"Environment on Your Plate" – Green Consumer Week'2013 Addresses Issues of Sustainable Food (campaign announcement) Print
News - Ecointergation News
Wednesday, 18 September 2013 18:58

sustainablefood logo_tFrom September 28 through October 4, 2013, MAMA-86 with support from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation will be conducting a new campaign within its Green Consumer Week series. This year's Week – "Environment on Your Plate" – will focus on environmentally responsible, or sustainable, food. By that we mean behavior of a person who – when buying and consuming food – not only satisfies his or her demand for healthy and tasty food but also tries to minimize the damage to environment and cares that the next generations will also have ample healthy and tasty foods, clear water, green grass, and blue sky.

Events within the campaign will be held in Donetsk, Feodosia, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Nizhyn, Nova Kakhovka, Poltava, Sevastopol, Sumy, Ternopil, and the Yaremche Raion. The campaign will be conducted concurrently with similar activities in many other countries within the framework of the Global Green Action Week.

The campaign's tasks include raising public awareness of the vital importance of sustainable food; involving representatives from public authorities, businesses, NGOs, educational and scientific institutions, and the media in a dialogue on sustainable food policy; and facilitating broad and knowledgeable media coverage of sustainable food in Ukraine. "Environment on Your Plate" also aims at promoting sustainable food ideas by encouraging representatives from various sectors to develop partnerships to work out common approaches and coordinate their actions.

The problem the campaign addresses is global. According to the UN Environment Program, the global food production occupies 25% of all habitable land and is responsible for 70% of fresh water consumption, 80% of deforestation, and 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. It is the largest single driver of biodiversity loss and land-use change. Livestock farming accounts for 18 percent of the global warming effect, more than emissions from all cars, trains and planes on Earth.

However global the problem is, it cannot be solved without support from every individual person. WE INVITE ALL THOSE WHO ARE AWARE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSERVING NATURAL RESOURCES FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS – OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN – TO JOIN THE CAMPAIGN AS PARTNERS, VOLUNTEERS OR JUST CONCERNED CITIZENS.

Contact person – Olena Skrypko:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; (44) 234 69 29; 227 02 57; (67) 403 26 09.

Please visit the Green Consumer Week site for more information on "Environment on Your Plate".

Welcome!

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Green Consumer Weeks in Ukraine – week-long concentrated awareness campaigns aimed at popularizing environmentally responsible consumption and focused on one of important themes of sustainable consumption – have been carried out since 2012 by the Ukrainian National Environmental NGO "MAMA-86" with support from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and in collaboration with various partner organizations.

The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation has been conducting similar campaigns in their country in October for many years running. These campaigns have helped significantly increase public awareness of advantages of environment-friendly way of living, develop a legal framework that encourages sustainable consumption and prohibits or limits supply of environmentally harmful goods and services, as well as form a circle of eco-responsible producers and sellers who, on their part, further the transition of the Swedish society toward more sustainable consumption behavior.