ALMIA Educativa as an educational strategy towards an effective energy transition of a rural village

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [1] was adopted in 2015 by the United Nations (UN) and its member states with the main objective of providing a path to protect the planet from degradation and to people prosperity and world peace. A total of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are included in the agenda, with specific targets and actions to achieve this ambitious overarching goal. In Sustainable Development the person is key for policies and efforts to improve conditions in each social context. The three key aspects to consider are: (i) the promotion of remote human and socially equitable development for all humanity based on inclusion, (ii) the guidance of economic development at the service of human development, and finally, (iii) the promotion of responsible use of the planet’s natural resources [2]. The fast growth of population in large urban areas is expected to generate or aggravate many problems related to citizen insecurity, energy and water supply, excessive production and over-consumption, waste generation, etc. At the same time, access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all people living in rural areas must be ensured. Education is a fundamental tool to build sustainable societies actively involving all citizens in the sustainable development. The objective of this paper is to describe the ALMIA project as a strategic plan for the transformation of a small village called Almatret (Catalonia, Spain) towards sustainable development as a net positive energy and sustainable village, aligned with the implementation of the 17 SDGs. This paper focuses on ALMIA Educativa as an educational strategy to make the energy transition effective in the rural village.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 768824 and under the grant agreement No 723596. This work is partially supported by ICREA under the ICREA Academia programme. The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREiA (2017 SGR 1537). GREiA is a certified agent TECNIO in the category of technology developers from the Government of Catalonia. The authors would like to thank the Almatret municipality for their involvement in this challenging project