NEB Prizes 2023: All Applications

The Bee Spot @ SANI is a 120m2 garden-oasis for biodiversity providing exactly what wild pollinators need to thrive: food sources combined with habitat. At the same time it creates an amazing opportunity for education of visitors of all ages through the experience of immersive educational programs. The Sani Bee Spot is an innovative, sustainable and inclusive bee-friendly garden consisting of 7 stations, dedicated to the life of bees, the most important pollinators in the EU.

Healthy Cities is a program to create healthier cities and citizens. Sanitas invites employees of large companies and individual citizens to participate, with the aim of promoting healthy lifestyles and encouraging the creation of healthier and more sustainable urban environments.

It is, therefore, a program to raise awareness about what the cities of the future should be like, sustainable and healthy.

El Roser Social Centre is a pioneering facility in Spain, designed to bring together in one place the social services of Reus, especially those aimed at vulnerable people. It offers a social canteen, temporary accommodation, food bank, and job placement workshops. The project has led to a paradigm shift in the management of the city’s social services, with more effective collaboration between public and private agents, and becoming integrating into the neighbourhood in which it is set.

A Matter of Fruit develops natural materials from local industrial juice press residues (also known as pomace), mainly using apple waste. This juice by-product is transformed into flexible films which offer a non-toxic alternative to synthetic materials and fossil-fuel based plastics. The new material is fully compostable and recyclable. In this way the initial pomace cycle is being extended and enables the matter to circulate further, replacing harmful linear systems.

Kaleidoscoop is a cross-border third-place cooperation project open to all for working, doing business and consuming differently. It brings together some 50 partners, including stakeholders in employment, the Social and Solidarity Economy, economic development and social innovation, who work together to come up with new services and activities for the territory and its inhabitants. Kaleidoscoop’s core activity is working for ecological, economic and social transition.

Can a project promoting inclusion for vulnerable people become added value for the whole community? The MOI initiative is a public-private partnership addressing the needs of the inhabitants of 4 occupied degraded buildings in Turin. More than 800 people were transferred and accompanied toward independent housing and working solutions. The buildings were liberated, renovated and transformed into a social housing project for students and youth, giving the area back to the people living there

Annunciation Square, a focal point for the Stella Maris community in Sliema, has been transformed from a busy street flanked by two rows of perpendicular parking lots into a paved square with orderly parking and reduced traffic. Public squares in the cities and villages have long played an important role in the life of our nation, and this square is no exception.

Buildings that rotate to follow the Sun, just like sunflowers, producing clean energy to power themselves and electric vehicles, while giving the users different views through the day.
Through Artificial Intelligence, the buildings can also be set to behave autonomously, adapting their behavior (rotation, opening windows, closing shutters) to reduce energy consumption for climatization and/or to maximize energy production.

The project is an inspirational reinvention of a small town in Jiu Valley (RO) mourning its mining industry's disappearance & transitioning from a male-led economy to a gender balanced one where women’s role is more central.Local enthusiasts supported by change agents stopped community's dissolution by reinventing a former coal mine as a beautiful, sustainable, inclusive central stage.Planeta Planeta is a place anchored in locals' memory, where all actors meet & experience feelings of belonging.

Sacromonte Caves Museum is a participatory project piloted by local residents’ organisation ”Vaivén-Paraíso”, to restore natural, cultural and social heritage in the valley of the Darro River. The area, in Granada (Spain) has been a refuge for ethnic minorities – particularly gypsies – since the 15th century. Residents worked with various partners to rehabilitate traditional dwellings and caves, create a botanical garden and an area for performances and projections, where visitors can discover Roma people culture and local biodiversity.