MAMA-86 is implementing the "Green Change" project with financial support from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC)

Implementation period: January 2013 – December 2015.

The project goal is to promote sustainable consumption (SC) within the Ukrainian society.

The project aims at building capacity of civil society activists, the MAMA-86 network in the first place, to carry out relevant information activities and implement practical SC projects, enhancing information exchange of SC project ideas and best practices via online interactive platforms and conducting issue-centred nation-wide awareness-raising campaigns.

The Green Change is a logical follow-up to, and builds on, a previous project of MAMA-86 also supported by SSNC – People’s Eco-Life. One of the project's tools for attaining its goal was the awareness-raising campaign Green Consumer Week.

Activities of the Green Change address several target groups:

• Civil society activists engaged in promotion of sustainable consumption – MAMA-86 members and volunteers in the first place and also members of other NGOs and civic movements;
• Youth, 15-35 years old, including schoolchildren and students;
• Individual consumers and households in selected communities where targeted information campaigns and pilot projects are run;
• Ukrainian society in general, reached through wider information campaigns and online information tools;
• Policy makers on the national and local level;
• Businesses that may become sustainable consumers in their own operation or could offer their customers sustainable choice.

The project is achieving its goal through realization of the following objectives:

• Strengthen the capacity of civil society activists, primarily members of MAMA-86, to effectively conduct awareness-raising campaigns, as well as build up partnerships with other stakeholders;
• Establish proper informational support and exchange for SC promotion in Ukraine among the project's target groups;
• Effectively advocate policy changes necessary to ensure Ukraine’s transition to a SC model;
• Raise awareness of SC among the population through intense issue-centered campaigns (Green Consumer Week).

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The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation initiated the practice of SC campaigns – Green Weeks – in their country as long ago as in 1990, and since then it has been holding them annually in early October. The theme of each Week changes from year to year.

MAMA-86 held the first Ukrainian Green Consumer Week under the motto "Environmentally Clean Laundry for Ukrainians" in conjunction with other NGOs, enterprises, schools and concerned citizens in October 2012, also with support from SSNC. The campaign aimed at encouraging Ukrainians to reduce their consumption of washing powders with high content of phosphates and surfactants, which threaten human health and destroy the ecosystems of water bodies. Actions were carried out in 12 Ukrainian cities of those having branches of MAMA-86. The activities included panel discussions, news conferences, round tables, street and online actions, consumer chats, lectures, eco lessons at schools, presentations, media stories, etc.

The Week'2013 is dedicated to the issue of sustainable food.