GreenComp in Practice: The Environmental Cost of School Technology -

Name: GreenComp in Practice: The Environmental Cost of School Technology
Price: 400 EUR

Why this is Erasmus+ eligible

Structured, multi-day programme (5 days) with a pre-defined schedule and learning outcomes — not a passive lecture format.

Built around interaction: participants engage directly with the trainer and with peers from other countries throughout the course.

Transnational by design — open to participants travelling from outside the host country, a core requirement of Erasmus+ mobility funding.

Aligned with the Erasmus+ horizontal priority: Green & Environmental Sustainability.

The Erasmus+ environmental priority asks projects to build competences for sustainability rather than awareness alone. This course works through GreenComp, the European sustainability competence framework published by the Commission's Joint Research Centre, and applies it to a subfield the framework openly leaves out — the circular economy, on the digital devices every school already owns. Staff return able to name which sustainability competences a lesson develops, and with a class project whose central environmental claim has already been tested rather than assumed.

Source: Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, Key Action 1 — School Education Mobility.

Overview

Every push to “go digital for the environment” carries a footnote it rarely mentions: the devices themselves are not free. The Global E-waste Monitor recorded 62 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022 and found that only 22% of it was documented as properly collected and recycled — with the total rising about five times faster than recycling does. Digital technology is part of the answer to environmental problems and part of the problem itself, and this course starts from that tension rather than around it.

The week is organised by GreenComp, the European sustainability competence framework published by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre in 2022. Its four areas — embodying sustainability values, embracing complexity, envisioning sustainable futures, acting for sustainability — give the week its shape, one area per day. GreenComp is a reference framework rather than a proven method; the JRC describes it as a living document that has not yet been tested in a real setting, and it is used here for what it is good at: a shared vocabulary for what a sustainability-competent learner can actually do.

It also fits this subject for a reason the JRC states itself. GreenComp deliberately leaves out subfields, naming competences for the circular economy among them. This course applies the framework to exactly that gap, on the objects every school already owns: the phone, the tablet, the interactive display, and what happens to them.

Where EMA’s other environmental courses work through Eco-Schools, the UN Sustainable Development Goals or waste streams directly, this one does not repeat them. Two days are spent reading environmental evidence with the instruments that produce it — satellite imagery from the EU’s own Copernicus programme, the European Environment Agency’s air quality index, biodiversity records from citizen-science platforms such as iNaturalist — and one day on what a teacher and a class can actually do about the devices in front of them, including what the EU’s Right to Repair Directive began requiring on 31 July 2026.

The last day is the one the week is built towards. Every group project makes an environmental claim of some kind, and on Friday the room tries to break those claims using the same evidence tools it learned on Wednesday. A claim that survives is worth taking back to school; a claim that does not is worth more than one nobody checked.

Methodology

One GreenComp area per day

The week follows the four competence areas of the European sustainability competence framework in the order the framework sets them, so each day builds on a named capability rather than a topic heading.

Evidence before opinion

Environmental claims are checked against real instruments — satellite imagery, air quality data, biodiversity records — rather than discussed in the abstract.

The device in your hand is the case study

The environmental cost of digital technology is examined on the objects participants and their students already own, not on distant industrial examples.

Claims get tested, not applauded

Projects built during the week close with an attempt to falsify their own environmental claim, which is how a classroom project survives contact with a sceptical student.

What you'll take home

Use the four GreenComp areas as a common vocabulary for what a sustainability-competent learner can do, and locate your own lessons within them.

Explain where a digital device's environmental cost sits across its life, from materials to disposal, using current e-waste figures rather than impressions.

Read environmental evidence for your own locality using Copernicus satellite imagery, European air quality data and citizen-science biodiversity records.

Separate an environmental claim that evidence supports from one that only sounds right, and teach students to do the same.

Identify what a teacher, a class and a school can each realistically change about the devices they use, and what the EU repair rules now entitle a consumer to.

Leave with a class project on digitalization and environment, and with the record of what happened when the group tried to break its central claim.

