(SMA) LIDL & PREZERO PARTNER WITH UEFA

Schwarz Group companies Lidl and PreZero have signed a long-term agreement with UEFA to promote healthy eating, exercise and circularity in football.

UEFA has announced that the companies of Schwarz Group will become its first strategic corporate partner.

It has signed a long-term agreement with Lidl and PreZero, which aims to promote innovation, sustainability and social responsibility in European football. Guy-Laurent Epstein, Executive Director of Marketing at UEFA, says: “We are delighted to welcome the companies of Schwarz Group as our first strategic corporate partner.

“Together, we are combining our strengths to shape the future of European football in a sustainable, responsible and competitive way. “Alongside Lidl, we will leverage the power of football to bring the passion for exercise and conscious nutrition beyond professional sports into grassroots sports. PreZero is the ideal partner to drive the transformation from a linear to a circular economy. “Together, we will achieve a measurable impact in stadiums and enable football organisations to make waste management and resource conservation economical, sustainable and future-proof.”

How Lidl promotes healthy nutrition

Lidl will become a sponsor of UEFA Grassroots and UEFA Take Care, where it will provide expertise for social and educational initiatives across Europe. It will also be the exclusive sponsor of UEFA Football in Schools, which has active projects in all 55 UEFA member associations. Lidl will help to support projects that promote balanced nutrition, physical activity and sport in children’s everyday lives.

Building upon this commitment, Lidl and UEFA plan to launch a pan-European digital platform which will support national associations to deliver UEFA Football in Schools. This platform will combine football, education and healthy nutrition, providing guidance and online courses for teachers and coaches.

The aim of this project is to promote active lifestyles for children through age-appropriate online content. Jens Thiemer, Chief Customer Officer at Lidl International, says: “We are further developing our collaboration with UEFA in such a targeted manner and are creating sustainable added value for society with the first strategic corporate partnership of UEFA. “With the help of UEFA and the power of football, we bring our expertise in conscious nutrition to exactly where it makes a difference: to coaches, parents and children in grassroots sports. “After all, social change is not only decided in the stadium, but above all in the schoolyard and in local clubs.”

Bringing circularity to football

Another one of Schwarz Group’s companies is PreZero, which focuses on scaling the circular economy. In its partnership with UEFA, it will help implement circular economy solutions across competitions, stadiums and organisational operations.

After previously working with leading international clubs and venues, PreZero will use its experience to provide expertise on reducing waste, optimising recycling systems and measuring environmental performance. This collaboration will also provide training programmes for football organisations and stakeholders, which helps them meet current and future sustainability requirements, as well as identifying approaches to resource management.

Marcus Sagitz, Managing Director of Marketing and Corporate Affairs at PreZero International, says: “As a pioneer of the circular economy, we are sending a strong signal: if the transition from linear waste management to a functioning circular economy in European professional sports is successful, it will serve as a model for many parts of the economy.

“Today, the circular economy is an economic necessity. That is why we empower associations and clubs to combine sustainability with economic efficiency and prove on the main football stage that the preservation of valuable resources and top-class sports are inseparable.”

Men’s team sponsorship

Lidl is also building upon its existing sponsorship of UEFA women’s national team competitions, by becoming a sponsor of the men’s national team competitions until 2030. This collaboration builds upon its successful partnership that began in 2024, when Lidl became an official partner of UEFA EURO 2024.

The new partnership between UEFA and Lidl will cover UEFA EURO 2028, which will take place in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, with Lidl joining Adidas, Atos, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Qatar Airways and Visit Qatar as an official sponsor. More of this article (Sustainability Magazine) - link - more like this (Lidl) - link - more like this (football) - link

(EUN) FREE ELECTRICITY

Europe’s outdated and under-invested energy grid means huge amounts of renewable energy are wasted every year. The case for renewable energy is stronger than ever, as the war on Iran continues to highlight the dangers of fossil fuel dependency.

