Presentation of the 4th Children and Youth Environmental Award 2021

Today, Mayor Christian Gerlitz and Managing Director of Stadtwerke Energie Jena-Pößneck Gunar Schmidt announced the winner of this year's Children & Youth Environmental Award. The motto of the competition was "Less is more - how to avoid waste". Both were able to see the creative ideas of the pupils for themselves at the Leonardo free all-day school. As the winner, the home group Spain (grades 4 - 6) received prize money of 800 euros. The participants impressed the jury with their four-week project on the topic of waste prevention, which included the development of an escape room. The topic was taught in a fun and playful way . The school also dealt with waste and recycling. The children proudly showed off a birdhouse they had made themselves from material that would have ended up in the garbage can. The children do not want to use the prize money for themselves, but to donate it to the reconstruction of affected schools in the flood area.

Further prizes will be awarded in the coming days. With eleven entries, participation in this year's competition was pleasingly high. Last year there were only five. As in previous years, the total prize money of €2,500 is being donated by the city of Jena and Stadtwerke Energie Jena-Pößneck. In addition, this year the Kommunalservice Jena is also contributing non-cash prizes.

The jury decided that all of the projects submitted by the applicants were worthy of a prize. Second place with 500 euros goes to class 2d of the Nordschule with their project "Waste-free breakfast". They dared to experiment: for seven weeks, they wanted to produce no more waste for breakfast. Two recognition prizes of 300 euros each were awarded to the Weltentdecker daycare center with their project "Waste nothing - reuse!" and the Kurz & Klein daycare center, which is on its way to becoming a "low-plastic daycare center". Finally, the Wenigenjena Community School and the HBV Jena 90 e.V. will each be rewarded with 300 euros: they have organized large-scale waste collection campaigns. The prizes in kind are handcarts for the Kinderbude and Jona & Joni daycare centers, 10 gripper tongs and vests each for the Fantasia and Glühwürmchen daycare centers and a gardening voucher for last year's winner: the Freie Ganztagsgrundschule SteinMalEins.

A competition is also planned for next year. This year, for the first time, the joint competition organized by the city and Stadtwerke Energie Jena-Pößneck was supplemented by non-cash prizes from Kommunalservice. This also underlines the importance of environmental education.

The municipal utilities have been taking action to prevent the consequences of climate change for some time now. Since 2013, Stadtwerke Jena has been supplying its almost 70,000 private customers exclusively with zero-emission green electricity from European hydropower plants - at no extra cost. This avoids 124,500 tons of CO2 emissions every year.

For every kilowatt hour of green electricity sold, a fixed amount flows into the expansion of renewable energies. Almost 5 million euros have been invested since 2013, for example in the Milda biogas plant and the photovoltaic systems on the Stadtwerke building, the Sparkassen-Arena and the depot of Jena's public transport system.

Such commitments, together with creative ideas from children and young people, form a solid foundation for making the goal of "Jena climate-neutral by 2035" a reality.

Here is an overview of all the prizes:

Main prize (1st prize) - 800 euros

• Free all-day school LEONARDO, home group Spain, grades 4-6

2nd prize - 500 euros

• North School, class 2d

Recognition prizes - 300 euroseach

• Kita Weltentdecker - "Waste nothing - reuse!", special: self-performed play on the topic of waste separation

• Kita Kurz & Klein - "Low-plastic daycare center", special: waste avoidance through self-sewn items as an alternative to plastic

Special prizes - 300 euroseach , large-scale waste collection campaigns

• HBV Jena 90 e.V.

• Wenigenjena Community School

Prizes in kind

• Kita Kinderbude (handcart)

• Jona & Joni daycare center (handcart)

• Fantasia daycare center (gripper tongs and vests)

• Glühwürmchen daycare center (tongs and vests)

• Free all-day elementary school SteinMalEins (nursery voucher)