EuroCommerce/Brussels and the European Commission (DG Environment) for 10 years already cooperate developing common goals to promote sustainable consumption, reducing the environmental impact of the EU retail sector and its supply chain. One of the cooperation tools is as a voluntary initiative the Retailers' Environmental Action Plan.

Participating in the celebration event in Brussels Prof.Dr.B.Hallier underlined that the dialogue between governments, sciences and entrepreneurs is of utmost importance in a Civil Society: together they are the rule-setters of economic growth, ecological supply and ethical distribution.
 

In 1972 when Bernd Hallier was in Stellenbosch/Cape Province as an AIESEC-student exchange his South African partner was Roger Chennels from Eshowe/Natal - both having students' dreams about the future of Africa. It was still the time of Apartheit (separation between the white and coloured people as the collage of the 72-pics shows) , but the farm of the Chennels family was a kind of "free zone area" where white Liberals, Churchmen and Zulu-tribe-heads met. Roger Chennels continued the spirit of his father Guy and became a lawyer : fighting for the underpriviledged people.

It is worth mentioning that after the change of the political system in the week when in 2019 the South African "all-coloured team" was becoming World Champion in Rugby for the first time: BBC was sending a report about Ethical Payment in the RooibosTea Industry with the following statement of Roger Chennels :"In short over 10 years we have negotiated a world first benefit sharing agreement under the Nagoya Protocol of the CBD which gives to the San and Khoi indigenous peoples a 1.5% royalty in respect of each kg of Rooibos processed, in acknowledgement of their traditional knowledge that contributed towards the Rooibos industry".
 

ERA-president Prof.Dr.Hallier announced the 14th honored personality of the Hall of Fame : standing as the main focus for 2020 ! It is the Nobel Peace Award Winner of 2004 : Prof.Dr.Wangari Muta Maathari from Kenya - she got the Nobel Award for sustainable development, peace and democracy ( see also Hall of Fame).

"At the present time we have a renaissance of the fact-files about the limits of growth and the urgent need to optimize economics,ecology and ethics for a global house of harmony. On the other hand we have the disappointment about politics seeing that 50 years (half a century) have passed without any major changes for healing our world and common spiritual values. Prof. Maathari with her fights for better life should be a light-house for academia and decision-makers" Prof.Dr.Hallier said in his laudatio.
 

ANUGA is the abbreviation of the German heading "Allgemeine Nahrungs- und Genussmittel-Ausstellung" - shortly translated : exhibition for food products . It was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart, followed in the next years by exhibitions in Munich, Hannover, Berlin and Magdeburg. In 1924 it moved to Cologne, which was also a political demonstration as at that time the Cologne area was separated after World War I from the rest of Germany. In fact it remained in that town uptill today.

After World War II the fair was run bi-annually. Since 2003 ANUGA was labelled "10 special shows under one roof" aiming to promote ten food segments like "milk-products", "meat". In 2017 a total of 7400 companies from 107 countries exhibited at ANUGA - being visited by 165 000 food specialists from 198 countries. In 2017 also at ANUGA the special Site www.european-retail-academy.org/TUN was launched as a Thematic University Network to promote standards for food and food education.

Getting to know the European Retail Academy by her co-student Sampsa Hyväri in Oulu / Finland Trang Pham from Vietnam used the possibility to improve her vocational competences and communication skills creating a YouTube about her home country (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dfWIyw7va0)

Prof.Dr.B.Hallier , being coach of the students , sees in the involvement of the young people the chance for global understanding of different cultures and even better understanding the profile of the own culture. "Exchanges are enhancing the awareness of common ethical interests " he stated - having been during his own studies between 1968 and 1973 himself in Israel, Turkey, USA, South Africa and Japan.