New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Initiative category

Identify the award category for which this initiative is being submitted
Shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life-cycle thinking

Email user
geral@peggada.com

Basic information
Initiative title
Peggada

Full initiative Title
The online platform that connects sustainable businesses with consumers seeking greener lifes

Please provide a short, catchy description of your initiative to be used in communication towards the public.
Peggada was born to create a community that actively contributes to a better world through responsible consumption and sustainable development awareness. There's a business directory where projects with sustainable practices and circular economy are curated using meticulous criteria - second-hand shops, restaurants, hotels, sustainable brands, and bulk stores, among other categories. In addition, we create daily educational sustainability-related content and awareness of events on this topic.

What was the geographical scope of your intiative?
National

Where was your intiative implemented?
Member State(s) and Western Balkans
Portugal

If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
It started in Lisbon but expanded to all Portugal regions. The website is now being translated into English; hopefully, the project can grow to other countries too.

Does your initiative address mainly urban or rural issues?
It addresses urban-rural linkages

Does your initiative refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)

Has your initiative benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
No

Has your initiative won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Does your initiative has a minimum level of maturity? The minimum level of maturity is exemplified by stakeholder/ initiative promoter commitment to implement the initiative in practice and a clear methodology /approach.
Yes

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As an individual
Please provide the contact details for the intiative promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the intiative).
- First name: Ligia
  Last name: Gomes
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Portugal
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Rua Andrade 4, rc drt
  Town: Lisbon
  Postal code: 1170-015
  Country: Portugal
  Direct Tel: +351 969 050 585
  E-mail: geral@peggada.com
  Website: https://peggada.com/
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
- URL: https://www.instagram.com/mypeggada/
  Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): @mypeggada
- URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peggada/
  Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): Peggada
In case my initiative is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my initiative in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
NEB Newsletter

Description of the initiative
Please provide a summary of your initiative
Peggada was born to create a community that actively contributes to a better world through responsible consumption and sustainable development awareness.
This platform unites sustainable projects with consumers seeking a life of more conscious choices. Until now, the information was spread all over Instagram pages and blogs; with this website, everything is connected. We did a survey, and 48% of the people said that one of the biggest struggles to have a more sustainable life is understanding if their choices are ethical and sustainable or if they are being victims of greenwashing. 28% of the respondents also said it is difficult to find reliable information. With that in mind, we created a business directory where projects with sustainable practices are curated - second-hand shops, restaurants, hotels, sustainable brands, and bulk stores, among other categories. Different stakeholders helped define meticulous criteria to ensure no greenwashing. In addition, there's the creation of educational articles, tips, recipes, interviews and information about sustainability-related events — such as workshops, courses, or conferences.
We aspire to a future where people's consumption choices impact how industries create their products. The project aims to act on spreading awareness about the circular economy, ethical and fair trade options, reducing food waste, and information on energy efficiency, among others. The ambition is to ensure that people know that their shopping habits impact other humans and the planet and that, with that in mind, they decide to change their consumption habits.

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with 5 key words.
circular economy