While Brent crude, the world benchmark for oil prices, dipped yesterday morning (26 March) amid rising hopes of de-escalation, barrel prices have exceeded $100 (around €86.38) per barrel several times since the conflict began. Before the US-Israel war on Iran, oil prices were under €63 per barrel.

Much of the surge has been blamed on the Strait of Hormuz’s effective closure. This is one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel chokepoints, carrying around one-fifth of global oil supplies.

Analysts warn that oil prices won’t “snap back” straight after the war ends, especially if more energy infrastructure is targeted. It’s why petrol and energy prices have surged across Europe, resulting in calls to open up drilling licenses in the North Sea. However, an analysis from the University of Oxford has found that maximising oil and gas extraction here would only save UK households up to £82 (€95) per year. A UK fully powered by renewable energy, on the other hand, could save households up to £441 (€510) a year on their energy bills.

How much renewable energy does Europe waste?

Despite geopolitical tensions bolstering the appeal of green energy, Europe continues to waste billions of wind and solar energy. Last year, Britain wasted a staggering £1.47 billion (around €1.78 billion) by turning down wind turbines and paying gas plants to switch on.

Yesterday, wasted wind has cost Britain more than £1.31 million (around €1.5 million). Around £95,091 (€109,831) of this comes from switching off wind turbines (curtailment), while the rest comes from buying energy elsewhere, which often relies on fossil fuels.

In Germany, compensation costs for the curtailment of renewable energy hit €435 million last year. While this is a 22 per cent decrease compared to 2024 (€554 million) – it highlights the mass scale of green energy being wasted across Europe.

Curtailment rates rose to record levels in several EU nations including Spain and France during the first nine months of 2025, strengthening calls to tackle bottlenecks and improve energy infrastructure across the continent.

Why is Europe wasting so much renewable energy?

When wind speeds get too strong, the electricity grid is often filled with more green energy than it actually needs. “This creates rush hour traffic on the grid and the energy can’t get to where it’s needed,” Octopus Energy, a UK energy firm, states. “As a result, we pay to make it again - often with dirty fossil fuels - as well as paying to switch the wind off.”

Improving the grid will be the biggest help to reduce wasted electricity, but this is both expensive and complicated. Europe’s grid was originally planned around coal, and later gas – meaning it is designed to move electricity from centrally located plants.

Many wind farms are located in remote and offshore locations, meaning it is more difficult to transport the electricity they produce. 

Experts warn that Europe’s power grid is increasingly becoming the bottleneck to achieving Net Zero. A 2025 study by Aurora Energy Research calls for rapid grid expansion to tackle rising connection queues, congestion and limited cross-border capacity.

According to the report, congestion management costs in Europe neared €9 billion in 2024, while 72TWh of mainly renewable energy was curtailed due to bottlenecks. This is roughly equivalent to Austria’s annual electricity consumption.

While grid investment in Europe has increased by 47 per cent over the past five years to around €70 billion annually, experts warn it still falls short of what’s required.

Is free energy the solution?

Amid calls to fix Europe’s outdated energy grid, the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has unveiled plans to supply homes with discounted power on windy days. “Sometimes there is too much wind for our outdated grid to handle, especially in Scotland and the East of England,” the government wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“Rather than paying wind farms to switch off we’re trialling a new system where people who live near these constrained areas get cheaper - or even free - electricity.”

Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, which has long been pushing for reforms to provide cheaper energy rather than curtailing wind power, argues that trials are “hugely ineffective” - even though he was “pleased” with the announcement. More of this article (Euro News) - link - more like this (wind energy) - link - more like this (grid) - link

(ICN) WHEN RECYCLABLE DOESN'T MEAN RECYCLED

Frappuccino lovers, rejoice: Your plastic to-go cups are now “widely recyclable.”

That’s according to an announcement made in February by Starbucks, the waste hauler WM (formerly known as Waste Management), and three recycling groups called The Recycling Partnership, GreenBlue, and Closed Loop Partners. In a press release, they said that more than 60 percent of U.S. households can now recycle cold to-go cups in their curbside recycling bins. This makes the cups eligible for one of GreenBlue’s special labels featuring the familiar chasing arrows triangle and the words “widely recyclable.”

