At the Singapore Awards Ceremony of Retail Asia in November the top three retailers within 14 key markets had been honoured . One of several criteria had been also environmental issues : see news of November. But also marketing stategies, operational success, human resources and IT-investments had been reviewed by the international Jury.

The Gold Awards were given to Westfarmers/Australia, China Resources Enterprise/China, AS Watson/Hong Kong, Future Value Retail/India, Indomarco Prismatama/Indonesia, Seven & I Holdings/Japan, GCH Retail (M)/Malaysia, Foodstuffs (NZ)/New Zealand, SM Retail/Philippines, NTUC FairPrice Co-operative/Singapore, Lotte Group/South Korea, President Chain Store Corp/Taiwan, CP-All/Thailand and SaigonCo.op/Vietnam.
 

Under the patronage of the regional Ministry for climate,environment,agriculture,nature- and consumer protection of North Rhein Westfalia a German platform of experts discussed solutions against food waste (see : www.vz-nrw.de/lebensmitteltagung ). Within the panel-discussion Prof.Dr.Hallier presented the results of the EU-project Forward ( see:draft pages 1-21from the book: Food Waste Management).

At the EXPO Milano 2015 the Bocconi University will organize an international student competition in collaboration with the Expo, the Italian Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies and the European Commission - under the patronage of UN for Expo, FAO and the World Food Programme. Bocconi University will invite 200 undergraduates from around the world for a week of study, teamwork and challenges of food waste (more : www.european-retail-academy.org/ERM)
 

Each year the European Retail Academy is appointing one outstanding Professor for the Hall of Fame of ERA. For 2015 Prof.Dr.L.Wegnez from Brussels is "the man of the year" (see : Hall of Fame).

In his laudatio ERA-President Prof.Dr.B.Hallier stated :"Leon Wegnez had a strong impact on me when I came to the international retail sector in 1985. I joined him with AIDA for example to Conferences in Finland, Romania, Tunesia, Syria, Mexico or other places; I appreciated his activities for Urbanicom International with its impulses for CityMarketing - and last but not least his multi-language-skills. And still today Leon Wegnez is a benchmark for work-loads to be mastered highly efficiently !"
 

Since ten years Retail Asia Publishing is analysing together with partners the top five houndred retailers in the Asian Pacific region.Within the international jury Prof.Dr.B.Hallier is representing the European Retail Academy.

In the questionnaires filled out by the top-runners for the AWARDS was also the topic of Corporate Social Responsibilty and Green Issues gaining importance ( see also : www.european-retail-academy.org/ERM). The Award-Ceremony 2014 is in Singapore.
 

To promote R & I Networking in Europe for the 6th time the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the German State of North Rhine Westfalia invited for two days international networking under the Horizon 2020 umbrella by its agency www.zenit.de/horizon. The event was visted by 360 experts from 22 countries and was structured in parallel brokerage sessions focussing on six main topics.

Prof.Dr.B.Hallier was invited to speak about the network of the European Retail Academy and about its latest EU-Project FoRWaRd. The e-learning modules of that project will be published in the end of the year in a print edition "Food Waste Management" (more information coming soon).