As a global resource, water is affecting heavily global ecosystems, causing environmental imbalance of the aquatic ecosystems and putting many species in danger. The concept of water footprint is an important breakthrough in the evolution of methodologies, approaches, and indicators for measuring freshwater appropriation and assessing the wastewater discharge. REWAFT project aims to raise awareness on the water footprint in the textiles sector and raise the sustainability skills of students and textile companies regarding the sustainable use of water in textiles. The project is going to develop a model and an online tool, which will help textile companies measure the water footprint and develop action plans in order to reduce it. The project will develop an e-learning course for companies, organise study visits, collect good practices and develop series of seminar courses for HEI students and graduates from the fields of textiles engineering, in order to develop their sustainability skills in reducing the water footprint of the textiles sector. The project will foster an entrepreneurial, open and innovative higher education sector by promoting learning and teaching partnerships between HEIs and the business sector. The project aims at developing learning outcomes and student-centred curricula that better meet the learning needs of students, while also being relevant for the labour market and for the wider society. The project results promote the lifelong learning dimension of higher education and mainstream sustainable development, since they offer learning opportunities for students, graduates and staff aiming at tackling the wastewater use in textiles sector.
Project funding:
The European Union programme Erasmus+
Project results:
1. An online tool for the measurement of the water footprint in the textiles sector, to be used by companies and HEIs.
2. Seminars course for HEI students, which will help them gain the necessary skills in order to be able to identify, measure and reduce the water footprint in textiles.
3. E-learning training course for capacity building of staff in textile companies.
4. Collection of good practices on the sustainable use of water in textile sector from textile companies.
5. Networking between academia and industry, by involving companies in the seminars for students and by organising delivery of lectures by experts from the business world.
6. Dissemination of the project results, raising awareness about the impact of water footprint on textiles industries sustainability and efficiency
Period of project implementation: 2022-11-01 - 2024-10-31
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
Project partners: Water Footprint Network 2.0, IDEC, University of West Attica (UNIWA), Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Lietuvos aprangos ir tekstilės įmonių asociacija (LATIA)
