| What We Do | The Hungarian Tudatos Vásárlók Egyesülete (TVE, Association of Conscious Consumers), has been promoting sustainable, circular, ethical, fair and just lifestyle choices since 2001. For this purpose TVE runs awareness raising campaigns and behaviour change programs as well as research. It publishes the Conscious Consumer magazine and product tests. |
| Location | Budapest, Hungary |
| Member Since | 2009 |
| Audiences/Sector | Consumer/Community |
| Member Type | Member organisation |
| Our Mission | Our team is dedicated to helping environmental and social issues make more of an impact in the personal decision making of consumers. Besides campaigning and informing consumers since 2009 we put increasing emphasis on facilitating behaviour change for decreasing the ecological footprint of consumers and maximizing their social impact. |
| Areas of Work | - Provide science-based information to consumers to make more sustainable choices (free and subscription-based product and service tests); - Publish own consumer media contents and calls for action related to sustainable consumption, consumer engagement and behaviour change (tudatosvasarlo.hu); - Lead behaviour change programs; - Promote local, sustainable and fair food supply chains, especially community supported agriculture and other local solidarity based food systems, and the expansion of markets for real green and fair products; - Provide digital innovations for sustainable and fair consumer choices: Conscious Consumer phone app. |
| Success Stories | Conscious Consumer magazine (tudatosvasarlo.hu) We launched our online sustainable lifestyle magazine in 2004 and it was the first lifestyle magazine dedicated to this topic, front runner of many mainstream magazines that by today also cover sustainability issues. Ever since we are still the only dedicated, independent, ad free magazine for sustainability. Our annual readership (without product tests) exceeds 1.3 million individual users. Conscious Consumer App In 2021 we launched and promoted the Conscious Consumer app, which helps people find products that are less harmful to health and the environment by scanning the barcodes of products during shopping. More than 20.000 people downloaded the app in the first two years. News about the app was featured 87 times in the Hungarian media in 2021, reaching nearly 800,000 readers. EcoTeams behaviour change program The EcoTeams have been running since 2010. EcoTeams in practice means small (5 to 10 members) peer support groups led by a coach. In a step-by-step process, participants learn how to make their consumption and lifestyle more sustainable. We train volunteer coaches who then run their own groups supported by mentoring. Since the beginning we trained more than 500 volunteer coaches and more than 3000 people participated in the program, making an impact on the lives of more than 7200. The program includes modules for improving the sustainability literacy of participant, eg. how to read product labels, green claims. The EcoTeams is followed by an impact measurement module that shows that the program is efficient in reducing the ecological footprint of participants and keep their new, sustainable routines on several years term. Product tests We publish 30 product and service tests annually, when possible also assessing the sustainability features of the test subjects. In 2014 we made a test for pesticide residues in baby food products. One of the products contained residues above the legal threshold. The test was delivered in cooperation with the food authority that ordered for product withdrawal. The company sued us in court, but finally we won the case. |
| Project Highlights | Our projects include: community supported agriculture, household behaviour change programs, fairtrade, market reports. |
| Visit | Magyar változat: https://tudatosvasarlo.hu/tve/ English version: tudatosvasarlo.hu/english |
| Connect | Facebook: @tudatosvasarlokegyesulete Instagram: @tudatos.vasarlok YouTube: @TudatosVasarlokEgyesulete |
| Contact | [email protected] |