Daily programme

Ice-breaking and trust-building: participants introduce themselves through one device they could not do their job without, and the group maps where in the world those devices were made — introductions and the week's subject in the same activity
Opening: a retired phone or laptop is opened up on the table — participants list what is inside it and where each part came from before anyone names a framework
The e-waste picture in figures that can be checked: 62 million tonnes in 2022, 22% documented as properly recycled, the gap growing about five times faster than recycling
Who carries the cost: the fairness dimension of electronics disposal, and why GreenComp puts supporting fairness beside valuing sustainability
GreenComp introduced properly: four areas, twelve competences, what the JRC says it is and what it openly says it is not
Group work: each participant maps one lesson they already teach onto the four areas, and finds which area their teaching never touches

Warm-up in new pairs: each participant names one environmental claim they have repeated without ever checking it, then swaps and has to defend the other person's — a short team-building round that sets up the day
Opening: three real environmental claims about digital products — participants sort them into supported, unsupported and unverifiable before being told which is which
Systems thinking on a familiar object: the full life of a school tablet, drawn as a system rather than a timeline
Critical thinking as a teachable procedure: what evidence would have to exist for a green claim to be true, and where to look for it
Problem framing: turning "our school should be greener" into a question with a scope, a timescale and someone who can answer it
Group work: participants reframe a vague sustainability goal from their own school into a question a class could actually investigate

Opening: an unlabelled satellite image of somewhere in Europe — what changed here, and how would you find out
Copernicus Browser: locating your own town and comparing imagery across years, and what a class can legitimately conclude from it
The European Environment Agency's air quality index: reading local, current data for the participant's own city and the limits of what it shows
Citizen-science records with tools such as iNaturalist or Global Forest Watch: what students can contribute, not only consume
Group work: each group builds an evidence-based picture of one local environmental change and the scenario it suggests

Opening: two devices, one repairable and one not — participants work out from the outside which is which, and what that difference is made of
The EU Right to Repair Directive, in force for consumers since 31 July 2026: what it covers, what it does not, and why a class in one member state may find different rules than a class in another
Political agency, collective action, individual initiative: GreenComp's three acting competences applied to a school's own devices
Sorting what you can change: what a teacher can do alone, what needs a colleague, and what has to be asked of school management — with the ask written out and addressed to someone by name
Group work: each group turns its Day 3 evidence into a class project with one clear environmental claim

Opening: a well-designed project with a claim that does not hold — the group finds the break before being shown it
Falsification round: each group presents its project's central claim and the room attempts to break it using Wednesday's evidence tools
What survived and what did not: groups revise their claim, narrow it, or replace it with one the evidence supports
Bringing it back: how the revised project is introduced to students, including what to say when a student finds a hole in it
Course evaluation, certificates and course documents

Please note: sessions run from 09:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, with a break for lunch. Timings can shift a little to suit the venue and the group. If you'd like a specific topic covered, let us know when you apply — the confirmed day-by-day schedule is sent to registered participants ahead of the course.

Certificate: we issue the Certificate of Attendance to everyone who's present for at least 80% of the course — tracked with the daily sign-in sheet (see Certificate & assessment).

Equipment: a few of our courses ask participants to bring a laptop — check the day-by-day programme above, or ask us if you're not sure.

Need a formal invoice or proforma for your school's records? Ask us — we issue official invoices with the participant's name and course details.

Materials & tools

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 (UNITAR/ITU) — the figures used on Day 1, read at source rather than quoted second-hand.

GreenComp: The European Sustainability Competence Framework (Bianchi, Pisiotis & Cabrera Giraldez, JRC, 2022) — the four areas and twelve competences worked through during the week.

Directive (EU) 2024/1799 on the repair of goods, in the parts that concern the devices a school actually owns.

Copernicus Browser, used on Day 3 to compare satellite imagery of the participants' own localities.

The European Environment Agency's air quality index, used for current local readings.

Citizen-science platforms such as iNaturalist and Global Forest Watch, used for biodiversity and land-cover records.

A one-page claim-test sheet, filled in on Day 5 and taken home with the project.

Certificate & assessment

This is a Certificate of Attendance, not an exam-based qualification — recognition comes from completing the structured programme, not from passing a test. The real, lasting value is in the competencies listed above under What you'll take home.

Erasmus Mobility Academy

Certificate of Attendance

GreenComp in Practice: The Environmental Cost of School Technology · 5 days · 25 hrs

+ Europass Mobility document

Type your name above — clearly marked "SAMPLE" in the PDF, not an official document.

The real certificate is signed by your trainer and EMA's authorised signatory. Your own signature isn't on this document — it's captured separately, on the Europass Mobility document.

Need to verify a real certificate? Check it online using the serial number and participant's full name, or contact us directly — [email protected], OID E10304561.

Attendance

Tracked using a sign-in sheet with one signature per participant per day (paper or digital). This record is used to issue your Certificate of Attendance and Europass Mobility document. View sign-in sheet (PDF)

Output

Every participant leaves with a completed Dissemination & School Impact Plan — a step-by-step template for applying the course back at your school (see below).

Feedback

An end-of-course evaluation form is sent to every participant after the course ends — a chance to reflect on what you've learned and how you'll apply it, and it helps us keep improving the course for future participants.

