Environment & Work promotes opportunities for young people to actively work on climate issues and to strengthen society’s resilience to future climate change, such as heat waves and heavy rainfall. The project is supported by the Swedish Innovation Agency Vinnova, Chalmers University of Technology, SMHI, WWF, Scandinavian Green Roof Institute, UNIEP and our educational partners Movant, Thermo Logic and Göteborgs Praktiska Gymnasium. Through four sub-projects, the effort both reduces social exclusion and counteracts global warming by providing buildings with white, green or blue roofs.
Young people will take part in digital searches on Google Earth to find the top 5,000 buildings to install white, green and blue roofs. The young people will thus have the opportunity for a rewarding hourly job with a flexible schedule that can easily be combined with studies or other pursuits.
Together with our partners, we will also organise a course to certify the young people in the Cool roofing technique used to install white roofs and to give them more knowledge about green and blue roofs. Green roofs absorb carbon dioxide from the urban air, while blue roofs effectively collect water during heavy downpours, thus preventing flooding.
The project also includes the annual Climate Week event, launched in 2022, to raise young people’s awareness of the human impact on climate change and how they can counteract it themselves by making smart choices in their everyday lives.
