From Zero Waste Ambassadors to Certification - the BEZWA project journey
Written by Kadri Kalle
Last week me and my colleague Kristiina spent in Slovenia - in the Zero Waste Cities and Business onsite trainings for mentors and auditors in the frames of the BEZWA2 project. And it was like coming back to the beginning - in the same places we had our first Zero Waste Ambassador training 5 years ago, when BEZWA1 had just started.
Photos by Boštjan Selinšek.
The nice thing about doing follow-up projects is that it gives you a true sense of change happening. In 2021 we developed the Zero Waste Ambassador Curriculum - to support local changemakers (from community leaders to business owners and municipality officials) with the basic understanding of zero waste systems and how to move towards them. Since then, we have organised 10 Ambassador trainings in Estonia, Poland and Germany, with many of the participants doing zero waste “ambassing” (as we jokingly started to call it) in their communities.
Just as BEZWA1 was finishing in 2022, the Zero Waste Cities and Business Certifications were born with Mission Zero Academy. Ribno Alpine Resort in Slovenia, where we started with our Ambassador training and now had the Business Certification training last week, was the first one to get certified as Zero Waste Business in Europe. So it was truly coming back to the roots. It’s also a nice testimonial of how zero waste movement has developed over these five years. When in 2021 we were training people in basic understanding of zero waste systems, then now in 2026 we were already focusing on zero waste implementation in a verified manner as mentors and auditors.
Part of the BEZWA2 project is to further develop the zero waste mentor and auditor learning journey. While so far it has only been a comprehensive online course offered by Mission Zero Academy, then in Slovenia we were now testing the onsite training that in the future will be part of the full mentor and auditor training.
We did a mock audit for Ribno Alpine Resort for business mentors and auditors, and a real re-audit for the municipalities of Vrnika, Borovnica and Log-Dragomer for city mentors and auditors. Kristiina from our team also acted as lead auditor in that process. And again, it was a nice reminder from our Ambassador training - one of our site visits in 2021 was to Vrhnika’s reuse center, which was impressive already back then. That visit partially also inspired the city of Tallinn to start with their circular economy centres later, as one of our participants back then was from Tallinn city government.
Our Ambassador course hasn’t disappeared, as that level of knowledge is also still needed. But with the BEZWA2 project this course has also gotten a newer version - we now call it “How to Build a Zero Waste City” course, which is suitable for city officials who want to understand the city certification better. Just before meeting in Slovenia, the pilot online course finished. We hope to run that course also in the future - those interested can check it out on Mission Zero Academy website and get in touch if you would like to take part in it in the future.
The BEZWA2 project continues. We are also updating our Zero Waste Training Handbook, which will now be divided into two - Zero Waste Handbook for zero waste content, and Trainer Handbook for teaching related content. And our next stop is at the Zero Waste Cities Forum in Lviv, Ukraine! Plus many other activities, so stay tuned for more news in the future.
The BEZWA2 project (Building the European Zero Waste Academy 2) is an Erasmus+ funded collaboration between four organisations with the main aim to create a strong educational framework in support of the Zero Waste Cities movement in Europe. The project partners are Mission Zero Academy, Ekologi brez meja, Zero Waste Alliance Ukraine and Zero Waste Estonia as the project coordinator.
