Partners of the Ecological Footprint Training project

akaryon and Plattform Footprint from Austria, Eötvös University from Hungary, Vasile Lovinescu College from Romania and the Environmental Education Center from Greece

akaryon is a research based Austrian SME founded in 1999. Since 2000 akaryon comprises of two locations, one in the rural area of Styria, one in the Austrian capital Vienna. The company has gradually grown in terms of turnover and employment and currently employs more than 10 people.
Interest for sustainability topics and the intention to increase awareness on the responsible use of resources are part of our corporate mission: We are specialized in the development of complex web applications dealing with environmental and energy related topics, thereby often fulfilling educational purposes.
Apart from capitalizing our web-based/mobile environmental informatics applications as standalone solutions, we also take part in environmentally relevant educational projects on a regular base not only introducing our know-how but also providing our solutions to project target groups (for example learners with different educational backgrounds). We often also co-ordinate these projects, as well as we also have experience in managing co-operative research projects. -> www.akaryon.eu

Plattform Footprint is an alliance of leading environmental and social NGOs as well as academic institutions in Austria, dedicated to promoting the Ecological Footprint as a key measure for sustainability. The organization consists of 30 member organizations amongst others Greenpeace CEE, WWF, Global 2000, Environment Agency Austria and many others.
Ultimate goal is to end global overshoot by promoting a “one-planet living”, which can offer a “good life” for all global citizens within the ecological limits of the earth by fair sharing of global resources.
Applying the Ecological Footprint in education and consulting, the Plattform wants to contribute to the “great transformation” towards sustainable “future-proof” societies.
The Plattform directly promotes the Ecological Footprint concept with educational print-materials, online-tools, applied research, lecturing and campaigns to establish it as a parameter for sustainability in politics and economics as well as on the very personal life-style level.
Plattform Footprint has one CEO, six board members and a wide pool of freelancers, so called footprint-multipliers. ->office@footprint.at, www.footprint.at

The Eötvös Loránd University was founded in 1635. It is the oldest and biggest university in Hungary functioning continuously over the last 380+ years. Currently, the university has eight faculties: Education and Psychology, Humanities, Informatics, Law, Primary and Pre-School Education, Science, Social Sciences, and the Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Education. Eötvös Loránd University is internationally recognized, usually ranks 180-800 of the some 20000 universities worldwide, and 1st nationally. Over the last hundred years, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) has had many world famous scientists and four Nobel Prize laureates among its teachers and alumni. The current number of students aged 18 – 23 enrolled yearly has reached 28000, and there is an academic staff of 1800 highly-qualified teachers and researchers. Our department in Szombathely (city in western Hungary, inhabited for 2000 years, its Roman name is Savaria), currently named Savaria Chemistry Department at the Faculty of Science at ELTE, has been training chemistry teachers since 1984, and teachers of environmental science since 1992. Our original institution, Berzsenyi Dániel College was part of the University of West-Hungary between 2008 and 2016 then joined Eötvös University in 2017. -> savariakemia.elte.hu

“Vasile Lovinescu” College is one of the biggest vocational high-schools in Suceava Region, with approximately a hundred-year tradition. It was originally an Agriculture school. Falticeni is a medium size town located in an area with more than 15 rural administrative units, where most of the students come from. During the years, a lot of new specialisations were added. The school merged with other learning institutions, adding economics and mechanics into the training portfolio. After 1990, other new directions, like construction and civil engineering, food industry, forestry and environment protection were set up. Nowadays, the school provides professional training in more than 14 technological study areas and in Mathematic-Informatics and Social Sciences (from the theoretical field) as well.All the school activities are connected, more or less, with the areas for the ecological footprint calculation (environment study and protection, consumption, food, housing and transportation). For the 2017-2018 school year, the school had 1845 students (1602 students in daily classes) and 112 teachers. The school has a campus with three buidings for learning activities, a gym, a boarding school and a canteen, practical training facilities and terrains: a 7200 sq. m apple orchard, 2000 sq m vegetable farm, a green house and the tools and equipments to maintain them. In the school yard, the school dendrologic park is about 6000 sq. m (practice field for the Forestry and Environment protection students). -> www.agricolfalticeni.ro

The Environmental Education Center (K.P.E.) Pertouliou-Trikkeon was founded in 2009 and it is a structure of the Ministry of Education. It is situated both in the mountain area of Pertouli and in Trikala, a medium size town in the center of Greece. It is staffed with five teachers of primary and secondary education It is a center of environmental education and education for sustainability. Our activity includes design and implementation of environmental programs for students (on subjects such as the forest, the water, renewable energy sources, climatic change, traditional architecture), seminars for teachers on various environmental issues, workshops and awareness campaigns as well as creation of supporting learning and teaching material. The aim of K.P.E. is to inform and sensitize students, teachers of our country and, through them, parents and the entire society on environmental issues so that more and more people are motivated and involved in the sustainable management of the environment towards the maintainance of the ecological balance. This is achieved in cooperation with scientific institutions, governmental and non-governmental bodies, the municipalities and schools of our area, as well as nationwide. During its nine years of operation, K.P.E. has trained 9,300 students and 2,587 teachers of all grades of education. -> www.kpe-pertouliou-trikkaion.gr