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
responsible consumption

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
sustainable development

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
sustainability awareness

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
education

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of sustainability and how these have been/will be met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
Imagine this scenario: you have a sustainable project, and you're trying to grow, but there's more than 200 million Instagram accounts as competitors who are also trying to reach new customers/users. Now, the other side: you are a conscious consumer but lost amid so much information, so many businesses, and some greenwashing. Peggada was created to be a reliable digital platform that connects sustainable projects with consumers who want to pursue greener lives with a directory, news and events about sustainability. We believe there was a need for a platform that gathers all the information about sustainability and circular economy that people can digest and engage with.
We want to ensure every human has the proper tools for a greener life. We realized that some people in Portugal wanted to have more sustainable habits but didn't know that there were already sustainable businesses around them. We engage daily with our community to understand their needs and respond to people's questions in the different phases of their sustainable path. Each article and business listing on our website includes the SDG's the project is actively working on and invites people to know more about the 17 SDG's.
We want to develop the right tools to curate even better the good projects, write positive climate news and spread awareness about these topics. We want to cover our country adequately (we have some regions with more information than others) and expand to other countries. We already have some partnerships and would like to keep partnering up with different stakeholders and experts to make our content more reliable. We have been working with some companies to provide sustainability awareness using their internal websites and newsletters to engage with their employees. One of our primary goals is also reaching younger generations - we started a TikTok account and want to start creating good content to be present in schools. We are ambassadors of the European Climate Pact.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
People like and need to feel that they belong and that there is a sense of community around them. Sometimes people who live and work with us don't share the same values or care about these topics, and our motivation might decrease. That's why those who make more conscious choices also need a safe network where they can feel they belong. It's a way to share knowledge, discover what you can do next, and learn about new possibilities daily. Peggada serves as an aggregating point for this community since it is a safe place where those who seek a more sustainable life have valuable tools and connect to other peers who live similarly. The fact that our community can see daily the engagement, actions and comments of people that care about climate change, circular economy, social impact and sustainability encourages their impactful attitudes. We always ask our audience for feedback, and we've been implementing a lot of their suggestions - we want our community to have an active voice. We also write mostly about positive news on these topics - we want to avoid eco-anxiety and promote focusing on good achievements.

We also tried to create a website about sustainability that is appealing and has good usability. Our articles draw attention to sustainability issues that all citizens need to be aware of in a way that is easy to read and engage. We try to have the maximum information on each business listing and article about what that particular project is doing to be more environmentally and socially sustainable. We have information about SDGs in each entry on our website, and the SDGs are searchable, leading to people engaging with the causes they support.

We aim to do an app to make sure the quality of the experience is even better. Using a map and geolocation would help people make sustainable choices immediately, regardless of country. We have an Instagram with great aesthetics where we curate world-positive news about sustainability every Friday.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
We believe that sustainability is about the environment but also includes social impact. Our criteria to add projects/businesses in our directory also consider inclusion. Inclusion is referenced in various parts of the SDGs and specifically in parts related to education, growth and employment, inequality or accessibility.

Fair salaries, projects that give opportunities to the homeless, prisoners or mentally impaired people, and food diet inclusion are examples of details we have in our criteria for adding a project to our directory or writing an article about it. As mentioned earlier, we add in each article and business listing the SDG's the project is contributing for.
Example: here you can find a list of projects and businesses that contribute for SDG 10 - Reducing Inequalities: https://peggada.com/?select=ods+10&lp_s_loc=&lp_s_tag=&lp_s_cat=&s=home&post_type=listing

and here are the articles we wrote about this SDG - https://peggada.com/tag/ods-10/

