GENERATION 4R: Reduce. Repair. Reuse. Reinvent
French partner AViTeM, in collaboration with the Regional Network of Resource Recovery Centres and the Regional Chamber of Trades and Crafts, is leading a pilot cycle at the Marseilleveyre School Complex, combining round tables, training sessions, nudging and a field visit, in March and April 2026.
The goals are:
- Understanding the current challenges of consumption choices
- Discovering practical and accessible solutions for repair and reuse
- Drawing inspiration from local initiatives
- Working together (academia, youth, public authorities, BSOs and repair professionals) to imagine new models
The cycle is made of 5 half-day sessions over 6 weeks, starting with 2 back-to-back inaugural roundtables, which also served as launch of a nudging experiment with awareness lockers. The cycle continues with 3 hands-on training sessions with repair professionals, before a field visit to a resource recovery/reuse centre.
Roundtables: Setting the Scene
Day 1
On March 5 – 2 round-tables gathered students, professors and representatives from NGOs, BSOs and public authorities, with an agenda focused on understanding the EU framework for repair, discovering circular economy principles, as well as 3 of its pillars:
- Prevention through zero waste approaches, to illustrate the importance of reducing waste at source and question consumption choices.
- Repair, to showcase local repair professionals, incentives such as the Repair Bonus or Reparability Index, and concrete opportunities for careers.
- Reuse, to explain the concept of solidarity-based reuse and integration through economic activity: a second life for objects, a second chance at employment.
Nudge Pilot: Driving Engagement
20 school lockers were installed in the student hall, with awareness content and visual information, in which they were invited to put objects they would like to repair during the following repair workshops. The nudging impact of this installation will be assessed for potential replication in other schools.
Repair Training Sessions: Learning by Doing
Days 2-3-4
Students were able to bring their items in for repair free of charge, through the aforementioned nudging lockers. Repair professionals, alongside AViTeM and the Regional Chamber of Trades and Crafts, led 2 hours workshops with about 40 participants each, to talk about the EU right to repair, the French repair bonus, as well as repair career pathways. Then, participative demonstrations of repair and self-repair were carried out.
- March 10 – Electronics repair workshop.
- March 17 – Textile repair and upcycling workshop.
- April 3 – Bicycle repair workshop – within the School’s Biodiversity and Sustainable Development Forum (open to visitors).
- April 8 – 40 students and 4 professors will be taken to visit Le Dirigeable resource centre in Aubagne (close to Marseille), to observe first-hand the practices, skills and organisation of a resource recovery/reuse centre, from diagnosing how the life of an object can be extended to helping people get a second chance at training and employment.
This pilot cycle brings together several stakeholders, notions and actions, and will be assessed for potential replication in other schools in the future. The South Region is responsible both for the running of high schools and for the regional circular economy policy, hence the promising outcomes of combining these two crucial matters and replicating the approach in several other schools across the territory.
This pilot cycle brings together several stakeholders, notions and actions, and will be assessed for potential replication in other schools in the future. The South Region is responsible both for the running of high schools and for the regional circular economy policy, hence the promising outcomes of combining these two crucial matters and replicating the approach in several other schools across the territory.
