<< Background >>The European Green Deal officially set as key fundamental priorities for the European Unions’ strategy the focus on green skills, sustainability, environment awareness and fight against climate change, across all unions’ areas and sectors. This paradigm entails a growing demand for green skills throughout most economic sectors, as well as a prevalence of debates on how to achieve the transition to a green economy. Every job is going to have to contribute to making the economy more sustainable and for that Education and Training have a straightforward role. In effect, implementing green skills in VET provides an enhanced means to equip youth and adults with the skills needed in the changing world of work, including the knowledge and competency requirements to make the transition to green economies and societies. Sustainable and green education is therefore essential for institutions to train individuals on these requirements.Green Diving rationale was built having in consideration three needs’ levels:1)European relevance and need expressed in the field of green skills and sustainability capacitation of educational actors, including in the field of Maritime training at various levels (capacity building, resources provision, curriculums update, structures and processes greening…) – confirmed on by key studies (Cedefop, UNESCO, UNEVOC) and projects (MATES, SKILLSEA, ONBOARD);2)Observance of such macro level need within partners involved in this proposal (assessed through a need analysis questionnaire, available in annex);3)Consequently identification/confirmation of target group needs both within VET partners schools, as well as others not making part of this consortium (assessed also through a need analysis questionnaire, available in annex). These needs are reflected within the following Green Diving target groups:•VET teachers/trainers that teach maritime pathways (navigation; ports and shipping management; naval engineer; marine engineer; naval administration; or related courses like electrotechnical; engineering pathways which can lead into maritime). •Initial VET students/trainees (aged 15-25) in a VET Maritime Pathway.•VET maritime school leaders.In particular the project will meet the needs of the targets as follows:•Green Diving will mitigate VET Maritime teachers need to better and efficiently integrate green and sustainability principles into their vocational education and training classrooms. This need will be answered through the provision of a comprehensive set of pedagogical materials and tools that focus on green skills development, as well the support provided to VET teachers in the use of these new materials (R1,R2).•The project will also contribute to lessen the need of VET teachers to acquire specific green and sustainable skills adapted to their sectorial field. This will be achieved through the development of an appropriate offer for professional development of teaching staff on green skills and innovative sustainable methods (R2).•By equipping VET teachers with the appropriate resources and competencies, Green Diving will additionally contribute to narrowing the existing gap of students/future professional skills, in the sense that will meet the need of further green skills provision during training. (R1, R2).•The project will further contribute to meeting the need of improving educational institutions structures, which take into consideration rational use of natural resources and protection of the environment, through the development of a collaborative action plan on greening Maritime VET (R3).•Further, the project will contribute to the narrowing the need of attracting a younger workforce to the maritime sector and raising its public perception (SKILLSEA) by developing resources that foster blue sector employability and opportunities layout (R1).<< Objectives >>Green Diving has the twofold objective to 1) develop sustainability and green skills in maritime VET, by working on VET students’ level, as well as VET teachers/trainers and school directors, 2) the elevation of VET and Maritime professions attractiveness among school communities. Aligned to such mission, the specific objectives are:•Promote sustainability, climate change awareness and green skills connected to the maritime sector, namely among both VET teachers/trainers, as well as VET students.•Support the professional development of VET teachers and trainers, contributing to higher quality education by updating teaching methods with a focus on green skills and sustainability.•To strengthen the capacity of school directors to deepen knowledge on sustainability and green school transition. •Significantly increase students’ sustainable competencies, thus qualifying them to the growing needs for green skills in the Maritime job market.•Reinforce collaborations between different educational levels, as well as different stakeholders such as educational actors, business and others.