<< Background >>The whole fashion industry employs 4,7 million people, in over 797,100 companies, with a turnover of EUR 5,7 million (Source: COSME). Fashion is one of the most polluting industries on a global level. In the last 15 years, clothing production has approximately doubled. Large amounts of non-renewable resources are extracted to produce clothes that are often used for only a short period, after which the materials are largely lost in landfills or incineration (1). Several problems are identified, starting with the production of raw materials, which are sources of contamination, but also the production processes, with the use of chemicals and dyes, the transport, the use of clothes themselves, and washing, which is also source of contamination, as toxic fibres end in the seas, and finally, the end of products life. The currently existing linear system does not allow to take benefit of any type of economic advantage, it stresses the reserves of natural resources, pollutes and degrades the environment and ecosystems and promotes significant negative social impacts at the local, regional and global scale. The entire model of this industry must be transformed.The current trends toward sustainability in the textile industry consist in the gradual elimination of hazardous raw materials, the transformation of the way clothes is designed, the improvement of recycling, or the effective use of resources and the use of renewable textiles (not synthetic). However, those trends are still marginal, and considered “best practices” in a market largely dominated by the fast fashion and massive industry. Our partnership could observe among his public, made of entrepreneurs and workers from local textile small companies, the lack resources to face those challenges in an extremely competitive context. New skills are needed to follow forward and accelerate this transformation, also giving the new generation opportunities to integrate this ageing industry. More sustainable and resource-efficient business models not only helps protect the environment, but also provides competitive advantage by creating important cost savings and boosting innovation for sustainability. Indeed, while consumers are themselves asking for more environmentally friendly fashion products, the growth of online trading is changing the way businesses operate and consumers interact, generating new challenges and opportunities. Technological progress and consumer behaviour are at the heart of a profound transformation within the fashion industry, which needs to be encouraged with proper training. For SMEs from the fashion sector, this is to be translated in the following concrete needs observed: -Training to update the skills: education has an important role in the transition and response.-Business model: Entrepreneurs need to find sustainable and innovative ways of delivering and capturing value in order to meet existing challenges and emerging opportunities, with a particular focus on circular economy and digital economy.-Human resources: Attract new talents in a context of ageing workforce-Need for collaborationCovering those needs will bring small businesses of the sector major efficiency to transform management practices and their business environment, stimulating new business models and trading formats, but will also create new jobs with new skills requirements. (1) A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future Ellen Macarthur foundation – 2017<< Objectives >>The main objective of TECOFASH is to support a performant, competitive and sustainable European fashion industry, focusing on increasing the capacity of professionals from SMEs and start-up to turn their business toward circular business models and environmental and sustainable innovation thanks to transnational and intergenerational cooperation and training. Our training will consider the triple bottom line of Elkington theory: the economic, the social and the environmental as the three keys for sustainability. In detail, TECOFASH is presented as a proposal addressing 3 Specific Objectives (SO): Specific Objective 1: Awareness rising of experienced fashion entrepreneurs about their need for adaptation and innovation to make a transition toward new sustainable business models.Specific Objective 2: Development of new competences for youth and unemployed to apply innovation circular and digital schemes to the fashion sector.SO3: Intergenerational collaboration and peer learning among those two target groups so they can benefit from higher levels of knowledge, also contributing to attract a new generation of workforce in the sector. TECOFASH will be based on knowledge sharing and peer-learning for working fashion stakeholders’ up-skill in terms of business model innovation, circular economy, integrating channels and process innovation, cooperation and networking, digital improvement, sustainability and CSR, personal development, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit, among others. To answer this challenge, our training proposal will focus on two pillars:-Sustainable and digital production processes, addressing the technical and operational aspects linked to the design, production, and distribution of fashion products, for instance how to reduce water consumption or taking care of the raw materials used. -Sustainable and digital management of a fashion company, that will explore how to turn the entire management system in a circular and responsible loop, including for instance cooperative management systems based on human and social responsibility.<< Implementation >>TECOFAH project brings together 7 partners from 5 countries and regions that are particularly concerned by the fashion industry: Poland, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and Greece while meeting the required skills to implement such action, with partners being business support organisation and representative of the textile, sustainable or digital fields. Together, they will address: -Experienced fashion entrepreneurs, needing to renew their skills and up-skills to develop further their SMEs toward long term sustainable practices, integrating digital, social, environmental and economic factors.-Youth, especially low-skilled youth or unemployed, providing them new knowledge, skills and competence in business management and business models in the fashion sector as a career opportunity. This group has informal high-level digital competences that might be used by the first group. -Supporting stakeholders for the exploitation and mainstreaming of the training to be developed. During this project, partners will implement the following activities: -Development of 3 training packages addressed to the experienced entrepreneurs, the youth and both together. They will also develop an e-learning platform to provide wide free access to the materials. At least 220 individuals will be trained during the projet life. -Piloting activities will be implemented where the two first target group will meet and increase their respective skills based on peer-learning and work-based approaches, being the method chosen for this project highly relying on interactivity and dialogue. At least 20 pairs will be created to test this method. -Sustainable events, that will be organized in each country at the end of the project as a way to promote the results achieved in a sustainable way. -ICT will be used as a catalyst for the project activities impact. -Our activities will be transnational, being in line with an international scenario for smart growth and sustainable development goals, from local individual actions to global impact.-And of course, all those activities will be supported by an efficient management system that will itself be designed with the idea of reducing the impact to the minimum, meaning fewer transnational meetings, more virtual meetings, a no-papers dissemination strategy, the optimization of online management tools, and a continuous reporting effort to spread our achievements.<< Results >>As a main result, experienced entrepreneurs are expected to raise awareness about the need for digital and environmental transformation while increasing their capacity of innovation. The youth and unemployed are expected to increase their practical knowledge about this key industrial sector, being able to develop new ventures/ find new job opportunities in this field, benefitting in the long term to the entire sector competitiveness. TECOFASH project intends, with the previously exposed objective, to present a training programme oriented towards the following outcomes:-Connect the companies from the sector with the younger generation, and attract new talented workforce towards this industry-Link representatives from the sector with training experts,-Be clear and open based, without conditions and free from constrains,-Focused on the main skills gap identified, being the production processes, the digital and green skills. -Make full use of the digital technologies and virtual collaboration to contribute to the up/reskilling of the sectorThis will be achieved through the production of 3 main results:R1 Sustainable and digital production processes The first output will be dedicated to the development of a training package addressed to both experienced entrepreneurs and youth targets with different level of complexity to address each one specific needs under a technical perspective, with a focus on products, sources of contamination and production. R2. Sustainable and digital management of a fashion companyThe second output will be dedicated to the development of a training package addressed to both experienced entrepreneurs and youth targets with different level of complexity to address each one specific needs. It will focus on managerial and transversal aspects related to the business models and digital and lean managementR3. Online cooperative platform:This result will create the expected dialogue between the two target groups and their collaboration toward sector innovation, with the final aim of attracting the younger generation in this sector. It will be dedicated to the development the training platform hosting the different training packages and the social modules for the implementation of the training and collaboration activities.Thanks to this, partners expect to achieve a significant impact at local, and further, national and European levels, supporting fashion SMEs to continue their effort to answer environmental and societal challenges and reach competitiveness and sustainability.