Sustainable development has become a global concern in the last decades. Younger European generations have been raised aware of global environmental issues, but have not been engaged in actively contributing to those ‘global problems’ through stepwise local actions. Youngsters are not aware of their potential as active citizens and their role in the sustainability desired by modern societies. And in fact, young citizens could be a major force of imprinting sustainability concepts in society.
IMPRINT+ aims at the promotion, at a transnational level, of an ecological reasoning based on the changing power of local community and on the participation, empowerment and entrepreneurship of young European citizens. A training methodology involving both students and educators will be implemented, stressing the concept that each person has an ecological footprint that should be (over)compensated, if the ecological, social and economical balance is to be achieved. As a result of the training of youngsters and educators, and of a strong IT-based dissemination strategy, the project foresees the engagement of a much wider audience.
IMPRINT+ is a transectorial project that brings together 6 partners from 5 countries, each with different experiences and perceptions. The project’s methodology will be based on establishing the state-of-the-art approaches regarding education for sustainability, IT technologies and ecological footprint compensation. The project will start with an integrative research that will enable the project team to consolidate already existing knowhow in the above-mentioned areas and better define the project’s innovative edge within its context of use. It will also help the team establish a roadmap that will reinforce the project’s up-to-date nature in the long run.
The implementation phase of the project corresponds to the set of tasks involved in the development of: 1) a training package that educators can use to further teach and promote eco-friendly proactive attitudes; 2) a toolkit to help anyone assess the environmental status of their area and implement compensation measures; 3) the implementation of a pilot program that will embody all conceptual framework in visible field action; 4) the design, prototyping and testing of a mobile application and a web-based platform used to manage the georeferenced content produced and shared, the communication tools for the communities and users; 5) a tutorial to help youth to engage in green entrepreneurship. Also, the project will adopt a strong, effective and multi-channel dissemination strategy, aiming at enlarging the project’s audience, geographical range and outcomes. Stakeholders and further local/regional partners of each participating organization will also be engaged with the project’s goals, fostering its outreach and replication.
The notion that environment, education and economy, and thus overall human and social well being, are all integrated and share the same roots is the key impact that IMPRINT+ project aims at achieving at all levels: local, regional, national and international level. To do so, we will engage the stronger driving force for social behavior changes and perception: youth, but also local communities and stakeholders. The project is aligned with the European’s growth strategy, focusing on inclusion, education and intelligence to promote the necessary shift towards sustainability. Ultimately, direct and indirect participants will gain key competences to embrace sustainability and align their individual expectations with nature conservation, economy and education. As the issues the consortium is trying to address are not of regional or national concern, but global, the cumulative impact of IMPRINT+ will help creating a more generalized (and international) will to shift Europe and its communities towards true sustainability, empowering youth and local actors with the needed key competences to do so.