Exploring Responsible Consumption in Practice: Seminar in Dax

What does responsible consumption look like in everyday life? How can we balance sustainability with affordability and convenience? And how can youth workers turn these questions into engaging activities for young people?

These topics were at the centre of the Consumo Justo Seminar in Dax, France, organised by MDE40 WIPSEE from 20–22 November 2025. The three-day international seminar brought together participants and project partners from France, Latvia, Spain, Poland and Norway to explore responsible, fair, ethical and local consumption through practical activities, local examples and exchange of experiences. 

The programme focused on strengthening participants’ skills to promote responsible consumption among young people while sharing participatory methods that could later be adapted to different youth work contexts.

Exploring responsible consumption through everyday choices

The seminar began by connecting responsible consumption with participants’ own experiences. Through a Responsible Consumption Bingo and international group discussions, participants exchanged habits, local initiatives and challenges from their countries. 

These conversations continued through the Responsible Basket, where groups worked with familiar situations such as doing weekly shopping on a limited budget, preparing a sustainable birthday gift, organising a dinner with friends or getting ready for a new school year. Participants combined practices from their countries with new ideas and realistic compromises to create their own responsible solutions. 

A debate on “Is minimalism the key to responsible consumption?” added another perspective. Participants explored arguments for and against minimalism before sharing their personal views, considering whether consuming less is enough or whether circular economy, sustainable products and other approaches are equally important.

Understanding different perspectives

Other activities used movement, gamification and role-play to make complex consumption questions easier to explore. During “Eco-Friendly or Not?”, participants moved between recyclable, repairable and avoidable zones depending on how they viewed different products, opening discussions about repair, obsolescence and sustainable alternatives. A Kahoot quiz provided another interactive way to explore key facts about sustainable consumption. 

During a Responsible Consumption Role-Playing Game, participants took on roles such as consumers, business owners and environmental advocates and worked with dilemmas including plastic packaging versus cost and fast fashion versus ethical labour. The activity showed how consumption decisions can involve competing priorities such as sustainability, affordability, convenience, business interests and ethics, encouraging participants to consider perspectives different from their own.

Discovering responsible consumption in the local community

An important part of the seminar was discovering how responsible consumption is already being put into practice locally. Golf Anaiak presented its approach to recovering golf balls from lakes, cleaning them and giving them a second life instead of leaving them as waste. The initiative combined environmental benefits with making the products more affordable. 

Participants also visited Hector Serres agricultural high school, where students shared videos they had created about responsible, local, ethical and Fair Trade consumption and introduced the international group to local traditions and culture. At Café Terra, participants discovered a community initiative connecting responsible and local food with health and creating a shared space for people living in the surrounding village. 

The seminar concluded with a visit to the local market in Dax, where participants could discover local producers, regional products and another practical example of shorter and more locally connected consumption chains.

From the seminar to youth work

The Dax seminar also introduced participants to the first available version of the Consumo Justo mobile application and the educational tools developed within the project. Participants were able to download and explore the app during the seminar while also providing feedback to the project partners. 

Across three days, participants explored responsible consumption through discussion, debate, role-play, gamification, international exchange and local examples. The experience demonstrated that sustainability education does not need to provide young people with one “correct” way to consume. Instead, youth workers can create opportunities to question everyday habits, compare alternatives, understand different perspectives and identify realistic changes that make consumption fairer, more ethical and more sustainable.

Erasmus+ Cooperation partnership

Consumo Justo

Project No.  2024-1-FR02-KA220-YOU-000248910

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.