The Green Danube Partnership

The Green Danube Partnership programme is a significant community water partnership that was developed in 2005 and involves conservation, awareness-raising and education. It is active in ten Hellenic countries in various stages – complete, in progress, or scheduled to launch in 2008.

The programme attracts the participation of hundreds of thousands of people, while communicating important water conservation messages to millions of others.

The Danube river system supports 81 million people in 18 countries. All initiatives are carried out jointly with governmental, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), educational institutions and various local bodies.

The Green Danube Partnership is the result of an agreement signed on 1 June 2005. It involves the cooperation of the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River Basin (ICPDR) , Coca-Cola Hellenic and The Coca-Cola Company.

Danube Day

A key element of the Green Danube Partnership programme is public awareness raising on Danube Day , conducted with the ICPDR and The Coca-Cola Company. Danube Day is the world's largest river festival, held on 29 June every year.

The annual Danube Day celebrations focus on an increasingly broad series of activities, undertaken by the Green Danube Partnership, in an effort to preserve and protect the Danube River and the Danube River Basin.

The Danube Box

In 2006, the Green Danube Partnership launched a major education initiative called the Danube Box . It was first introduced in Austria, involving more than 100,000 children in classroom sessions and project work. It is also being introduced in Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Germany.

It is designed to inform future generations about the importance of resource conservation and water management, and includes teaching aids, interactive materials, posters, maps and games.

The Danube Box was one of two projects selected from over 600 submissions in Europe to showcase at the Stockholm World Water Week in 2007. It also won a silver award in the Best Sustainable Initiative category at the Global Bottled Water Congress in Mexico City.

Business Friends of the Danube

In June 2008, the partnership launched an initiative called Business Friends of the Danube , to invite other companies to join through funding and active involvement.

The programme enables companies to contribute funding, as well as skills, to the efforts of the Green Danube Partnership to protect and preserve the Danube River and its environs. The programme was launched in June 2008 and will be promoted to businesses at various Danube Day functions.

Coca-Cola Hellenic contact

Ulrike Gehmacher
Group Public Affairs & Communications Manager
Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company S.A.
ulrike.gehmacher@cchellenic.com

2008 Danube Days

Austria

The Danube Challenge, an adventurous boat trip, is a long-term awareness raising and educational project that was launched in 2007 for young adults from 13-15 years old.

The project's objective is to establish a sustainable local youth programme to build awareness of the water resource and ecosystem of the River Danube.

The project and cooperation, between the Austrian Ministry of Environment and Coca-Cola HBC Austria, took place for the third time in 2009.

In the 2009 Danube Challenge, 22 teenagers from the nine Austrian provinces and Slovakia travelled along the Danube for four days, explored its habitat and completed exciting challenges.

The participants in this year’s Danube Challenge joined the boat trip from Linz, in upper Austria, downstream to Bratislava in Slovakia. During the various stages of the trip, they had to complete several challenges, which required both luck and knowledge.

The winning team, two students from the province of Burgenland, won an adventure day at the Danube, for themselves and all their classmates.

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, Coca-Cola Hellenic conducted Danube Day celebrations – and a range of ongoing water resource protection programmes with long-term objectives – with the Ministry of Environment and Water, the Danube Basin Directorate, local authorities and NGOs.

Events in 2008 engaged a broad spectrum of the community. On 29 June, residents of Sofia were present to an exhibition called 'Greet the Danube', which included before and after pictures of the Danube River, showing changes in lifestyle and business activities.

A regatta, a local folk dancing show and a fishing display also showed residents how abundant the marine life used to be, and how it could be again.

Danube Day events extend from Sofia into many other towns along the river, and a range of different activities continue for most of the year.

For example, the environmentally-friendly Danube Bicycle Tour engages people from many sectors of the community. Participants take part in competitions, biodiversity initiatives, eco-adventure research and other events that demonstrate simple but effective measures everyone can take to protect the Danube environment.

An educational travelling exhibition will start a visit to five towns along the Danube River in October 2008, educating schoolchildren and local residents about responsible water usage.

Continuing programmes include regional meetings with local agricultural producers to demonstrate good practices in water use and organic farming that have already been adopted in other areas.

In cooperation with experts from the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Danube-Carpathian programme , we enable producers to gain information and support for responsible and sustainable agriculture in the Bulgarian region of the Danube Basin.

Coca-Cola Hellenic in Bulgaria continues to assist in the development of a grant scheme for organic agriculture and agroecology. We are also contributing to a government initiative, Creation of Riverine Habitants, which will help to protect marine and plant life. Running until 2013, this is part of a national programme for development of rural areas.

Croatia

Croatia started its Danube Day celebrations by recognising the Sava River, which, at 945km in length, is one of the longest tributaries of the Danube River.

Sava Day's 2007 festivities began on 30 May with an eco-camp for young people, which was held in Lonsko Polje Nature Park. Participants found out about the history of the river and the territories through which it flows.

Working together with the Croatian ministries of Regional Development, Forestry and Water, the Sava Commission and local communities, Coca-Cola Hellenic Croatia informed local residents about this major tributary through various promotional activities.

