In February 2022, public affairs experts at FIPRA volunteered their strategic advice to Generation Climate Europe, the main youth-led coalition network targeting climate and environmental issues.
Food waste accounts for about 5% of EU greenhouse gas emissions associated with the EU’s overall food consumption footprint. Halving food waste is a political priority in Europe and is linked to SDG 12.3 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which calls for the reduction of food loss and waste in production and supply by 2030.
Climate Generation Europe’s project is aiming to develop a campaign on food waste for 2023 and advocate for stronger policies facilitating the use of digital tools and practices to limit the amount of food waste and food loss generated worldwide.
As part of its new strategy for 2023, Climate Generation Europe decided to focus its attention on food waste policy advocacy. Their main aim was to raise awareness to encourage and facilitate the use of tools and practices to limit the amount of food waste and food loss generated worldwide. In particular, the use of digital tools to combat food issues, to advocate for stronger policies to encourage the use of digital tools such as food waste apps like Too Good To Go.
Guiding the Policy Process
Laura Mazzei, account manager at FIPRA, delivered an introductory session with an overview of the EU and Global policy developments in synergy with the topic of food waste prevention and reduction targets.
“Once we better framed the Strategy plan, we suggested ways to raise visibility on the topic of food waste in partnership with EU institutions (i.e. EU Green Week, EU Citizens panel on food waste, European Parliament Resolution on food security) and communications. We also supported Climate Generation Europe by providing feedback and ideas for other media articles aimed to raise awareness on the issue.” (Laura Mazzei, account manager at FIPRA)
Meaningful initiative
The issue of reducing food waste is very close to each one of us. By reducing food waste, we can improve food security and eventually optimise our resources and energy consumption.
“I encourage making time in our personal life to give back to the society we live in. TGL is a meaningful initiative that brings stakeholders together to contribute to key societal challenges, using a bottom-up approach and effective tools for a higher purpose,” said Laura Mazzei.
Once the strategy was finalised with the aid of FIPRA, Climate Generation Europe’s team continued with the shaping of their project concerning the food waste policy advocacy based on the provided advice from the FIPRA representative.
On the part of Climate Generation Europe, Maria Silvia, and Harry Dalton highlight their experience with the service and advice on the Pro Bono basis “The pro bono assistance proved to be quick and efficient, and we were supported throughout the process of getting in contact with the partner in a really short timeframe which helped us in finalising our aims of the project.” (Maria Silvia Romanin and Harry Dalton, project co-leads on food at Generation Climate Europe)
Are you working on an ambitious project for civil society but have limited resources? Get in touch with Pro Bono Europe and we will help you connect with professionals available to help on a pro bono basis.