The Interreg Flanders-Netherlands project "C-4CE" accelerates the circular economy in the border region by stimulating the development of the necessary competences. To this end, we identify the competence needs of companies, map relevant training courses and help training providers to meet these needs.
This creates a better and future-oriented alignment between labour market and companies.
Context
The transition to a circular economy (CE) can only succeed if professionals have the necessary skills.
Governments boast that the CE will create many jobs. Unfortunately, we note that at present very few, and mainly general, introductory courses are offered in the Southern Netherlands and Flanders in the field of CE.
The existing courses are mainly technology-driven and focus on the circular application of materials.
CE is broader, however, and is not just about process technology and the use of raw materials, but also about value creation and value capture through circular business models.
Objective
C-4CE aims to connect and focus on a broader spectrum of competences for CE, to reach the full range of workers (from blue-collar workers to management) and to match the needs of companies in the field of CE with the range of competences that exist or can be developed within the labour market.
Moreover, competences are more than knowledge and skills: they include the ability to meet complex demands.
The transition to CE can be accelerated by gaining insight into the required and desired competencies (now and in the future).
To that end, barriers, bottlenecks and needs experienced by organisations in the field of CE will be identified. These will form the basis for determining (the availability of) CE competences on the labour market and within the CE training offer. This will give us an insight into the match between the training offer and the labour market on the basis of which we will develop a CE competency and training tool: C-4CE, Competences for Circular Economy, which is specifically aimed at companies (SMEs).
This tool is also useful for training providers within the public and private educational infrastructure in the field of CE, by showing them the possibilities of creating training offers based on market information (i.e. the bottlenecks, barriers and needs of companies).
This project wants to lift CE to a higher level by improving the match between labour market and companies in the field of CE competences by stimulating competence development by training courses with a broader orientation on CE.
The project will therefore:
- Develop and make available a CE competence and training tool that helps companies to identify their needs for CE competences (also based on their ambition and stage of maturity in the field of CE) and guides them to suitable training courses to develop those competences;
- enabling training providers, on the basis of the 'missing links' in the training offer, to adapt and expand their own training courses or to provide entirely new ones.
- This will ultimately lead (in the short and medium term) to more companies making the transition to CE because they have a better idea of what CE can mean for their business and of the competencies they need to achieve this. It will also put them in a better position to find suitable profiles on the labour market in the border region.
Available project documents
Project partners