Your paperwork

Keep your travel tickets, boarding passes and (if you used green travel) any related receipts — your school or National Agency may ask for these for their own Erasmus+ reporting.

How to prepare

Bring the name of your town or region — most of the week's evidence work is done on your own locality rather than a demonstration example.

Bring one lesson or unit you already teach that touches the environment, even loosely. You will map it against the framework on Day 1.

If you can, bring one retired or broken school device — a phone, a tablet, a mouse, anything electronic that is no longer in use. It does not need to work.

A laptop is useful; the evidence tools run in a browser. Some of them ask for a free account if you want to save your work rather than only explore, so setting those up before you travel saves time on Day 3.

Come knowing roughly how your school currently disposes of old devices, if anyone knows. "Nobody is sure" is a genuinely useful answer and a common one.

Practical information

Registration & documents

Not sure how registering works or what paperwork is involved? See our full Registration & Documents guide — from applying to your Certificate of Attendance, in one place.

Invitation letter

Need a formal invitation letter for your school or embassy? Request one — we send it within 2 business days. See a sample (PDF).

Learning Agreement

Prepared by our staff and sent to you and your school once your registration form is submitted — see what it looks like. See a sample (PDF).

Billing & invoicing

We issue official invoices/proformas with the participant's name and course details — ask us. Payment is due in full by bank transfer before the course start date. See a sample (PDF).

Airport transfer

Guidance on getting from the nearest airport to the venue is included in your welcome information.

Accommodation

We can recommend partner hotels close to the venue in the host city — ask us when you apply.

For your school / proposal

School impact

After completing this Digital & Innovative Education course, the participating staff member can transfer outcomes directly to their school: a short briefing for colleagues sharing the key takeaways, applying relevant tools or strategies from the programme in their own role, and inclusion of the course materials in the school's professional development resources — turning one person's mobility into a wider institutional gain that supports the school's European Development Plan. Use the Dissemination & School Impact Plan below to fill in your own — it saves as you go and can generate a one-page summary for your coordinator too.

Prefer a blank, course-independent version of this template? Get it here →

After the course

Participants will receive their certificates (Certificate of Attendance + Europass).

Participants will complete a general course evaluation and event survey.

Participants will receive course materials, videos, photos, and PDF documents in both digital and print formats.

Follow-up support: an email group is created for idea exchange, self-evaluation materials are provided, and participants receive a follow-up check-in after 3 months — by which point the class project should have run once, so the check-in looks at whether its central claim held up in front of students.

Frequently asked

This course is an eligible training activity under Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (School Education Mobility) — the course fee, travel and subsistence fall within the eligible cost categories. Whether it is covered depends on your own project's approved grant agreement and your National Agency's rules; we provide all the invoices, attendance records and certificates your National Agency requires for reporting.

B1 is enough — you do not need to be fluent. Trainers speak slowly and plainly, every session is built around doing something rather than sitting and listening, and groups are mixed by nationality so people help each other out. A rough test: if you could follow a staff meeting held in English and ask a question in it, you will be fine here.

Absolutely — group bookings of 3+ from one school receive priority placement, and we can schedule a dedicated session for groups of 12 or more.

Our courses run on request at our centres in Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir, Mersin, Budapest, Bremen and Rome. Tell us your preferred city and dates and we will arrange a session.

Tuition, all course materials, both certificates (attendance + Europass Mobility) and a half-day guided tour of the host city with a local guide. Flights, accommodation and travel insurance are booked separately — we send a vetted hotel list.

You can move to any later session free of charge. Cancellations made 30+ days before the start date receive a full refund; a reduced refund applies closer to the date — see our full Cancellation & Refund Policy for the exact schedule.

The Erasmus+ environmental priority asks projects to build competences for sustainability rather than awareness alone. This course works through GreenComp, the European sustainability competence framework published by the Commission's Joint Research Centre, and applies it to a subfield the framework openly leaves out — the circular economy, on the digital devices every school already owns. Staff return able to name which sustainability competences a lesson develops, and with a class project whose central environmental claim has already been tested rather than assumed. Frame it in your own project's terms — your National Agency's current call will confirm exactly how it applies.

No. The evidence tools used during the week run in a browser and are introduced from scratch, and the subject — what our devices cost the environment — belongs to any subject that touches consumption, citizenship or design. Participants come from science, geography, technology, humanities and primary teaching.

The others work through Eco-Schools, the Sustainable Development Goals or waste streams directly. This one is about digital technology specifically: what it costs environmentally, and what it is genuinely good for when a class wants to investigate an environmental question. No day repeats another course's ground.

GreenComp in Practice: The Environmental Cost of School Technology