LIFE AWARDS 2023: Among the finalists is the program Without Remaining

Nébih launched its No Leftovers program in 2016 with the support of the LIFE program of the European Union, which has since grown into Hungary’s national food waste prevention program.

Over the past 7 years, the agency’s team of experts has implemented a number of program elements in order to reduce the problem of food waste both in Hungary and in Europe:

• Without Leftovers has been monitoring the amount of food waste generated in Hungarian households since 2016 – this has become an EU member state obligation from 2020. According to the latest data, household food waste in Hungary has decreased by a quarter since the start of the program.
• A key area of focus is the formation of attitudes in childhood: so far, complex educational material developed by the program’s staff has reached more than half a million children, and more than 30,000 young people have personally participated in the training.
• The public attitude shaping campaign has a reach of around 200 million, which means that every Hungarian citizen was exposed to the messages of Maradék belen 20 times on average.
• In addition to households, Without Leftovers also helps other actors in the food chain: working groups created with the involvement of stakeholders collected and included in a publication the most effective good practices for reducing food waste for the food industry, trade, catering and the civil sector.
• Since 2019, the head of the program has represented Hungary at the meetings of the Food Waste and Food Loss Platform of the European Commission. And in 2022, Marádék sél was invited to the European Consumer Food Waste Forum of the European Union’s Joint Research Institute and the European Commission’s Citizen Panel on Food Waste program, thus contributing to the efforts to reduce food waste not only in Hungary, but also in the other EU member states.

The European Commission evaluates all completed LIFE projects according to various criteria – environmental, economic, social usefulness, innovation, policy relevance and cost-effectiveness. Based on this, it forms the circle of finalists in three categories: nature protection, environmental protection and climate protection. The winners, selected by a jury of experts, will be presented at a ceremony organized during the Green Week of the European Union – Europe’s largest environmental protection event.

The LIFE Citizens’ Award also allows the general public to vote online for the projects they consider the best. Those who wish to support and thereby acknowledge the efforts of the No Waste program can do so by clicking on the LIFE-FOODWASTEPREV heading on the LIFE subpage (https://www.lifeawards.eu/).

Nébih