VETting Green: Training Coaches to Empower Sustainable Choices in Footwear and Apparel
From the 21st to the 23rd of January, the Erasmus+ VETting Green project consortium gathered in Padua, Italy. Partners comprising footwear producers, vocational training providers, and consumer representatives from Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain are currently finalising a set of materials and tools to empower consumers and companies in the footwear and apparel sectors to identify and avoid misleading greenwashing claims.
During the meeting, the consortium participated in a training session to prepare coaches for the VETting Green Training Platform. This innovative online course consists of six comprehensive modules, offering a blend of theoretical and practical content. The modules cover a range of topics, including the current landscape of sustainability, green marketing versus greenwashing, effective green marketing strategies, eco-design and sustainable design principles, and sustainable materials and tools. The platform will be piloted through a combination of online and in-person workshops, accompanied by the development of a training platform coaches guide, a questionnaire, and a strategic roadmap.
Relevant for the success of the course is the Training Platform Coaches Guide, a practical manual for online coaching. To further enhance engagement, the project team is developing a multilingual questionnaire aimed at encouraging experts and consumers to explore the platform. The roadmap will offer trainers comprehensive guidance on implementing the platform and adapting its modules for other sectors, with results to be unveiled in October 2025.
The Erasmus+ VETting Green project aligns with the European Union’s efforts to fight against greenwashing on consumer products. This will be supported by the Green Claims Directive, expected to be approved in the first term of 2025, which aims to help consumers make better-informed purchasing decisions. Additionally, the European Commission is working on introducing the Digital Product Passport on consumer products that will detail, inter alia, environmental information and transparency about products and their respective companies. These measures combined with the Ecodesign of Sustainable Product Regulation will set ecodesign requirements, reducing the environmental impact of products throughout their entire life cycle.
The pilot and testing phases of the platform will begin soon and different stakeholders will be invited. Stay updated by following VETting Green on LinkedIn, and explore more about the project on our website!
