In Germany in Bad Mergentheim students of "Strategic food management" have on the one hand side a job - and on the other hand they study for their BA-diploma. Twenty of them discussed in an 8-hours-crash-course with Professor B. Hallier and his two Finnish trainees Johanna Rinne and Sampsa Hyväri about the internationalization of the markets.

At the Fourth Annual Food Industry Summit of Prof. Dr. John Stanton from St. Joseph's University/Philadelphia/USA and Prof. Dr. Hallier of the European Retail Academy agreed to run in the USA a joint seminar to compare Environmental Retail Management in the USA and Europe

In the middle of March a documentary film was launched with the title of „The 4th Revolution – Energy Autonomy“ in Cologne/Germany. Examples from 10 countries on 4 continents show how to switch from traditional concepts to sustainable energy

Interesting is also how the film was financed: beside one investor of 550,000 Euro the rest of the 1.4 million Euro project was paid by “micro-financing” of interested stakeholders with rates ranging from 1,000 to 150,000 Euro (More; information via Email)
 

The University of Nitra/Slovakia is coordinating a 12-countries-research mapping the situation of CSR in current use within a Leonardo – project. The work- load is split with the following tasks for the partners:

• Cyprus will be responsible for issues related to sustainability in rural areas
• Czech Republic will be responsible for social awareness and education
• Finland will contribute in the field of sustainable business, innovation and environmental sustainability.
• Germany will deliver contribution on Environment Retail Management and different aspects of CSR in supply chain and its links
• Italia will contribute with experiences related to the impact of culture-led social revitalisation events; also knowledge of socially-focused place making initiatives for community revitalisation, particularly aimed at disadvantaged groups of society (e.g. participants at risk of social exclusion, migrants, refugees).
• Netherlands will be responsible for delivering issues related CSR and nature of the business, potential business benefits and competitiveness and stakeholders priorities
• Poland will be responsible for CSR and sustainability in agri-food sector, focusing on ethical values, consumer loyalty and brand differentiation
• Portugal will deliver knowledge and experiences on safety issues practices in SME, also in disadvantageous regions and policy recommendations for NGO
• Romania will be responsible for delivering of practical implementation of CSR issues in business (including ethical training, human resources and stakeholders priorities and green building)
• Slovakia being a coordinator in the same time will be responsible for issue of globalization, market forces and ethical issues as new challenges for being socially responsible in local communities.
• Slovenia will be focused on social context in border area, territory divided after the second world war with interruption of economic, social and cultural relations; cross-border cooperation towards local development
• Turkey will be responsible for environmentally friendly agricultural production and marketing

Asking its exhibitors for the main topic at the upcoming EuroCIS exhibition in March in Dusseldorf /Germany the answers are: green IT! Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility are the drivers for the development and implementation of energy-saving products. While the backstage uptil now was seen at retail/wholesale mainly as a question of investment-decision, now the choice is influenced also by the marketing – departments at the retailers which want to use “Green IT” as a part of their communication strategy with the consumer. “Green IT” seems to be a win within the competition.