“To-go cups are entering a new era of recyclability,” the release said.

However, there’s a catch. Just because a product can be collected for recycling doesn’t mean it actually gets recycled. To imply otherwise is to conflate two very different numbers: the access rate and the real recycling rate. The former describes the number of people who are told they have “access” to a recycling program for a given product. The latter—the amount of plastic that is ultimately turned into new things—is what really matters, from an environmental standpoint. There’s not much evidence to suggest that the recycling rate for plastic cups is above 1 or 2 percent.

“This is one of those situations where statistics can be very misleading,” said Alex Jordan, a plastics researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. “They can pull a statistic that would make the public think that all these things are being recycled, but unfortunately even if you clean and dry and put your recycling in the recycling bin and it gets picked up, the overwhelming likelihood is that it ends up in a landfill or being burned for energy generation.”

Jordan is one of several experts across government, academia, and industry who question the feasibility of recycling plastic cups. Polypropylene, the type of plastic Starbucks’ cups are made from, is ubiquitous in packaging and foodware but not in recycling facilities. It’s often contaminated with food or other types of plastic, difficult to sort, and expensive to process—so most recyclers don’t want it.

There “just aren’t a lot of recycling centers that want to accept polypropylene,” Jordan said.

The manager of one recycling center in California, who asked not to be named, said the cup announcement represents little more than a convenient alignment of interests: It generates good press and revenue for GreenBlue, allows WM to collect more material, and casts Starbucks as eco-friendly without requiring it to move away from single-use plastic.

“Everyone wants that warm, fuzzy recyclable label,” the manager said, adding that they suspected there would be no buyers for polypropylene even if they advertised it widely. “Our phone would not ring. It’s not something there are a lot of mills out there that are buying.” More of this publication (Inside Climate News) - link - more like this (cup recycling) - link - more like this (coffee) - link - more like this (polypropylene) - link

(GUF) THE BURNING QUESTION

Are we building too many incinerators just as waste policy is designed to reduce the feedstock?

If residual waste is expected to fall significantly over the next two decades, it raises the uncomfortable question - why are we still building so many new incinerators?

Current industry reporting suggests that the UK already has 63 operational EfW plants, with 13 more under construction whilst at the same time, government policy is attempting to reduce the amount of residual waste entering the system through a series of major reforms.

Those reforms include:

• Simpler Recycling, which standardises recycling collections.
• Extended Producer Responsibility, which makes packaging producers pay the full cost of managing their waste.
• Deposit Return Scheme, designed to capture drinks containers before they reach residual waste.
• Digital Waste Tracking, which will improve regulatory oversight of waste flows.
• And now the inclusion of energy-from-waste within the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.

Each of these policies is designed to reduce residual waste over time and taken together, they represent the most significant attempt in decades to move the UK towards a more circular economy.

The addition of Emissions Trading Scheme costs to waste incineration changes the financial landscape again. Once EfW facilities must purchase carbon allowances for their emissions, the cost of burning waste will rise which in turn creates a stronger incentive to reduce residual waste, increase recycling and divert materials further up the waste hierarchy

Basically, the policy direction is clearly aimed at reducing the feedstock that EfW plants rely on and this is where the tension emerges. Building large-scale EfW facilities requires long investment horizons; typically, 25 to 30 years but the policies now being introduced are designed to shrink the residual waste stream over that same period.

Are we at risk of building too much incineration capacity just as the system is being redesigned to produce less waste to burn?

If the UK succeeds in driving residual waste down towards 10 million tonnes per year, the country will only need roughly 25 to 33 EfW plants, depending on plant size and we already have 63 operating facilities, with thirteen more still coming online.

The danger therefore may not be a shortage of incineration capacity. It may be building too much of it before the full effects of recycling and carbon policy have had time to work. More like this (legislation) - link - more like this (incineration) - link