The Europe Challenge

Challenge team: Klaipeda City Municipality Immanuel Kant Public Library (LT) and the local green community

Population of Klaipėda: 152,000

Summary: The Immanuel Kant Public Library in Klaipėda, Lithuania is working with the local community to tackle food waste and social isolation through community events.

Around one third of the food produced around the world goes to waste – that’s the shocking fact that this challenge team in Lithuania wanted to confront head on, while also tackling other pressing concerns such as the rising cost of living and social isolation.

The Immanuel Kant Public Library in Klaipėda is working with the local community to bring people around the table for communal lunches and food club events to talk, learn, share food planning ideas and to consider how to live more sustainably and efficiently in the face of climate change and the cost of living crisis.

The initiative was given the name “It is tastier together” (“Kartu-skanu” in Lithuanian). For the challenge team, it’s also important to incorporate a sense of belonging and togetherness, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic and against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.

 Most of the community members involved in the initiative so far are women, who tend to be the main householders in charge of the food shopping and meal planning. The challenge team has already seen small changes in day-to-day shopping habits and household resource management as a result of the activities.

They have ambitions to scale up the project to tackle food waste and bring people together across Europe – helping people across the continent to live more sustainably. 

They said: “Our dream idea is the continuity of our food club, designed to gather people, and seeing other teams in Europe scaling up with our social project concept.”

Local solutions to change Europe