DigiGreeNPost

Description

The European postal industry is a key contributor to the European economy with an increased importance during the COVID19 pandemic. While in 2019, the EU postal industry operated in 101,881 permanent post offices, employing 1.5 million people1, in 2020, the sectoral importance has been increased even more since it employs now 1.8 million people (20% increase of manpower employed in the sector), while, for 2021, there are positive projections in terms of economic growth and competitiveness.

Moreover, the postal sector has been dealing with tremendous challenges in terms of digital and green transformation. The once traditional sector is currently moving fast to a new digital era while also undertaking concrete actions on environmental issues. The Global Panorama study of UPU2 indicates that there is an important growth in digital services over the past five years. Postal Operators around the world use 10-30% more postal digital services than before.

Regarding the sectorial environmental impact, statistics provided by UPU (Greening the Blue survey)3 show that there is an increase in CO2 emissions, water use, and waste generated per capita/postal employee between 2017 and 2019.

In order to reach the goals of green and digital economy, the postal sector should not only adapt to the new circumstances following the new drivers of change, but also acquire a leading role in contributing to future policies and strategies that lead to sustainable growth, excellence of the postal industry, job growth and social cohesion. The postal employees have to be adaptive in various changes bringing resilience not only to the postal sector, but also general socio-economic and environmental aspects (Corredera, D.N, & Leta, T.B. 2019). And this brings to view the need of having a skilled labour force with digital & green skills, as horizontal competences for their high performance, in order to foster the sector’s competitiveness and bring resilience.

Based on the above, the General Objective of the DigiGreen Post project can be summarized as follows: “DigiGreen Post intents to bring resilience to the postal industry through the provision of upskilling and reskilling opportunities for postal employees in green and digital competence areas, acting as an enabler towards the implementation of digital and green policy agendas, building the understanding of the importance of digital and green-related jobs throughout the sector”.

Finally, the DigiGreen Post Alliance has been set up according to the scope and priorities of particular action of the call. It consists of 12 full partners from 6 Programme countries (namely; GR, BE, IE, RO, HR, DE), with a great expertise and experience in all the requested relevant areas (i.e. vocational training, postal sector knowledge, distance learning, digital skills, skills recognition, green economy & sustainability, postal & VET policy).