•Improve the attractiveness of VET and public’s perception of the maritime sector and its professions, contributing to ocean literacy and the sustainable management of the ocean.Such objectives will be reached through the development of 3 main results:•R1: Digital Toolkit for Green Skills•R2: Green Skills Course for VET Teachers Professional Development•R3: Action Plan for Greener VET Maritime Schools<< Implementation >>To ensure common understanding by the consortium to meet the aims and objectives, the project implementation is built in various methodological phases which are transversal to all three results:Phase 1: Ideate & Co-Create This phase refers to all tasks and processes necessary to design and develop the pedagogical resources, tools and materials, as well as the training contents and the action plan. Such activities will set the scene in terms of fundamental knowledge, competences, skills and resources on green skills which targets wilk develop throughout the remaining project activities. In particular, this phase encompasses: •T1.1 Design the digital toolkit prototype (M1-M3)•T1.2 Develop the digital toolkit resources, materials and tools (M4-M10)•T2.1 Development of the training programme (M10-M11)•T2.2 Development of the modules and support resources (M12-M15)•T3.1 Protocol for action plan co-design (M16-M17)•T3.2 Co-development of the action plan (M18-M20)Phase 2: Capacitate & Implement After the development of innovative and educational tailored pedagogical resources and materials on green skills, as well as the online training course and action plan, Green Diving will initiate a pilot and a training process which will allow the targets to both acquire new green skills, as well as consolidate them through active implementation. In particular, this phase encompasses:•T1.3 Pilot the digital toolkit in schools/classrooms (M11-M14)•T2.3 Train the trainers and school leaders (M16-M19)Phase 3: Validation & Fine-tune•T1.4 Fine-tune the digital toolkit (M14-M15)•T2.4 Fine-tune the training course (M19-M20)•T3.2 Stakeholder’s validation workshops (M21-M22)•T3.3 Fine-tune the action plan (M23-M24)<< Results >>Green Diving outcomes and results will be developed within a framework of 3 key results (extensively described in their respective sections):R1, Digital Toolkit for Green Skills: development of a digital toolkit for green skills, which includes the creation of an adapted green skills referential, a set of materials, resources and tools for teachers and students’ use and a guiding e-book. R2, Green Skills Course for VET Teachers Professional Development: creation and implementation of online training course for maritime VET teachers and school directors will be developed in order to actively capacitate them to foster green skills, sustainability, and climate awareness. The course will include a training programme and support course materials.R3, Action Plan for Greener VET Maritime Schools: co-designing of an action plan for greener VET maritime schools which will define measures, steps, initiatives, changes needed and action lines to answer such changes in light of greening and sustainable processes. In particular, R1 includes the following specific results:•A digital toolkit on green skills for Maritime VET, counting with resources in 6 languages•A green skills’ maritime referential•An online green skills competition•VET attractiveness info sessions guidelines •At least 10 VET lesson plans developed •A guiding toolkit e-book•A pilot phase in 4 schoolsBesides these main results, R1 foresees to involve 8 VET Maritime teachers which will pilot the resources in their classes, thus reaching an average of 120 students. These students will produce a complementary result: organize 4 VET attractiveness info sessions.Specifically, R2 will produce the following results:•A training programme•An online training course with 6 modules for VET Maritime teachers and school directors in 6 languages•A training support pack.•A training deployment on maritime VET green skills, sustainability and attractiveness This result expects the involvement of a total 40 VET teachers, which will additionally produce the following result: 8 green skills lesson plans.Similarly, R3 will produce a set of results: •A co-design protocol•4 VET school working groups•An Action Plan for greener VET maritime schools•4 validation workshops This result expects the involvement of a total 8 VET teachers and 12 VET students, which will additionally produce the following result: 4 working groups short reports.Green Diving will additionally promote the following intangible results which are intrinsically related to competences development in each target group:VET Maritime Teachers•improve cognitive skills necessary to deal with the consequences of the climate crisis and thus that are closely related to green, environmental, climate and ecological awareness;•develop green skills which will enable them to act as “green agents”, efficiently passing them through their teaching to their students;•develop the ability to integrate green skills and sustainable competencies development into diverse classes/subjects;•acquire new teaching resources and skills on green, sustainability and climate awareness trough capacity building processes.VET Maritime students •increase capacity to include environmental concerns alongside others (such performance and safety) in taking decisions;•improve cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal green skills necessary to deal with the consequences of the climate crisis and thus that are closely related to environmental, climate and ecological awareness;•significantly increase their green skills, being able to apply them during their daily professional tasks.School directors:•Develop environmental, green and sustainable awareness;•Deepen knowledge on sustainability and green school transition. •Improve skills allowing them to define and implement an action plan for Greener VET Maritime Schools.