The SwitchMed Connect Conference is an annual gathering of stakeholders of the Mediterranean ecosystem to share stories, expertise and experience on eco-inclusive entrepreneurship. Annually, start-ups and entrepreneurs, industry agents, change agents, policy and financial institutions working on applications of productive, circular and sharing economies in the Mediterranean come together in Barcelona.

This year, SEED was invited to contribute to the panel “Green Entrepreneurship Training and Support Programmes”. The session aimed to share insights and best practices to provide the best support possible to green entrepreneurs in the Mediterranean area. The portfolio of support programmes for entrepreneurs ranges from the provision of financial, expert and/or business support and the provision of networks, profile raising, mentoring and trainings. UpSocial gave insights into a benchmarking study of various entrepreneurship support programs, followed by inputs from CONECT, The Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCPRAC) and SEED. SEED introduced its toolified capacity building support: Apart from providing knowledge on business model generation, we use toolkits to provide a demand-driven learning-by-doing approach, which is based on design thinking methodologies. Our rationale behind toolification is to combine the provision of knowledge with capacity building and an action-focused attitude. An impact evaluation in the framework of our 10-year flagship report proved that this approach is successful.

Further, SEED together with Pep Lemon organized a session on the “Transfer and Adaption of Sustainable Business Models in the Mediterranean”, where SEED introduced the SEED Replicator and discussed the concept of replicating proven business models. Inter alia, participants reflected on which parts of the business models are conducive for replication and agreed that the distribution model, logistics for resourcing and distribution and the mode of collaboration with stakeholders and partners could serve as a starting point for replication.