The high rate of youth unemployment, in particular NEETs and women, in the Mediterranean basin has economic and social consequences that are not specific to one country, but rather impact all Mediterranean countries. These groups share common challenges like lack of education, unequal access to education and employment, mismatch of their skills with the needs of the labour market, and they suffer a difficult transition from school to work. SIRCLES partners want to explore new employment opportunities by applying the circular economy model applied to the biowaste sector. The project will mainly focus on developing new capacities oriented to business development and separation, collection, composting and agriculture processes. The training will be tested through 7 pilot projects that address the hotel, food retail and household sectors, adjusted to the diverse local contexts of each territory involved in the project. Consequently, SIRCLES will contribute to the creation of green jobs by involving the most vulnerable sectors of the population and supporting environmental sustainability.
Projects
The development of a green economy in the Mediterranean area to combat environmental degradation represents a great opportunity for jobs creation, particularly for young graduates and women who are three times less likely to be employed than men. Strengthening eco-innovative entrepreneurship is a recognised solution even though green ventures face a complex set of challenges including limited access to funding, underdeveloped markets and fragmented support from sector stakeholders. GIMED aims at boosting the development of eco-innovative ventures in order to create employment and drive the green and circular economy in the Mediterranean. The project will implement a United Nations-backed ‘Green Entrepreneurship Standard’ that will standardise the supportive inputs needed to generate successful ventures and will give those ventures a mark of quality to better access finance and markets. On the ground, the project will train and coach eco-innovators and encourage financiers to invest in the Mediterranean eco-innovation sector.