The Circular Economy Digital Innovation Hub (CE-DIH), the digital and interactive platform that hosts the complete training curriculum of the CERES (Circular Economy Innovation Ecosystems Redesigning Skills) project, was officially presented during the second CERES webtalk. A project resulting from the collaboration between academia, business and associations with the aim of developing a training curriculum that can respond to the main social and economic challenges in the world of work.
During the webtalk, the six courses developed by the CERES consortium in Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Higher Education (HE) were presented. These courses will be available on the CE-DIH platform and aimed at all students and professionals interested in improving their knowledge and skills in the circular economy. The second part of the webtalk, on the other hand, focused on a detailed discussion of the CE-DIH, which it would be reductive to call merely a digital platform, given its many functionalities, mainly directed at creating people-to-people contacts and user interactions.
Finally, a series of talks from academia provided a systems perspective to the current global context-where technological innovation, digitization and the climate crisis are intertwined and require finding circular solutions within the linear market economy model-examined what the strengths of the CERES project are and provided a series of practical tips on how to develop it, along with the broader circular economy, in the near future.
The courses: six modules to build circular skills
Presenting the courses in detail was Adriana Hofmann Trevisan, a researcher at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, a university involved in the CERES consortium: “We have developed six courses, four of which are called Core courses, and which provide the basic level of knowledge related to the digital transition, the transition to the circular economy, and also the fundamental skills with respect to entrepreneurship and soft skills.” The four core courses developed by the CERES project address, in a nutshell, the main issues of the ecological and digital transition.
The first concerns the digital transition and, as explained by Hofmann Trevisan, focuses on “digital technologies for the circular economy such as Internet of Things, blockchain, artificial intelligence” and offers “a specific session on automation for efficiency, recycling and product durability.” The second course, on the other hand, delves into the ecological transition, presenting “an introduction to the circular economy, the concepts of sustainability and how these two dimensions intersect with each other” and focuses on “business models, supply chain and circular industrial ecosystems.”
The third module is dedicated to entrepreneurship and innovation, and includes topics such as “circular entrepreneurship and ESG criteria”, as well as practical advice on how to “attract investors, how financing works and technological aspects”. Finally, the fourth course focuses on sustainable leadership, with a focus on emotional intelligence, climate justice and effective communication.
These are complemented by two specialised modules. The first, on circular lifecycle management, focuses on the concept of life cycle, and introduces a series of indicators and a practical session in the form of an educational game to assess the environmental impact of a product in order to measure its circularity. The second module, dedicated to end-of-life management of products, deals with ‘European e-waste regulation and extended producer responsibility’, ‘return logistics and reuse of materials’ and an in-depth look at ‘lithium, copper and critical raw materials for batteries and electronic devices’.
By completing these courses, participants can obtain progressive certifications, ranging from “Circular Innovation Leader” to “Circular Innovation Specialist”. “If students decide to complete the entire CERES training course, they can become circular innovation leaders and will be in a position to put the knowledge they have built up following the courses into practice in the world of work,” Adriana Hofmann Trevisan concluded.
How the CERES CE-DIH platform works
The CE-DIH platform will provide a single entry point to connect its members: students, SMEs and other actors from the world of education and training. “The Digital Innovation Hub intends to foster contamination between the worlds of digital technologies and the circular economy. The aim is to provide concrete examples of the solutions needed to work effectively in the circular transition,’ said Andreea Dumitrascu of the Centre for Environmental Conflict Documentation (CDCA), a non-profit organisation working in the field of the promotion and communication of the circular economy, which will be in charge of the research and dissemination part of the CERES results.
The model adopted is the D-BEST – Data, Business, Ecosystem, Skills, Tools – and consists of six sections: MOOC courses (online courses, open to all and free of charge), specialised modules, community, content area, tools and industrial case studies, and collaborative hackathons. This, in the plans of those who designed CE-DIH, will facilitate networking between students and companies, promote collaboration and the sharing of good practices and case studies, thanks to the high degree of interactivity between users and numerous functions typical of social networks, such as discussion forums, video content, polls and live streaming, direct messages.
During the webinar, Dumitrascu explained how CE-DIH works, emphasising that “each course on the platform includes an initial self-assessment quiz to help each person steer their own learning path”. During the study phase, it will also be possible to access the Tools section, where “users can find, for example, circularity assessment tools to analyse sustainability performance”, as well as updates on European policies and an archive of good practices. The training will end with an event: “The hackathon will be a collaborative game where participants apply what they have learnt about the circular economy”, Dumitrascu concluded.
Improving CERES: some suggestions and next challenges
The webtalk also hosted the intervention of three university professors who commented on the CERES project, providing reflections and stimuli for future improvements. Vito Albino, from the Politecnico di Bari, pointed out that it took two centuries for the current linear economic model to take shape: “Now we need to accelerate the learning processes in order to switch to the circular model,” he explained, and “the Digital Innovation Hub can do for the circular economy what England did with the steam factories: offer models to be replicated” in other countries, even outside the European Union.
Professor Leena Aarikka-Stenroos from the University of Tampere in Finland praised the initiative and its contents because “the training package covers all circular production and consumption systems”, but suggested more attention to the demand side, i.e. what customers and consumers are looking for in circular products: “There is a lack of adequate attention to market demand and customer needs. Businesses and professionals must be able to adapt to changing preferences,’ he noted.
Qatar University’s Abdelaziz Bouras appreciated the link between academia and business, pointing out that the content was built “in collaboration with industry, which is really great”, as this allows “students and their skills to be aligned with the real needs of sustainability” and this will allow them “to create more accurate and tangible solutions to current problems”. With one caveat related to the digital transition: “AI will become a problem for the environment because algorithms consume a huge amount of energy: students need to understand to use it only when necessary”.
The last challenge the professors focused on was the need to also reach out to all those who are currently not interested or do not have the appropriate knowledge: if for those who are motivated, facilitating access to training with tools such as CE-DIH is sufficient, for those who do not yet perceive the urgency of the ecological transition it is necessary to “create a narrative about the relevance of the circular economy”, said Albino. While Bouras offered very practical solutions: awards, recognitions, events, certifications, teacher grants and impact metrics.
© Riproduzione riservata
