Official kick-off meeting of the WAC project

The European Federation for Company Sport has launched its latest European project Erasmus+, in Paris on the 4th of February 2020. This project will gather 10 partners from over Europe to offer concrete solutions to the creation of a European-wide certification on health, wellness, physical activity in the workplace.

Partners were invited at INSEP, a high level performance training centre for French Athletes. After a guided tour of the facilities, partners participated in their first meeting.

The WAC project, for Workplace Active Certification, is a two-year project which follows the path of a previous Erasmus+ Project, EMoCS – European Meeting of Company Sport. The EMoCS project showed the need for a unique certification for companies to promote their initiatives towards wellbeing, wellness, health with regards to physical activity.

The WAC project kick offs where EMoCS left off. WAC will today work on the creation of the certification. A first draft and test version will be launched during the 2020 European Week of Sport. After the evaluation process, the certification will officially be launched during the 2021 European Week of Sport. The first applicants will be evaluated in 2022 for an official certification award during the 2022 European Week of Sport.

Role of the EFCS

As project leader, the EFCS, will overview the whole project and the specific tasks allocated to partners such as:

• Research, diagnose and analyse good practices to come up with an up-to-date state of the art report;
• Define the different steps and organisation of the certification process, establish official national contact points all over Europe and coordinate the general strategy of the process;
• Define the certification criteria, build a method to select applications and to propose the final version of the certification with regards to the pilot phase;
• Elaborate self-evaluation tools and processes for applicants, build a training programme and content for auditors and define quality controls;
• Establish a programme and matrix for the pilot tests, identify the companies and evaluate the pilot test;
• Support the intellectual outputs and certification overall by implementing strategic event actions;
• Support the certification and its legacy and sustainability towards companies all over Europe.

Project consortium

• European Federation for Company Sport
• French Federation for Company Sport
• FESI
• Evaleo
• University of Copenhagen
• Sport & Citizenship
• Chamber of Commerce of Korinth
• Olympic Committee of Slovenia
• Artvelde University College Ghent
• Maltese Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, Sport and Voluntary Organisations

More information available on the WAC website: https://activeworkplacecertification.eu/