PROJECT

Sustainable Learning

PROJECT DETAILS

PROJECT ID: 2023-2-NL02-KA220-YOU-000179682

GRANT AGREEMENT: 2023-2-NL02-KA220-YOU-000179682

An Erasmus+ cooperation partnership bridging formal and non-formal learning, with a toolbox for teaching green skills through experience.

FUNDING: Erasmus+ KA220 - cooperation partnership

FROM February 2024

TO May 2026

STATUS: Completed

ABOUT THE PROJECT

OBJECTIVES

Sustainable Learning set out to close the distance between formal and non-formal education, so that what young people learn through volunteering, youth work and hands-on sustainability projects becomes visible, assessable and valued.

It pursued two connected aims: to build a recognition system that bridges non-formal learning outcomes to formal education, and to give educators a practical toolbox for teaching green and sustainable skills through experience rather than theory, with particular attention to young people at risk of dropping out.

Kora led the dissemination work package and acted as Environmental Sustainability Manager for the partnership, writing the project's Environmental and Sustainability Plan. The badge system developed here is now part of Kora's European Solidarity Corps accreditation.

ACTIVITIES

DELIVERABLES

Research report and article
A 67-page transnational study of what makes non-formal learning effective and how it can be bridged to formal education, built on 8 focus groups, 14 interviews and 53 surveys across Italy, the Netherlands and Norway. Published open access with the article "Bridging the Gap" and a popular-science version.Open →

Good practice collection
Fifty-two good practices in non-formal and sustainability education gathered across the three countries, twenty-nine of them published as case studies on the project website.Open →

Validation system for green and personal skills
A recognition system built on Open Badges 2.0, with a skills grid of ten personal and six green skills, sixteen assessment rubrics with progressive levels, and reflective questions for learner and educator. Designed to be readable alongside Youthpass and Europass rather than to replace them.Open →

White paper on recognition
A paper on bridging the recognition of non-formal learning to formal education, drawing on the differences between the Italian, Dutch and Norwegian systems.Open →

Toolbox for Educators
Structured as Why, How and What: the research behind the project, seven non-formal methodologies, and a database of twenty-one ready-to-use learning activities with the integrated badge system. Online in English, Italian, Dutch and Norwegian, in digital and PDF versions.Open →

Toolbox for Organisations
The companion volume, written for organisations that want to support and certify non-formal learning. Same four languages, same open access.Open →

Training for educators
A hybrid train-the-trainers course: two online sessions and a five-day residential week at the Buona Terra educational farm in Passignano sul Trasimeno, July 2025. Twenty-nine educators from nine organisations, rated 9.1 out of 10, each leaving with a pilot plan for their own organisation.Open →

Pilot programme
Eight pilots run by five organisations with 144 young people aged 16 to 30, more than double the target: ESC volunteers and special-needs students on Kora's farm, a community garden with level-1 VET students in the Netherlands, work-preparation training in Norway, and two class-wide pilots in Como.Open →

Environmental and Sustainability Plan
Written by Kora as Environmental Sustainability Manager of the partnership: measures on green office practice, digital footprint, travel and green events, applied by all partners throughout the project.Open →

Project website and open repository
sustainable-learning.com, holding every result under open access for at least five years, with the outputs also deposited on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform, SALTO-YOUTH, Zenodo, ETF Open Space and EPALE.Open →

Partners

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Dutch National Agency (Nuffic). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.