ELCA starts European platform for urban greening

Together with partners in Denmark, Finland, Romania, Spain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, ELCA will be building a European Platform for Urban Greening in the coming years.

Increase knowledge and skills of green professionals

The European Platform for Urban Greening aims to increase the knowledge and skills required to address biodiversity, climate adaptation and well-being in the urban, green living environment, and to broaden the expertise among professionals in Europe. The educational institutions from the mentioned countries work closely with business partners and governments in order to match the educational offer with regional needs.

From improvement of air quality to green facades

The challenges, expertise and climate zones differ per region. By joining forces and sharing good practices, regions can learn from green solutions elsewhere. Think for example of roof gardens and green facades, the capture of particulate matter by specific trees and shrubs, edible parks and green solutions for heavy rainfall and long periods of drought.

A selection of the main outcomes

• 6 Centres of Vocational Excellence for urban greening in Europe
• Relevant, innovative and attractive curriculum on biodiversity, climate adaptation and well-being in the urban, green living environment
• Urban greening training offer for a continuing professional development of VET teachers and green professionals
• An educational- and experience centre on vertical green landscaping
• Virtual and blended learning methods for students and employees
• Exchange of students, teachers, employees and employers

Partners
Wellantcollege (renamed Yuverta) is the applicant and coordinating organisation in this project. They will be the main contact point for the European Commission. Yuverta is the largest 'green' agricultural (pre-)Vocational Education and Training (VET) institution in Europe with 13,000 students and 1,425 staff. The college consists of 23 pre-VET schools and 11 VET schools that are all located in the urban center and west of the Netherlands. Additionally, Yuverta provides professional courses and training to 1,000 clients as part of Lifelong Learning from 5 Centers of Excellence that are linked to our vocational schools. In the different countries, comparable partners representing green education, the government and the business sector are participating. Umbrella project partner is the European Landscape Contractors Association for green professionals ELCA.

Erasmus+
The four-year project is funded by the European Erasmus + funding programme. The European Platform for Urban Greening is one of seven European Platforms of Centres of Vocational Excellence selected by the European Union in 2020. In total there were 55 applications, including more than 1,300 partners from the 27 EU Member States and 25 non-EU countries.

EGreen+

An important international project for European partners in the green sectors

European Green Mastery: comparison and development of skills and competences in the green sectors, EQF levels 2-6, through learning outcome based qualifications.

The green sectors cover a broad range of occupations from floristry and green production into gardening and landscaping. The emerging effects of climate change, the restructuring of retail and a diversity of new approaches to design, development and delivery of green services are all challenging the involved companies – usually small and medium sizes enterprises – as well as training providers and certification organizations. With the rapid development in “environmental changes”, both in direct physical climate conditions as well as in a business perspective, the requirements for entrepreneurship, new operational modes and technical and technological adaptations documents the need for the present Green Mastery project.

European Green Mastery is a Sector Skill Alliances project, and works to compare and develop the skills, knowledge and competences in floristry, gardening and landscaping. The qualifications needed for these occupations EQF levels 2 through 6 in all of the partner countries are collected. This ambitious work gives us the opportunity to assess the content and levels of the occupations in the partner countries. One of the operational characteristics of the green sector is the mix of formal, non- and informal learning picked up and aggregated through life. For this reason, a special attention will be given to how these experiences can be assessed, validated and recognized regardless of learning pathway and being matched with the qualification definitions expressed in the matrices.

After the initial assessments, our goal is to update the content of the qualifications. By fusing together new content with state-of-the-art technology like VR and AR, we aim to change the way these occupations are being taught. This will better prepare the students to an ever-changing job reality.

The multilingual options in the Skills bank tool will make the individual attainments, competence profiles and certifications available in several languages.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.