Green economy e consapevolezza ambientale nei programmi scolastici: il progetto A.P.P. VER

Green economy represents the focus of this project of thesis, as it is currently growing stronger and permeating different sectors of industry, production and services. However, it does not just refer to economic sectors: the green transition runs throughout society and environment as well and it constitutes a whole new progressive model heading to the concept of sustainable development. This thesis was inspired by an internship done at 'Città Metropolitana di Torino', which is promoting a new European project called 'A.P.P. VER. ¿ Apprendere per Produrre Verde'. This context constituted the opportunity to enter the green world, as the A.P.P. VER. project is moving through different sectors, as industries and school education. The aim of the project is to modify educational schedules towards a green perspective, to ease students during their school-work alternation sessions and to raise environmental awareness not only inside schools, but also throughout all the territory in which they operate, in order to increase public participation and action in favor of the environment. For these reasons, this thesis starts by defining the green sector. The first chapter tries to explain the basics of green economy, circular economy and sustainable development, how they were born and their development throughout history. The second section of the chapter provides the analysis of some green businesses certifications, moving after to the case of green jobs. This analysis is linked to the necessity, inside the project context, of identifying a number of green organizations, such as industries, public services or entities, in which students will enroll in a school-work alternation session. Thus, green indicators are needed to detect good examples of green practices. As the project promoted by Città Metropolitana is being implemented in secondary schools, the second chapter addresses green educational policies. It explains the major educational policies adopted in favor of the green transition: there are many policies inside each territorial context, but they all refer to the most important ones, such as the 2030 Agenda and the Europe 2020 programme. All the analyzed policies form the basis of the A.P.P. VER. project, which marks the relationship between young students and their territory: environmental knowledge and awareness are fundamental to shape their minds and create responsible and informed new generations of people who respect nature and natural resources. The third chapter of this paper explains the A.P.P. VER. project in a more detailed manner, starting from the context of Città Metropolitana, the related internship and moving after to the project itself. In particular, it focuses on one of the main instruments provided by the project, namely the Sussidiario, which allows for the detection of green organizations inside the designated territory. Some descriptive interpretations have been created 'ad hoc' for this project, starting from the international green indicators described in chapter one. They have been modified by some working groups, in order to make them as suitable as possible to the territorial context and to the educational purposes of the project and they will serve for the identification of a number of green organizations that will be included in the project. An example of these new interpretations is given at the end of the chapter, in order to understand the specific territorial requirements inside the project context.