Danube Day 2008 was celebrated in Croatia on 30 June, with an official programme that started at the City Theatre of Vukovar. It featured an exhibition of works by primary-school children, entitled 'Life Beside the Danube River'.

Hungary

Hungary's Danube Day celebrations started early in 2008, with the first two weeks of June being spent conducting intensive clean-up days along the river banks.

Altogether, rubbish and litter was removed from more than 100km of the riverside by volunteers. Among those taking part were employee volunteers from Coca-Cola Hellenic, many civic organisations and the Ministry for Environment.

In April 2008, Hungary launched its translation of the Danube Box at a press conference held by the State Secretary for Water Affairs. The launch was accompanied by a national student competition that focused on protection of water.

Our operations in Hungary involved the national and local media to spread awareness of Danube Day and its theme of preventing contamination of the Danube waters.

We also worked with the Minister of Environment and the National Danube Museum in Esztergom on other awareness-raising events.

Romania

The Romanian slogan for festivities in 2008, 'May Good Things Come Together', was used to communicate the importance of preventing contamination of the Danube River and preserving its resources for future generations.

Prior to 29 June, daily emails were sent to employees at Coca-Cola Hellenic in Romania to help generate excitement about the celebrations.

Working together with the ICPDR, Coca-Cola HBC Romania, the Romanian Ministry of Environment and Water Management, the Ministry of Education, the Save the Danube and Delta Association and many others developed a number of interesting and unusual events to help convey environmental messages to a wide audience.

One creative event was the launch of the Romanian version of the Danube Box, along with a very special test. A group of Romanian politicians were taught ecological lessons by students from Drobeta Turnu Severin, the first town the Danube passes as it enters Romanian territory.

At the end of the lessons, the politicians were quizzed on their knowledge of Danube River issues. When it's introduced, the Danube Box will become part of environmental studies in 22 schools.

In all six counties in Romania, local authorities organised events for children on the river banks. A major event was the Danube Caravan, organised in conjunction with the Ministry of Environment.

This involved helping 600 children to collect and analyse water samples to test quality and gain an understanding about the importance of the river waters as a community resource. Other events included sporting activities and the presentation of art works as part of the Danube Art Master competition.

Serbia and Montenegro

As Serbia held the presidency of the ICPDR for 2008, a broad programme of activities was prepared to publicise the importance of preserving water resources now and in the future on Danube Day.

In the lead up to Danube Day 2008, a two-week eco-camp was held for students in July 2007. It offered comprehensive information about water conservation and the role of the Danube River in the lives of the communities through which it passes.

The camp was repeated in 2008, with 60 students from 12 educational institutions taking part. The theme was 'How Water Pollution Impacts the Environment'.

On 29 June, a huge clean-up programme was carried out along the banks of the Danube River involving Coca-Cola Hellenic employee volunteers, school students, NGOs, the Packaging Waste Association in Serbia (SEKOPAK), boat restaurants and the media.

Danube Day celebrations included a wide range of awareness-raising events, including concerts, tours, presentations and exhibitions of student art as part of the popular Danube Art Master competition.

A working group – cooperating with the Institute for Education Development – is preparing the Serbian translation of the Danube Box for submission to the Ministry of Education, with the expectation that it can be introduced into schools in the 2009/2010 academic year.

Slovakia

Danube Day in Slovakia was celebrated on 24 June, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment. It involved a range of activities, mostly aimed at educating and informing young people and reminding adults about the need to protect water resources for future generations.

About 500 primary-school children took part in a range of competitions and knowledge quizzes. They and their parents attended interesting and fun lectures that gave an insight into the history and role of the Danube River.

A significant contribution to Danube Day 2008 is the participation in the Danube Challenge, which is being conducted as a cooperative activity between the Slovakian and Austrian ministries of environment.

The Danube Challenge's slogan is 'The Danube – river without borders'. It provides an excellent example of the importance of people from different nationalities working together to protect the iconic river.

Slovenia

Coca-Cola HBC Slovenia supports activities organised by the Sava Commission in recognition of Sava Day on the 1 June every year. The celebration includes distribution of promotional materials in the cities of the countries that the Sava River runs through, including Ljubljana.

Together with the Ministry of the Environment and other Slovenian businesses, a partnership will be created to support and protect the waters of the Sava river. Two workshops have already taken place and activities will be expanded in 2009.

Ukraine

Coca-Cola HBC Ukraine is working with various government authorities, educational and environmental groups, NGOs and children's organisations in Ukraine to spread the Danube Day message as widely as possible.

Two large exhibitions – called 'Green Innovation for Sustainable Development of the Danube Area' and 'Treasures of Danube Nature', a photography collection – showed different facets of the environment through which the Danube River flows and stressed the importance of protecting the natural habitat.

Information based on presentations at the exhibitions was distributed (including posters, CDs and teaching guides) to educational institutions in five regions bordering the Danube.

Classes showing how different creative works can be made from natural materials will be taught to young children, to help them understand how much could be lost if protection measures are not carried out.