Joy to Give! (Adni Öröm!), the joint donation campaign of the Charity Service of the Hungarian Order of Malta and SPAR Hungary this year made it possible to prepare gift packs from 143 tonnes of food, delivered to 19.500 families before Christmas by the staff of the charity organisation. This year, customer also had to opportunity to send personal greetings to beneficiaries through the www.adniorom.hu website.

In the “Joy to Give!” Christmas food donation campaign, people who donate are an anonymous benefactors to another family whose members they do not know. This year, to make the gift-giving experience a little more personal, donors were able to send a personal message to families in need along with their gift. The Hungarian Maltese Charity and SPAR Hungary have organised the Christmas campaign for the 26th time this year.

“3.000 volunteers have been present at the designated stores from 15 to 20 December, encouraging shoppers to donate non-perishable food items to people in need. Tens of thousands have donated this year, enabling us to collect 143 tonnes of food in donations. Customers at SPAR and INTERSPAR stores, as well as in the SPAR Online shop contributed 7,3 million HUF additionally, through purchasing donation cards personally and online. The donated non-perishable food items and money enabled our colleagues to make 19,5 thousand gift packs this year, which were delivered to families in need before Christmas,” explained Tamás Romhányi, head of communications of the charity organisation.

According to the results of a recent survey on behalf of SPAR Hungary, 78 percent of the population aged 18-65 have donated at least once, and one in three of those surveyed donate regularly. Respondents are most likely to donate to charity around the holiday seasons, and they prefer the personal way: by dropping donations into collection boxes in shops, by giving directly to those in need, by handing over products in shops, or by contacting fundraising organisations personally.

“This is why it is so important that thousands of volunteers of the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service have been deployed in our SPAR and INTERSPAR stores, contributing to the successful collection of the donations. According to the survey, 43% of donors said they can almost see the person they are helping, so they are emotionally affected by donation. That is why this year, our company has also made it possible for shoppers to send a personal message to the recipients along with the food they donate. Our customers could send this message online or by writing it on a giant postcard in our Batthyány Square store in Budapest when making a personal donation,” said Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

The food gift packs were delivered to needy families, elderly people living alone, people living with disabilities or in difficult circumstances, supported by the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service. The donations were delivered by the charity staff on the basis of a pre-prepared list of addresses, and homeless people could receive their gift in day shelters.

From March this year, customers can donate the money they would be refunded for returning aluminium cans. Thanks to the initiative there were 200,000 cans collected which is equal to more than three tonnes of recyclable aluminium. The amount that was raised is close to one million forints and will be used by the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta to fund the holidaying of disadvantaged children.

The empty aluminium cans crinkle as the machine squeezes them. It is a good feeling knowing that we are doing something for our environment when we don’t just throw them in the bin, but rather make the effort to take them to one of the selected SPAR collection points. The amount we get back for returning them we can now donate towards a good cause, so there is another positive aspect; we can help disadvantaged children with a simple action.

SPAR Hungary has been working with the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta for more than 25 years. Another milestone was reached in this partnership in March this year, when the donation option became available for customers returning aluminium cans as part of a special initiative. The value of these cans is donated towards a charitable cause, as they are used to fund the holiday camps for children in need.

“Thanks to the ‘Minden Doboz Visszajár’ (every can is refunded) initiative, the returned cans are useful in several ways. The aluminium collected gets recycled, and the donations help hundreds of disadvantaged children to have a summer holiday. Since the end of March this year there were 200,000 cans collected with this campaign which is the equivalent of more than three tonnes of recyclable aluminium. They collected almost one million forints which the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta uses to support the holidaying of disadvantaged children,” said Márk Maczelka, head of communications at SPAR Hungary.

“Children from the poorest families very often live in an isolated environment without access to opportunities, and their childhood is therefore very different from other kids of the same age. Our campaigns are designed to provide the opportunities for them, so they don’t have to grow up too early. By donating the price of the aluminium cans, customers gift these children experiences which they wouldn’t have access to,” added Tamás Romhányi, head of communications at the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta.

