The project
As climate change and environmental degradation have and will have a significant impact on the world of work, there is a strong need to combine the economic project of entrepreneurs with training on issues of sustainability and a social and ecological transition. Training is a powerful and necessary tool to empower them to act for sustainable development, but we found that self-employed entrepreneurs, whatever their status, have few means at their disposal to carry out this transformation.
The “Sustainable and responsible Entrepreneurship” project (S.U.R.E) is a European cooperation which aims at supporting freelance entrepreneurs in this transition.
Designing innovative practical tools and resources, the project wants to put Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainable development principles at the heart of the business model and the daily practices of individual entrepreneurs.
The partners
CO-ACTIONS (France) - Cooperative of entrepreneurs | co-actions.coop
Co-actions is a cooperative of entrepreneurs (Cooperative d'Activité et d'Emploi) based in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. The cooperative aims to develop projects, support individual entrepreneurs and works with public and private organizations as partners in local development.
Agence LUCIE (France) – Sustainable development certification label | agence-lucie.com
Agence LUCIE, based in Paris, promotes Positive Corporate Social Responsibility, and develops pioneering solutions for progress in CSR, accessible to all levels, sizes and means of organisations. Its tools are based on major international standards (ISO 26000, ODD, ISO 14001, etc.).
POUR LA SOLIDARITÉ (Belgium) – European think Tank on Social and Solidarity Economy | pourlasolidarite.eu
POUR LA SOLIDARITÉ (PLS) is an independent European think & do tank active in Brussels. PLS is committed to a Europe of solidarity and sustainability and focuses its activities on five thematic areas: Social Affairs, Social and Environmental Responsibility and Diversity, Citizen Participation, Sustainable Development, Social Economy.
CCI VRATSA (Bulgaria) – Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vratsa | cci-vratsa.org
The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) in Vratsa oversees establishing the most favourable business environment for Bulgarian companies and facilitating their activity, working closely with public authorities and other non-governmental organisations, SMEs, academic and research bodies, as well as with other business support structures and foreign Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
ARIS FORMAZIONE E RICERCA (Italy) – Training and Research Centre | arisformazione.it
Aris Formazione e Ricerca (Aris – Vocational Training and Research) is an organisation providing and designing integrated projects in the field of vocational training, advanced research and consultancy located in Perugia. ARIS associates 36 social enterprises and cooperatives and acts to share the knowledge and know-how acquired by each of them.
The objectives
To Access
To design cross-cutting tools to assess and develop sustainable and responsible practices among Vocational and Education Training learners
To Train
To train entrepreneurship trainers and incubators in Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainability competences and ecological and social transition to enable individual entrepreneurs to integrate responsible practices to develop their businesses
To Raise Awareness
To raise awareness among the ecosystem of business creation support and political decision-makers of the challenges of integrating sustainable development objectives into the development of individual businesses
The beneficiaries
The direct participants in the project will be the trainers and educators of professional training. Whether they are internal trainers, training managers or coaches or mentors, they will be able to increase their skills and integrate Corporate Social Responsibility educational content into their training programs. They will be able to pass on sustainability competences to the individual and self-employed entrepreneurs they train.
The activities
Methodology for assessing responsible and sustainable practices
Work on the production of the evaluation tool for responsible and sustainable practices (Resource 1). By precisely updating the needs identified during the pre-project diagnosis (measuring the evolution of the context in particular), this will enable the partners to design a qualitative and innovative tool. An essential and founding element will be to work on a common lexical field concerning the concepts approached for the trainers. The consortium will involve representatives of trainers from different training organizations as well as from business creation support organizations.
Training engineering on sustainability competences and social responsibility for individual entrepreneurs
Work on the production of the evaluation tool for responsible and sustainable practices (Resource 1). By precisely updating the needs identified during the pre-project diagnosis (measuring the evolution of the context in particular), this will enable the partners to design a qualitative and innovative tool. An essential and founding element will be to work on a common lexical field concerning the concepts approached for the trainers. The consortium will involve representatives of trainers from different training organizations as well as from business creation support organizations.
Training activity: training of trainers and coaches
During the project, a training activity will be organized in Perugia, Italy, hosted by ARIS FORMAZIONE. It will aim at training entrepreneruship trainers on digital tools and multimodal training methodology that can be used in the delivery of training based on RESULT 1 and RESULT 2. This training will be an important activity for the appropriation and dissemination of the tools.
CSR recommendations for sustainable entrepreneurship
In this phase, the partners will work on the production of the White Paper on sustainable practices in individual entrepreneurship (Result 3). Throughout the project and the construction of the results, data will have been collected to feed and enrich the ongoing analysis for the realization of this 3rd and final deliverable of the project.
