Green Ideas 2024 Competition Now Open

ARNO is excited to announce the 10th anniversary of managing the “Green Ideas” competition this year. We invite teams with ideas for green social businesses or existing initiatives to apply to the competition, which remains open until May 6th. For the complete application and additional details, please visit www.zeleniidei.mk. For assistance with applications, citizens can sign up to attend both free online workshops and live workshops.

The promotional event that launched the new call was held at Europe House Skopje with the participation of Mirjana Josifoska – regional winner from last year, owner of a green business for the production of hats and scrunchies from textile waste, Irina Tosheva – national winner of the competition and trainer at the upcoming workshops, Snezhana Jankovic from the Union of Scouts of Macedonia – representative of the largest interactive initiative for afforestation of burned areas – Borenka. At the event, there was also an online participation from Montenegro of Sanda Rakočević from Adp-Wall, who are the coordinators of the EICEE regional project where ARNO is the Macedonian partner.

The event was opened by Irina Janevska from ARNO with a presentation of the 10 regional Macedonian winners from the past 10 years and an introduction to the new concepts of the green economy.

“We are grateful that we have been in this role for 10 years, and we are very happy that Macedonia has 10 regional awards. With this competition, in addition to bringing finance to the state, we also bring knowledge about new concepts of the green social economy (such as the theory of the donut economy, regenerative economy, etc.), and we also promote a culture of transparency and cooperation. We invest a lot of effort and love into the whole process, and in everything we do with ARNO, for the 10 years that we have been in existence,” said Irina Janevska, President of ARNO.

 

At the event, attendees participated in a knowledge quiz and had the chance to win hats and scrunchies from the brand “Mirjana Josifoska” and “Borenki”, through which a tree will be planted in their name.

Online speaker Sanda Raković presented the project “EICEE-Ecosystem for Eco-Innovations and Circular Economy in the Western Balkans,” supported by the European Union. Within this project, a call for grant support for the development of a circular economy will be published by the end of the month.

“Green Ideas” is an annual competition that supports the development of small, local, and sustainable business ideas in the Western Balkans. Every year, three representatives from each country compete in two categories for prizes of $5,000 or $10,000. ARNO, for the 10th year in a row, administers the national competition “Green Ideas” and is proud that the country has produced 10 regional winners and a total investment of $95,000 for the development of green businesses. These winners include the first cooperative of organic consumers “Our Good Earth” (2015), the initiative for repairing old furniture – “SPIN” (2016), the platform “Food for All” (2017), education through illusionary eco-messages “Green Magic Production” (2017), “Bio Smart Rice” sustainable rice production (2019), “Challenger” a mobile application that rewards citizens for walking t (2019), “Wise Additive” production of a food additive from pomace (2020), “O-krug” – production of air refresheners and oils from waste orange peels (2021), We Dog Food (2022) production of protein extract from insects, and Mirjana Josifoska (2023) hats and fashion accessories made from textile waste.