Joint action for the future: HUF 25 million at stake in E.ON Champions of Earth Competition
The annual E.ON Champions of Earth competition has proven to be one of Hungary’s most successful sustainability initiatives. This year, the competition is once again engaging numerous kindergarten and school communities to tackle local environmental problems and raise awareness. These green projects are based on collaboration among students, teachers and, in many cases, parents. E.ON is once again providing a total of HUF 25 million in funding to the entire programme, which transforms our concern for the environment into joint, joyful action.
Participants gain personal experience of how to imagine alternative scenarios for a green future, as active and energetic change-makers. Instead of climate anxiety and passivity, the ‘Champions of Earth’ play an active and cheerful role in achieving concrete results through community cooperation, initiating tangible, long-term changes in their own environment through educational trails, habitat creation, micro-gardens, or local circular economy solutions. In recent years, the initiative has reached one in 10 Hungarian preschoolers and schoolchildren, and thousands of children have experienced sustainability – not just as an abstract concept, but as a shared and successful experience.
Prior years‘ initiatives have been more diverse than anyone could have hoped for. To date, the programme can chalk up 1,200 entries, 42 winning institutions, and HUF 75 million in funding among the results achieved, and this year those figures will be topped up by an additional 10 schools/kindergartens set to join the Champions of Earth community. The winners will be selected by a 5-member panel of experts, whose choices will be once again complemented by a public vote to select one of the winners. Chairman and CEO of E.ON Hungária Group, Guntram Würzberg, chairs the judging panel, which includes sustainability experts such as climate researcher Dr Diána Ürge-Vorsatz, climate communications specialist Réka Nagy (Ökoanyu), founder of Planet Fanatics, Katalin Szomolányi, and renowned actress Lia Pokorny. The competition aims to support projects that expressly promote collaboration among students, teachers, and parents, as well as those that have a broader impact on shaping attitudes and have real, concrete impact.
In addition to providing financial support, E.ON keeps a close eye on the implementation of the winning projects. It turns this project oversight into a knowledge transfer forum for previous and future applicants, who gain deep insights into what makes a successful Champions of Earth project.
