"With sustainability, it's a bit like with a driving license: although most pass the theory the first time without problems, they have more difficulties passing the practical exam," emphasized Nacho Fatjó, Quality Director of Volkswagen Group Spain and head of the TALENTIA program, during the presentation of the study results. Fatjó knows this problem firsthand: although students who do internships or who are newly incorporated into the labor market at Volkswagen know perfectly how to recycle, they have difficulties approaching sustainability from a broader perspective and facing challenges from the corporate world.
A conclusion that the study also highlights: young people in Barcelona show concern for environmental impact or climate change, but often ignore or are unaware of social impact and other facets of sustainability. Even so, if the students who completed the test had to receive an overall grade on their sustainability competencies, it would be a 5.5 (50.5%).
"The study allows us to affirm that students need more context, tools, and references in sustainability, but teachers also ask for adequate pedagogical tools to work on these concepts in the classrooms," summarized Gertrudis Conde, communication manager of Barcelona+B at B Lab Spain. Because, as Elena Damiá, director of Barcelona+B at B Lab Spain, stressed, the "results are only the starting point to begin to propose joint solutions between companies, citizens, and educational centers." Joint solutions so that young people in Barcelona have more tools and knowledge to face the challenges that will mark their future already in the present.
In fact, the study is part of the initiativeBarcelona+B,driven with the aim of adding the Catalan capital to the B Corp movement's change community and thus mobilizing companies, institutions, and educational centers to make Barcelona a more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive city. Thus, the Eduquem+B project, which includes this pioneering study on the competencies of young people in Barcelona, is just one of the pillars of this initiative, which also involves companies and citizens to jointly build a more sustainable and socially committed future.Taking action
"The study is the diagnosis, but now we must take action," Damiá emphasized. Especially because this need to take action is one of the main challenges detected by the Be Ready for Now study among students. Thus, although young people have theoretical knowledge about the concept of sustainability, only 42.8% express their intention to act for this cause, showing the difficulties they have in translating awareness and knowledge into practical and collective action.
A challenge of moving from knowledge to practice that Tatiana Soler, innovation technician in the Directorate of Post-Compulsory and Special Regime Education of the Barcelona Education Consortium, recognized as an endemic problem of the educational system. "We value students' knowledge a lot, but not their competencies. And so, young people lack confidence to take action and do it collectively, since there are still few opportunities in classrooms for them to work collectively," lamented Soler, who also insisted on the need to give teachers the appropriate tools to work on these competencies.
The test, with a total of 48 questions and a duration of about 20 minutes —created by María Vallejo based on the European framework GreenComp—, evaluated young people's competencies in four areas: knowledge, skills, attitudes, and a final validation section to ensure that they had truly understood the concept of sustainability and its different impacts correctly.
And it precisely concluded that the competence in which students show the worst qualification is collective action —with a score of 33.1%—. In fact, when asked if they would attend a neighborhood assembly dealing with this problem, more than 45% of respondents admitted they would not attend.
Business and education, a common purpose
But how to take action from the classrooms? This is the question Eduquem+B wants to answer from now on, using the study results as context. And they want to do it by generating spaces for dialogue between companies, citizens, and educational centers, since the young people who are being educated in classrooms today will become the leaders of tomorrow, and will have the opportunity, once in the labor market, to apply sustainable policies from small and large corporations.
Spaces for dialogue between education and business, like the one generated during the presentation of the report results. In a subsequent debate, Federica Massa-Saluzzo, director of sustainability at EADA Business School, highlighted that the study provides data to start thinking about what to do and led a conversation between business —with Volkswagen— and education —through the Education Consortium— on how to find common ground and forge alliances to raise awareness among young people.