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Digital Climathon Mendrisio 2020 inspires innovative solutions for low climate impact nutrition

Digital Climathon Mendrisio 2020 - the jury
Digital Climathon Mendrisio 2020 - the jury
Francesca Cellina, SUPSI
Francesca Cellina, SUPSI
Pio Wennubst – Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to FAO/IFAD/WFP
Pio Wennubst – Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to FAO/IFAD/WFP
Elisa Filippi, founder of TicInsect, gave a keynote speech at the beginning of the event
Elisa Filippi, founder of TicInsect, gave a keynote speech at the beginning of the event

Il Litorale

18 November 2020

Thirty participants, ten mentors, seven teams and projects, two prize-winners: these are the numbers of "Digital Climathon Mendrisio", the 24-hour event focussing on innovative projects to reduce the climate footprint of our food systems, which took place online on November 13 and 14, 2020. The first prize went to a project focussed on the recycling of organic waste and "undesired" foodstuffs, whereas the second prize was awarded for a project on the climate footprint labelling of food products.

Digital Climathon Mendrisio took place online, Friday and Saturday, November 13 and 14, 2020, together with 150 Climathons organised around the globe. The city of Mendrisio hosted for the second time the 24-hour marathon aimed at creating new ideas to tackle climate change, thus confirming its success. The around thirty participants managed to group into seven teams, most of which were formed right at the beginning of the Climathon – dismissing therefore the concern related to online interaction among unfamiliar participants.

The topic chosen this year for Climathon Mendrisio, climate and food, raised much interest, as proven by the seven project proposals presented," says Francesca Cellina, SUPSI researcher. The evaluation of these proposals was the difficult task for the jury, formed by leading representatives of institutions (Permanent Mission of Switzerland to FAO/IFAD/WFP in Rome, City of Mendrisio, the Canton of Ticino), climate and food experts (ACSI, WWF, Centro di Competenze Agroalimentari Ticino, Too Good To Go, ZHAW), and innovation experts (Agire Foundation). 

Two award-winning ideas received cash prizes to help them start working on their projects. The first prize of 5.000 Swiss francs, offered by the Canton of Ticino , went to the project named Atelier di trasformazione alimentare - il recupero degli indesiderati (Food processing lab for the recovery of the ‘rejected’), which aims at creating opportunities for reusing foodstuffs that are either unsold or rejected by large retailers because they do not meet the required standards. The second prize of 3.000 francs, offered by the Ente Regionale di Sviluppo del Mendrisiotto, went to Impact Label, a project that intends to create and test food labelling processes based on greenhouse gas emissions during their life cycle.

Digital Climathon Mendrisio 2020 was organised by SUPSI (DACD-ISAAC), Impact Hub Ticino and the City of Mendrisio, supported by - among many others - Il Litorale USI, USI CP Start-up, Cenpro, and Franklin University Switzerland.

For further information >> https://climathon.climate-kic.org/mendrisio

See the Quicklinks, or the attached document, for the full press release of the City of Mendrisio (in Italian).

The awarding of the two winning projects (in Italian)