According to the European Commission, climate change and environmental degradation pose an existential threat to Europe and the world. To meet these challenges, the EU has set up the Green Deal, which describes various measures to combat climate change. In the Netherlands, a similar approach and transition is taking place to promote environmentally friendly solutions, such as "getting rid of gas" or refraining from investing in fossil energy sources. In addition, we in the Netherlands want the older people to live independently at home for as long as possible and to prepare for the future. These are two developments that also worry many older people.

With the AFECO project we want to meet these concerns and promote independent living and quality of life of older people. We want to do this by introducing older people and their caretakers to affordable and practical solutions to make their own environment age-friendly and sustainable. In our project we use the WHO's idea of Age-Friendly cities as a basis. The WHO developed this concept in 2007 and linked it to physical and social factors that are important to create an age-friendly environment. Think of meeting places, care and welfare services, but also public transport and social inclusion.

With the AFECO project, we specifically focus on the group of older people who have fewer financial options to guarantee a high quality of life for them as well. Indirectly, we also focus on formal and informal stakeholders who play a role in creating age-friendly and sustainable environments or who want to support the older people in creating them.

Objectives of the AFECO project

The main objective of the AFECO proposal is to co-create an open e-learning platform to raise awareness and train older people, (in)formal caregivers and social workers with regard to:

• the available and affordable measures to make the environment of the older people (at home and in the neighbourhood) life-resistant and sustainable;
• supporting the older people to enable them to play a role in applying these measures;
• the interaction between age-friendly and sustainable measures;
• the value of age-friendly and sustainable measures as an instrument to allow older people to live at home longer and to improve their quality of life.

General workplan of the AFECO project

In the AFECO project we will undertake the following steps to meet our intended objectives:

• We will map the wishes and needs of the older people, their loved ones and other stakeholders with regard to age-friendly environmentally friendly solutions.
• Together with the target groups, we will compose a curriculum with learning units about age and environmentally friendly solutions, the application of these solutions and affordability.
• We will test the curriculum with our target audience and then distribute it to stakeholders.

The intended results

The AFECO project should lead to the following results:

• a report with the results of the wishes and needs of the older people, their loved ones and other stakeholders with regard age- and environmentally friendly solutions;
• a curriculum with age and environmentally friendly measures;
• an e-learning platform accessible to anyone who wants to know something about age- and environmentally friendly measures;
• a manual for trainers and other interested parties who want to organize a training based on the curriculum;
• reports with the results regarding quality management, sustainability and promotion of the project.

On the 18th and 19th of January 2023 the project kick-off will take place in Gouda. The partners will meet each other in person and determine the next steps in the project.