Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The award is dedicated to actions to protect the environment, the Milan project against food waste won one million pounds and support from the Royal Foundation for the coming years

Milan, October 18 2021 – On Sunday night, Prince William announced that the City of Milan, with the project of the Food policy of the neighborhood hubs against food waste, is the winner of the first edition of the prestigious international Earthshot prize on the best solutions to protect the environment .

A month ago the announcement came that he was among the 15 finalists in the "a world without waste" section and yesterday, live on the BBC and Discovery Channel, Prince William revealed the winners, after the evaluation of an international committee of experts who chosen Milan among 750 candidate initiatives from all over the world.

Together with Milan, the other four categories of the award were winners: from the Republic of Costa Rica for the protection of forests, from India for the reduction of smoke emissions into the air, from Berlin for the development of hydrogen technologies for energy production and from the Bahamas for the defense of coral reefs.

In Milan the BBC prepared a connection with London from a terrace overlooking the Duomo, in which the deputy mayor Anna Scavuzzo took part, with representatives of all the partners who make this project come alive. To celebrate the winners of the first edition of the award, London was dyed green throughout the week, illuminating Buckingham Palace, the London Eye and Piccadilly Circus with the representative color of the environment while the announcement came in the voice of Emma Thompson.

The prize of one million pounds will be used to increasingly strengthen these hubs, open new ones, guaranteeing their long-term sustainability and replicating this virtuous good practice in the network of cities that work with Milan on food policies, starting from the network of cities of C40 and the Milan Urban Food policy pact.  

Winning the Earthshot prize is the recognition of great team work that involved the entire city: thanks to the Municipality and many third sector entities, universities, large-scale retail trade and philanthropy operating in the area, today Milan has 3 hubs neighborhood in Isola (2019), Lambrate (2020) and Gallaratese (2021).

The project was born from an alliance, in 2017, between the Municipality of Milan, the Polytechnic of Milan, Assolombarda, the Cariplo Foundation and the QuBì Program. The creation of the first hub then involved the Lombardy Food Bank and made it possible to save over 10 tons of food per month, ensuring a flow of 260.000 equivalent meals in one year, which reached 3.800 people, thanks to the contribution of 20 supermarkets, 4 company canteens and 24 third sector bodies.

Subsequently, the Lambrate hub was launched immediately after the first lockdown in spring 2020, again managed by the Lombardy Food Bank in a space made available by AVIS Milan and with the contribution of BCC Milan. The third hub, in Gallaratese, is managed by Terre des hommes with the contribution of the Milan Foundation. 

The next one, in the planning phase, will be the neighborhood hub against food waste in Corvetto, with the management of the Lombardy Food Bank and the contribution of the SNAM Foundation; while to open a fifth of it, the Municipality of Milan has recently started the co-design table for the Center hub with the IBVA Association and with the contribution of BCC Milan. 

The project involves important large-scale retail brands including Lidl Italia, Esselunga, Carrefour, NaturaSi, Erbert, Coop Lombardia, Il Gigante, Bennet, Penny Market with the support of Number1 logistics group which supplied the vans for the Isola and Lambrate hubs . With the Cariplo Foundation and SogeMi, the Municipality of Milan has also launched the Foody zero waste initiative to replicate the hub model also at the vegetable market and recover fresh food together with the Lombardy Food Bank, Recup, the Southern Milanese Red Cross, the University of Milan and many other supporting partners.