In 2021 there were 20 million cans returned to more than 30 machines in selected SPAR and INTERSPAR stores, which weighed 320 tonnes and equal to 2% of all the aluminium cans sold on the Hungarian market. Returnpack placed their first aluminium recycling machine at the INTERSPAR on Sibrik Miklós út in Budapest in the spring of 2010. This was followed by more than 30 machines all over the country, mostly in INTERSPAR stores. Customers usually return 20 million cans to these machines annually, which means more than 220 million aluminium cans have been recycled since the beginning of the partnership almost twelve years ago.

Returnpack Kft. protects the environment by recycling almost 70 million cans each year, which means that more than 1,000 tonnes of aluminium get returned and recycled. Their unique patent is a Hungarian innovation: the machines recognise and accept cans that are crushed or flattened.

“This is not trash. It is valuable as these cans are recyclable forever. The ‘Minden Doboz Visszajár’ (every can is refunded) initiative is working to promote the collection of these cans either selectively or by taking them to the collection points. It is easy to return these, there is no need to group them separately and a can will be recycled in eight weeks to return to the shelves of the stores in the form of an aluminium can once again,” vouched Péter Vida, Hungarian representative of the campaign and head of operations at Returnpack Kft.

The Green Committee of the new generation energy supplier ALTEO has been established and meets quarterly. Its primary objective is to prepare and implement the company’s sustainability efforts. ALTEO’s sustainability strategy, which is inextricably linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is the guiding framework for this, ranging from clean energy to responsible consumption and production to urgent action against climate change.

Among the SDGs, clean energy is the category that is most tailor-made for ALTEO, which has long placed a strong emphasis on increasing the use of renewable energy sources, expanding its renewable portfolio and improving energy efficiency. Based on its sustainability strategy, the company will invest HUF 35 billion in sustainable energy solutions by 2026, contributing directly to the SDGs focusing on sustainable cities and communities. ALTEO’s R&D&I projects interlinked with green technologies and innovation are also linked to the latter, but also partly in the category of industry, innovation and infrastructure. ALTEO’s contribution to the UN’s goal of building resilient infrastructures, supporting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and stimulating innovation is mainly focused on strengthening green transport infrastructure: 500 e-chargers are planned to be installed by 2023 and the share of the e-mobility business is expected to increase from 15 to 25 percent two years later.

The SDG on clean water and basic sanitation concerns ALTEO through water preparation, hydroelectric power plants, heating plants (district heating, hot water supply) and waste management, which is preparing for more sustainable water management by first carrying out a water-related risk analysis and a biodiversity assessment.

Closely linked to this is the objective of promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, which mainly concerns ALTEO’s waste management activities and the implementation of the Green Office Programme, which aims to make its offices completely paperless ( considering the legal frames) by 2030 and to achieve a 50% recycling rate of operational waste. Finally, ALTEO aligns almost all of its actions with one of the SDGs, which calls for immediate action on climate change.

Their carbon footprint reduction targets are to reduce their direct Scope 1 emissions by at least 20%, their indirect Scope 2 emissions by 30% and their Scope 3 emissions by 55% by 2030. They are balancing the volatility of renewables with their natural gas-fired power plants, which will allow the electricity system to operate stably and integrate more renewables. Their Scope 1  minus 50%, Scope 2 minus 75% and Scope 3 minus 100% emission reduction targets for 2050 are also designed to achieve this, so that the EU net zero target is a realistic vision. At the same time, they also want to reduce NO_x  emissions by at least 25% by 2030 to reduce air pollution. Next year, the company will report its results using the guidelines of the TCFD voluntary reporting system, which focuses on climate-related financial risks, and plans to achieve the world’s most trusted business sustainability rating, EcoVadis, by 2024.

A Green Committee, comprising both senior management and expert members, has been established to coordinate this comprehensive work. This dedicated forum monitors and approves corporate policies and long-term objectives for sustainable development and ensures that the ESG approach and climate risks are kept on the agenda. It also ensures a consistent representation of sustainability in the ALTEO Group’s external relations.