<< Background >>The environmental question is becoming one of the most urgent global issues that policy makers and communities need to face concretely for the future sustainability of the planet. Because of this, in the past years many international deals established new rules to overtake the actual situation: the Paris Agreement (2015) during which, for the first time, the United Nations brought into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, and the Agenda 2030 (2015) which committed almost 200 nations to reach a more sustainable development for the planet and the human beings.As established also by the European Green Deal (2019) and by the Green Deal Work Programme 2018-2020 under Horizon 2020 (Area 10, topic 2: Behavioral, social and cultural change for the Green Deal), the main challenge at European and international level is to “foster changes in societal practices and in the behaviour of individuals, communities, public and private organisations, that can be achieved through collective and participatory processes or through a sense of environmental citizenship and climate justice. To address these issues requires research and experimentation on behavioural, social and cultural change across Europe, and requires the analysis of social practices and behavioral change processes, including sharing good practice, tools and resources”.This great challenge requires deep adaptation in life styles and behaviours, by addressing citizens’ engagement and social innovation through innovative approaches, for a fair and inclusive transition.NEEDS TO ADDRESSStarting from the Green Deal purposes, GREEN Factor project aims to address the global need concerning environmental protection, which is strictly related to behavioural processes, cultural and social practices. GREEN Factor aims to approach this need by fostering a change in mentality to embrace new sustainable individual/collective actions and choices, as we all live on this planet. As the “GREEN Factor” name points out, the project's main challenge is to enhance mentality change and sense of initiative especially in young generations, as a necessary step to raise and develop their green consciousness and to empower them becoming a “real factor of change”.In fact, over time, young people become more informed and aware of environmental topics and issues, by considering themselves as active participants in the global changes. “Friday for Future” movement demonstrated that. Started in 2018, it soon became viral with thousands of young activists protesting against the governments’ lack of action on the climate crisis. Then, the movement reached meaningful numbers, by impacting 7500 cities and 14 million people across all continents (https://fridaysforfuture.org/).In this context, the needed actions are the creation of tools and opportunities to educate and engage young European citizens, in order to develop a new mindset for generating more sustainable behaviours, choices and ideas to be impactful in the short/long term. Since GREEN Factor aims especially to foster young people’s consciousness, since they will become the adults of tomorrow and responsible of future generations, the project will focus mainly on young people’s needs and attitudes (16-30 y/o) and on professionals who work with youth, in order to impact on them more efficiently and in the long term (youth workers, youth and green associations’ staff).<< Objectives >>Starting from the Green Deal purposes, GREEN Factor main challenge is to foster young people environmental consciousness and activism, by leveraging on 2 interconnected objectives:Young citizens’ engagement and participation - the idea behind the project is to strengthen young people's awareness about environmental issues, by concretely boosting their behavioural change. Greener behaviours will be the turning point to become not just more conscious citizens at individual but also, at collective level, by generating more sustainable actions and initiatives that would impact society and human lives, for example through green entrepreneurship, becoming aware and informed green entrepreneurs. In fact, in order to have a green entrepreneurial mindset and to build up an eco-oriented business, the crucial precondition is to have the practical know-how to progressively change the personal attitude in daily life. In order to achieve this objective, a Good Practice Catalogue will be produced (PR1), based on the collection of good practices from Europe and partner Countries about greener behaviours. Research will be conducted to figure out which are the young people’s most relevant behavioural gaps to be fulfilled in the everyday-life domains to reach an effective long-term impact (i.e: food consumption, shopping, cosmetics, energy use and waste etc).Youth entrepreneurship and sense of initiative - the more younger individuals acquire this ecologic behavioural know-how in their daily life as citizens, the wider range of green attitudes, ideas and initiatives will be generated by them also as green entrepreneurs, by creating a cascade effect of personal, social and economic benefits in the short and long term, definitely beyond the project duration. In order to achieve this objective, a Green Challenge Report will be produced (PR1), recording the current trends of Green Entrepreneurship concept in partners’ Countries, its diffusion in Europe and the main environmental issues to be addressed at national level in order to solve them.Starting from these two research deliverables (Good Practice Catalogue, Green Challenge Report) developed within PR1 - THE GREEN FACTOR PATHWAY FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES, all the other project results will be designed based on those findings and discoverings, in order to provide both youth and youth workers with good practices, tools and resources specifically developed to foster and achieve the above mentioned objectives (PR2 - MY GREEN FACTOR VIDEO TUTORIALS TO BOOST CITIZENS’ BEHAVIORAL CHANGES, PR3 - MY GREEN FACTOR GAMIFIED E-COURSE FOR ASPIRING GREEN ENTREPRENEURS, PR4 - THE GREEN FACTOR REPLICABILITY GUIDE FOR YOUTH WORKERS).Of course, even though young people aged 16-30 are the main project target group, youth workers will also benefit from project results, not only in their professional activities, but also as individuals living the necessary green transition. For the same reason, this is also true for the other project target groups (youth & green associations’ staff and stakeholders in general). As a wider objective, GREEN Factor project results have been conceived to be exploited independently from the project framework and to be highly shareable and replicable during and after the project life cycle, in order to boost a real factor of change within a wider community as well.