmasas maisiņus vajag aizstāt ar papīra utt, bet praksē izvēlamies "vieglāko ceļu" - nešķirojam atkritumus, izmantojam iepakojumu, kurš nesadalās tik ātri. 

Kas ir jādara, lai cilvēki teoriju ieviestu praksē?

Dear colleagues

I think we have to pay great attention to family education,because habits and skills are being developed since childhood.

Hi everyone, thank you for the great discussion and for interacting with us!

We just wanted to share a resource on the very recent Council Recommendation on Learning for the green transition and sustainable development. You can find more information here: https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/content/council-recommendation-lifelong-l…

And keep posting your questions, we re here to answer them :)

Recently, the European Commission published the European Sustainable Competence framework GreenComp. This is a very good document that defines four competence areas, each with its’ specific competences. Personally, I am very inspired with the competence area about ‘Envisioning sustainable futures’. This is about positive creative perspectives and not about doom scenarios. However at the same time, I want to add that although adults urgently need to acquire sustainable or circular skills, it is also essential that adults acquire digital, citizenship and entrepreneurial skills. In order to be able to search and judge digital information, to be able to deal with local politicians and to start and manage community gardens or circular enterprises. 

A very effective way to learn green or circular skills is learning by doing, to learn from peers and to have access to good examples. Non-formal learning settings are excellent learning environments. We can introduce circular skills in our educational programmes, we can integrate them in basic skills training. E.g learning a language by using relevant content, content that matters in the learners’ daily life, just as Paolo Freire told us 

Greetings from the Czech Republic. According to professional studies, many children and young people feel pessimistic about their future. Many feelings appear such as fear, helplessness, anger, sadness. I think cooperation and collaboration should be taught and practiced in appropriate ways for students of different levels and ages. Solidarity, compassion, ethics and empathy should be integrated into the ways in which we learn. I work in education field and I am also a career counselor. Green consulting (guidance) is a big topic nowadays. Counseling must take into account and raise awareness of the environmental impacts of careers choices. In general, in education, adult education, career counseling, there is a need to develop more critical thinking, systemic thinking, which the ladies talked about.. Information materials on career choices should include their environmental aspects. Counseling theory and practice should go beyond the individualistic approach and take into account as well shared aspects of career development. The assumption is that educators and counselors should regularly reflect on their own practice.

It is important to train educators and trainers on the science behind the climate changes and their consequences. There is a lot of fake news around and a lot of people still do not ´believe´ in climate change and often politicize it (´left-wing propaganda´).

Critical thinking is important, but according to modern cognitive science, we use it 10% of time. 90% of time people rely on habits. So, to develop circular skills we need to develop sustainable habits and integrate them into everyday life: what food to choose, what packaging to avoid, what transportation to use, what clothes to wear and for how long, how to repair things instead of throwing them away... Our partnership (Non-formal learning club WE (Lithuania) and FENAN Consulting) is now working on Erasmus+ international project "Building green skills for circular economy" (NL01-KA210-ADU-000033999) to develop online course on circular skills for young adults. It is still work in progress. Please, have a look and give your comments and suggestions https://circular-skills.org

Welcome to this EPALE discussion on Skills for the green transition: young adults for a circular economy!

We are now live with the discussion on EPALE and on all social media. We are looking forward to your comments, questions and suggestions here in the written discussion which will go on until 4 pm CEST.

Claudia (EPALE Moderator)

Citāts no raksta: "Eiropas Savienība ir ievērojami samazinājusi centienus, lai sasniegtu mērķi līdz 2050. gadam kļūt par pirmo bezoglekļa kontinentu, un daudziem ir skaidrs, ka šis mērķis, iespējams, ir bijis pārāk vērienīgs."

Konfūcijas: "Kad ir acīmredzams, ka mērķus nevar sasniegt, nepielāgojiet mērķus, pielāgojiet darbības soļus"

Jautājums: kādi būs darbības soļi?

Dear all, I'm looking forward to this discussion. For the future young adults to take a role in society as 'Green Citizens' we can only hope that when they grow up and become CEO's of companies, they make decisions that benefit us all, not only their shareholders. My question is: when is the right time to bring the subject of sustainability into schools? Should we start at preschool age where the majority of skills and habits are formed? Or at teenager level where students have a moral conscience? Or college and higher education, where most students have to balance a tight budget with cheap food and clothes. Each level has its pros and cons, but surely schools must change radically for their own benefit to reach sustainability themselves, before they can preach to others. Thanks for your time.