04 April, 2017

On the 4th April 2017, a large group convened in CIT for the ‘Green Mentor Breakfast Briefing’. The briefing was the key dissemination event for the Green Mentor Project in Ireland and was organised by CIT's Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence.    
 
Green Mentor is an Erasmus Plus project with partners in Spain, Hungary, Austria and Ireland.  The project is targeted at business mentors and business owners who are interested in starting a green business or greening an existing business. 
The briefing provided attendees with:
1. An introduction to the concept of green business and green mentoring.
2. An overview of the Green Mentor Handbook, Green Mentor toolkit, and other outputs from the project to date.
3. A deeper understanding of the mentoring process as it applies to Green and sustainable business.
4. An opportunity to network, exchange knowledge and experience and to explore areas for further collaboration in this area. 
This event ran as part of the 2017 Cork Lifelong Learning Festival. 
“While mentoring is an established business practice, particularly in the entrepreneurial start-up area, mentoring to green entrepreneurs, who wish to incorporate environmental values into their businesses is a new and growing area” says Sarah Davis, Green Mentor Project Coordinator in the Hincks Centre. 
The project seeks to define and support the new emerging professional role of Green Mentor, i.e. those who mentor and provide practical support to entrepreneurs in starting up a green business or in greening an existing business by the introduction of green or eco-friendly processes and practices. 
The next phase of the project requires partners to pilot the material developed with business mentors and business owners, managers or entrepreneurs with an interest in starting a green business or greening an existing business. This will be completed in two stages: training for mentors and mentoring of businesses. 
This training will focus on the process, roles and skills, combined with a practical approach that allows tracking of progress and a deeper understanding of the mentoring journey. Participants will be provided with a full overview of the Green Mentor Handbook and Toolkit.
Further details on the Green Mentor project is available at http://greenmentor-project.eu/
If you need to discuss the mentor training or the project in more detail, please contact us on:
Dr Breda Kenny & Sarah Davis, Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence, Cork Institute of Technology.
Email: breda.kenny@cit.ie  and sarah.davis@cit.ie
Tel: 021 4335427