From Green Competences to Green Action: Youth4GreenPolicy Training in Vienna

How can youth workers help young people move from caring about environmental issues to understanding them, communicating about them and taking meaningful action?

This question was at the centre of the Youth4GreenPolicy transnational training “Training of EcoDigital Citizens for Green Democracy”, held in Vienna, Austria, from 26–30 April 2026. The five-day programme focused on equipping youth workers with eco-digital tools and advocacy skills for green citizenship and democratic participation.

The training brought together 27 participants from 16 countries and connected sustainability education with civic engagement, digital communication and youth participation. Rather than treating sustainability only as an environmental topic, the programme explored how youth organisations can help young people understand complex sustainability challenges, communicate about them critically and become active participants in shaping greener communities.

Throughout the programme, participants worked with digital advocacy, climate misinformation, storytelling, campaigning, stakeholder engagement and local action planning. An important foundation connecting these different areas was the European GreenComp framework.

What is GreenComp and why does it matter for youth work?

GreenComp, the European sustainability competence framework, provides a way of looking at sustainability not simply as something young people need to learn about, but as a set of competences that can help them understand challenges, imagine alternatives and take action.

For youth work, this is particularly useful. Sustainability activities do not have to consist only of presentations about climate change, recycling or environmental problems. GreenComp can instead help youth workers design activities where young people investigate connections, question information, discuss different perspectives, imagine possible futures and develop their own initiatives.

During the Vienna training, particular attention was given to competences such as systems thinking, critical thinking, problem framing, futures literacy, collective action and individual initiative. 

Systems thinking encourages young people to look beyond individual problems and understand connections between environmental, social and economic systems. A youth activity about fast fashion, for example, can therefore explore not only textile waste but also consumption, working conditions, transportation, advertising and individual choices.

Critical thinking becomes especially important when young people encounter environmental claims online. Instead of simply accepting or rejecting information, they can learn to question sources, recognise assumptions and examine the evidence behind sustainability claims.

Problem framing helps groups investigate what the actual problem is before immediately searching for solutions. Different stakeholders may understand the same environmental challenge differently, and exploring those perspectives can lead to more thoughtful responses.

Futures literacy invites young people to imagine different sustainable futures and consider how decisions made today may influence them. This can be integrated into visioning exercises, scenario activities, simulations or creative storytelling.

Finally, collective action and individual initiative connect learning with participation. Young people can identify what they can influence individually, what requires cooperation and where communities, organisations or decision-makers need to become involved. These competences therefore fit naturally with participatory youth work and civic engagement.

As highlighted in the training materials, GreenComp encourages systemic thinking, critical reflection and collective action, supporting learners to actively contribute to sustainable futures. 

Understanding the wider green policy landscape

The programme connected GreenComp with the wider European sustainability context, including the European Green Deal, Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Pact. Participants explored how large European policy priorities can be translated into topics and activities that are meaningful for young people. 

This connection is important in youth work. Policies can often feel distant from young people's everyday lives, while youth work can create a bridge between policy and experience. Discussions about mobility, food, consumption, energy, public spaces or waste can become entry points for understanding how environmental decisions are made and how young people can participate in them.

Navigating climate misinformation and greenwashing

Sustainability communication also requires the ability to navigate a complicated digital information environment.

Participants therefore explored climate misinformation, media literacy, greenwashing and pre-bunking approaches, strengthening their ability to critically assess environmental messages and support young people in doing the same. 

For youth workers, this adds another dimension to sustainability education. It is no longer enough to provide environmental information. Young people also need competences to evaluate what they encounter online, recognise misleading sustainability claims and make more informed judgements.

Turning green issues into digital stories

Another major part of the training focused on digital storytelling and green advocacy. Participants explored tools and ethical considerations for campaigning before moving into hands-on story creation. Working in national groups, they developed content and then continued from identifying an issue towards designing a campaign and considering how that issue could be transformed into public action. The results were shared with peers and developed further through structured feedback. 

Digital storytelling can be particularly valuable in youth work because it gives young people an opportunity to move from being recipients of sustainability messages to becoming their creators. A local environmental concern can become a video, social media campaign, photo story or advocacy message that communicates both the problem and the change young people would like to see.

Co-creating tools for future youth activities

The training was also a working space for developing practical project resources. Participants contributed to the EcoDigital Toolkit, developing modules, cards, templates and approaches connected with digital ethics and GreenComp. The toolkit is intended to support the next stage of Youth4GreenPolicy, including local EcoVoices Digital Cafés with young people across participating countries. 

This co-creation approach meant that participants were not only learning how to use existing methodologies. Their experiences as youth workers and practitioners also contributed to developing resources that could later be adapted to different youth work realities across Europe.

From training to local action

The final part of the programme shifted the focus towards application. Participants worked on local action planning and considered how the methods and ideas explored in Vienna could be transferred into activities with young people in their own countries. This reflects one of the key ideas behind Youth4GreenPolicy: green citizenship combines knowledge, competences and participation.

Young people need opportunities not only to understand sustainability challenges, but also to question information, express their perspectives, work with others, communicate their ideas and participate in decisions affecting their communities.

For youth workers, frameworks such as GreenComp can help turn these ambitions into practical learning experiences. When combined with digital storytelling, media literacy, advocacy and participatory methods, sustainability education can move beyond simply raising awareness and become a space where young people explore, create, participate and take action for the futures they want to see.

Youth4GreenPolicy – Engaging Youth Voices in Europe’s Sustainable Future

Project No. 101254165 — Youth4GreenPolicy — CERV-2025-CITIZENS-CIV

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.