<< Implementation >>GREEN Factor is structured around 4 work packages that lead to the achievement of its objectives.Since the beginning of the project, partners will select young people (min. 10 per partner) and youth workers (min. 2 per partner) to be involved in the activities. They will be both involved in the testing phase of the project results, in the training sessions and in the multiplier events. Partners will involve youth & local environmental associations as well, especially for the communication activities.WORK PACKAGE 1: THE GREEN FACTOR PATHWAY FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES (PR1). It represents the conceptual basis for all the following project results and it will produce:A Good Practices Catalogue based on the collection of good practices from Europe and partner countries about greener behaviours. Research will be conducted to figure out which are the young people's most relevant behavioural gaps to be fulfilled in the everyday-life domains to reach an effective long-term impact (i.e: food consumption, shopping, cosmetics, separate collection of waste, energy use and waste etc).A Green Challenge Report recording the current trends of Green Entrepreneurship, its diffusion in Europe and the main environmental issues to be addressed at national level.WORK PACKAGE 2: GREEN FACTOR EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR YOUTH (PR2, PR3). This WP includes:PR2 My GREEN Factor Video Tutorials To Boost Citizens’ Behavioral Changes - a set of video tutorials will be developed to give practical tips and instructions to truly affect the mindset and lifestyles of the target groups in order to make users active participants of change. The topics will be those identified in the Good Practice Catalogue (PR1), which concern basically the fields that impact mostly citizens’ daily choices and actions. PR3 My GREEN Factor Gamified e-course For Aspiring Green Entrepreneurs - based on the Green Challenge Report (PR1), a gamified e-course specifically targeted to aspiring green entrepreneurs will be developed to test the knowledge acquired by young people and youth workers. In parallel to the e-course itself, gamified solutions will test entrepreneurial skills through a gamified approach (quizzes, small learning scenarios etc.) by fostering a more active and participative acquisition of knowledge among youth.WORK PACKAGE 3: THE GREEN FACTOR REPLICABILITY GUIDE FOR YOUTH WORKERS (PR4). It has the main scope to provide youth workers with instructions on how to guide young people in the process of becoming active promoters of their locally green-economic landscape. It is developed in 3 main phases (training sessions, My GREEN Factor Day, drafting the Guide), both as a methodological resource to be used in youth workers’ professional activity and to describe GREEN Factor experience with youth.WORK PACKAGE 4: Sharing & Promotion, Multiplier Events and Final conference in Valencia (ES). All the communication activities have the main aim of spreading GREEN Factor message and products both online and offline, within and outside partners’ networks. METHODOLOGY:All the project results will be developed taking into account an edutainment (education + entertainment) and gamified approach, to actively involve target groups and provide impactful instructions by entertaining them. This approach is winning and enjoyable not only for youth, but also for professionals and adults who will benefit from PRs as well.<< Results >>PROJECT RESULTSThe PRs have been designed taking into account the results of a survey carried out before the project submission, delivered to a sample of 107 respondents in partners’ Countries (youth & youth workers, youth & green associations, green entrepreneurs), to understand which skills young people should have to become virtuous citizens & committed entrepreneurs, and to identify the best educational approaches. PR1 THE GREEN FACTOR PATHWAY FOR BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES - It represents the basis for all the following PRs and will focus on:How to boost youth behavioral change - partners will produce a Good Practice Catalogue based on the collection of good practices from Europe and partner countries about greener behaviours. This Catalogue will be the base of PR2.The green challenges to be faced by aspiring green entrepreneurs - partners will produce a Green Challenge Report that analyses current trends of Green Entrepreneurship in partner Countries. This Report will be the base of PR3 and training sessions with young people (PR4).PR2 MY GREEN FACTOR VIDEO TUTORIALS TO BOOST CITIZENS’ BEHAVIORAL CHANGES - video tutorials will be developed to fulfill youth behavioural gaps and to maximize the replicability of practical behaviours. The topics will be those identified in the Good Practice Catalogue (PR1), which concern the fields that impact mostly citizens’ daily choices and actions. The aim is to give practical instructions to truly affect youth mindset and to empower them to be active participants during the green transition. An edutainment approach will be used for the creation of these non-formal learning resources as a winning educational model to engage not just target groups but also stakeholders.PR3 MY GREEN FACTOR GAMIFIED E-COURSE FOR ASPIRING GREEN ENTREPRENEURS - taking into account the Green Challenge Report (PR1), a gamified e-course will be developed to train and test the knowledge acquired by aspiring green entrepreneurs. The gamified approach will foster a more active and participative acquisition of knowledge thanks to the impactful format & layout. A project platform will be developed to contain all GREEN Factor PRs.PR4 THE GREEN FACTOR REPLICABILITY GUIDE FOR YOUTH WORKERS - it will:explain youth workers the project methodological approach on how to use properly all the PRs in their professional activity;provide youth workers with guidelines on how to work directly with young people for the creation of their own business idea;describe the direct experience with youth during the training sessions and My GREEN Factor Day.EXPECTED OUTCOMES They concern the impact within & outside the project target groups during and after the project duration:Within - through PRs youth will have the chance to change their mindset in acquiring greener behaviours and in generating greener initiatives & business ideas. PRs will also be impactful resources for youth workers, youth & green associations’ staff that can deliver them during their professional activity. Outside - a wider community will be reached thanks to the high shareability and replicability of all the PRs. They will be available in 6 languages in the project platform, to easily reach a transnational wider audience (EN, FR, IT, ES, CZ, GR).Moreover, GREEN Factor aims to highly share the project outcomes through 1 day Multiplier event at national level to actively involve youth & youth workers, associations, institutions, policy makers, educational entities, media and stakeholders. During the events all the young people & youth workers involved will receive a certificate of “Green Ambassadors”, which testify their engagement in putting into practice what they have learnt and in sharing it with other people.The intention to reach a wider audience will be also reflected by the inclusion purpose that is at the basis of the selection of target groups and of the promotion strategy (gender, social, religious, cultural).