Danish food waste pioneer receives the Honour of Ekotopfilm Award

Overview

In 2008, Selina Juul founded the Stop Wasting Food movement (Stop Spild Af Mad) in Denmark, which has today become a national and international movement against food waste, initiating hundreds of project and activities, engaging hundreds of volunteers and students, collaborating with governments, EU and UN – and creating tangible results. Lately, every 2nd Dane has become aware of the importance of fighting food waste – and the numbers from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency reveal that Danish households have reduced food waste by 14.000 tons within 6 years.

Recently in Bratislava, Slovakia, the Founder of Stop Wasting Food Movement Selina Juul has accepted an international prestigious Honour of Ekotopfilm Award for her 11 years of work against food waste.

The Honour of Ekotopfilm Award is designed to evaluate the major national and international personalities for outstanding services achieved in sustainable development, for major breakthroughs, human or cultural activities, or for lifetime achievement and for the development of human society. The Honour of Ekotopfilm award was established in 1998.

Former Vice President of USA among the laureates
Among the laureates of Honour of Ekotopfilm Award count former Vice President of the United States of America Al Gore, renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, world-renowned environmentalist and underwater explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau, Founder of the retail furniture chain IKEA Ingvar Kamprad, former President of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic and former President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel, former Danish Minister of the Environment Svend Auken – and Founder of the Prince Albert II Foundation, H.R.H. Prince Albert II.

Ekotopfilm is an International Festival of Sustainable Development Films and the oldest film festival worldwide with focus on sustainability and environment protection established in former Czechoslovakia in 1973. Ekotopfilm has been recognizing filmmakers, who have contributed to humanity’s knowledge of the environment. Festival believes that making their work available for the general population will result in more people becoming aware of the critical nature of many environmental issues. Ekotopfilm’s aim is to change the social behavior in relation to the sustainable development in an inspiring way and to create a space for open discussion on issues of sustainability.

“We were delighted to hear that Selina Juul has accepted our invitation to receive the Honour of Ekotopfilm Award. We are not only a film festival but also a platform for public, where they can learn about sustainability and take inspiration from. Food waste is a global problem with many local initiatives struggling to make an effective change at state level. Selina is a clear proof that tireless effort and co-operation has born its fruit. Her on-going fight against the food waste is very inspiring. This urging issue interferes with global agriculture, economy, climate change, waste management and social justice. Food should be connecting people. We believe that thanks to activists like Selina we can make a world a better place”, says Ekotopfilm festival director Peter Lím.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive the Honour of Ekotopfilm Award,” says Selina Juul. “It’s a great international recognition of Stop Wasting Food movement’s work, it’s volunteers and ambassadors and the importance of the fight against food waste. For 11 years, we’ve worked hard to put focus on food waste on the agenda on citizens, businesses, media, governments, EU and UN. It’s at utmost important that we start preventing and reducing the world soft losses and waste. In the world of increasing pollution growth, increasing climate change and decreasing biodiversity, we can no longer afford to produce food to feed our garbage.”

Food waste on EU and UN agenda
Among Stop Wasting Food’s over 200 projects and activities, the organization has launched a school education campaign on food waste supported by the Danish Ministry for the Environment, which was used and was downloaded and used by schools and students over 4.900 times. Since 2011, Stop Wasting Food and its many partners saved over 320 tons of free good surplus and redistributed the food to charities and food insecure families. Last year, Stop Wasting Food helped launching sale of “wonky” and “ugly” vegetables in Danish supermarkets, saving 75 tons of “ugly” tomatoes.

Selina Juul and Stop Wasting Food has also a collaboration with Her Royal Highness Princess Marie of Denmark, with whom they did a cooking event for school children at home of the Princess and also launched school education campaign in collaboration with the Municipality of Copenhagen. Selina Juul has over 92.000 followers on combined social media and has generated over 8.000 national and international appearances, over 300 TV appearances and appearances on news networks such as BBC and CNN. The BBC video about Selina Juul’s work went viral on Facebook and received over 30 million views, inspiring millions of people all around the world.

Selina Juul is a contributor to over 30 Danish and international books and publications, blogger on food waste in The Huffington Post, New York, USA, previously blogger in Denmark’s largest newspapers Jyllands-Posten, Politiken, and Information, creating over 200 articles on food waste, among them 7 opinion-editorials with Danish Ministers. She also published as award winning leftovers cookbook “Stop spild af mad – en kogebog med mere” at Denmark’s biggest publishing agency Gyldendal. She also did over 300 talks on national and international conferences, did two TEDx talks on food waste and spoke at Nordic Business Forum for an audience pf 7.500 people from 40 countries.

Selina Juul is a member of Champions 12.3 global coalition against food losses and food waste with aim to promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, board Member of the Danish Government’s Think Tank on the Prevention of Food Waste and Food Losses (Selina Juul was an originator of the think tank’s concept), and member of Danish Minister for the Environment’s Global Strategic Partnership for World Food Summit – Better Food for More People.

Selina Juul is also a member of European Commission’s EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste, partner of the United Nations SAVE FOOD initiative and partner of the FAO/UNEP Think.Eat.Save campaign. She is also a co-signer of international Joint Declaration Against Food Waste, Danish Minister for the Environment’s Charter Against Food Waste, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ SAVE FOOD Declaration FoodDrinkEurope’s Food Wastage Declaration “Every Crumb Counts”. For her work against food waste, Selina Juul was previously awarded with among others Nordic Council Nature and Environment Prize, Svend Auken Prize, The Womenomics Influencer Award, European Young Leader title, Dane of the Year 2014 title, JCI Denmark’s The Outstanding Young Person award and received a Cross of Merit Pro Utilitate Hominum from Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller.

In 2015 at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York, more than 150 world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 aims to by 2030 halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.

At the Ekotopfilm festival in Bratislava, Selina Juul gave with a free lecture on food waste, and at the Ekotopfilm festival showed the international award-winning film “UseLess: Documentary on Food Waste” by film director Rakel Garðarsdóttir, in which Selina Juul is also featured.

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More information:

Contact info of Ekotopfilm:
Phone: +421 903 651 987
info@ekotopfilm.sk

Website link to the Honour of Ekotopfilm Award:

Honour of Ekotopfilm