We tag each content on our website with the SDG it supports, and this is searchable. Using this information, our users can decide on the business and project they want to support/buy from. We also use our newsletter to explain how to use the website to find which projects work on inclusion.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the initiative and civil society have been/will be involved in the initiative and what has been/will be the impact of this involvement on the initiative
Since the start, the primary focus has been building the community. The project impacts people that influence their family and friends to live more responsibly. Peggada's network includes influencers, journalists, experts, and companies who help spread awareness about this topic daily. The project has 1300 newsletter subscribers, more than 7000 followers on Instagram and about 500 businesses listed for free in the directory. The number of the website's pageviews has been steadily increasing too. We constantly ask for feedback from the community and promote that everyone should have an active voice. The businesses listed in our directory have a place where they can be found by conscious consumers and tell us how important this is for them several times. Our goal is to curate good projects about social impact and sustainability and make information about them available to end-users. We hope that by spreading knowledge about sustainability and circularity, we will be able to impact how people consume and how industries and companies design their future products - taking into account that people want products and services with a more positive impact. The citizens benefit from having a platform that tries every day to have the most reliable content about sustainability and circularity. The projects benefit from getting exposed to people who want to know more about them.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the initiative.
When we started, we talked with several business owners, journalists, chefs, and producers, among others, to know how a platform like the one we were envisioning would make sense for them. We built our criteria on what's a sustainable restaurant and hotel, using official certifications as a base but also inviting all the players in this market to contribute with their insights so we can build a list of topics that businesses need to have to be considered a project that cares genuinely about sustainability. We are now starting the process of creating criteria for other categories we have in our directory with the help of players on those areas: fashion and hygiene, and cosmetics.
We partnered up with universities, engaging their students in talks and workshops about these topics and even found some active members of our Peggada community while doing it. We are now working with companies and other startups as partners to leverage our content and expand our network and community. We communicate daily with the businesses and projects we highlight in our platform - in our directory, the news section or events. We work daily with influencers that care about sustainability to unite our voices and spread the word about sustainability and circular economy. We started several conversations with national entities to partner up and make sure we can work together on building a more inclusive, sustainable and conscious society. We participated in the most significant events on sustainability in Portugal and collaborated with their organization for the past year. We are part of a network of businesses, civil society, and organizations called Liga-Ação that aim to combine efforts on climate change and circular economy initiatives. One of our Co-founders is an ambassador of the European Climate Pact launched by the European Commission.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your initiative. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was
One of the Co-founders (Marta Cerqueira) of Peggada is a Journalist and has been writing about sustainability for many years. I have a Master's in Pharmaceutical Sciences, another in Anthropology, and a Post-graduation in International Development and Cooperation. I worked for eight years in startups as a Project and Business Manager, Content and Community Manager, and I have several years of experience as a content creator. I also worked as a teacher and gave several pieces of training on product adoption. We created the website using our will, motivation and many YouTube videos to learn how to do it. We also believe in cooperation and collaborative ways of working, so we have several people who help us with design, usability, website improvement and writing. We partnered with companies and other stakeholders to create our criteria and attended several acceleration programmes to understand how to build a startup from scratch. One of our most robust tools for success is the eco-influencer and expert network we built over the past years. In Portugal, most principal influencers find our work very reliable, and we work together to ensure the most reliable information is on our platform. We collaborate with our main competitors because we believe that if our goal is to work for a better future for people and the planet, we should combine efforts and not work against each other. As we have different categories in our business directory, we work daily to know more about their businesses and how to make them more sustainable and conscious - it's a process, and we want to be part of the change. We started with 100 listings and articles 3 times a week and now we have around 500 listings in our platform and fresh daily content.

Please highlight the innovative character of the initiative, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the initiative
We believe that the fact that we combine news and educational articles with a business directory with several categories and an events agenda in the same platform is innovative as it shows users that they can find the information they need in only one place. Usually, you will find all this information segmented. The fact that we write in each business listing why that project cares about sustainability or circular economy and show the SDGs it contributes to with more details on the 17 SDGs is also innovative as it leads to more awareness of what sustainable development is.

Our directory has restaurants, hotels, second-hand shops, bulk stores, eco shops, baby sustainable products, cosmetics and fashion sustainable brands, and fresh and seasonal vegetable companies, among others. It gives you more conscious and ethical options for all parts of your life. We want this platform to be entirely free for the user, and no business pays to be present in our platform.
We curate and write daily articles on positive projects that are working for a better world - we aim to spread the good news, the positive ones, the ones that will motivate our community to keep engaging in conscious attitudes. We believe the world is already filled with news and publications that lead to eco-anxiety. Our approach is to build and educate a community that has a positive attitude towards the future - we want a happy community, informed, engaged and motivated.

Please describe which elements of your initiative could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts. This may involve, for example, aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings, etc.
We now have a process to keep curating and refreshing our content to ensure it is always up to date. We are finishing the translation of the website to English and hope we can do other translations soon and expand to other European countries soon. We believe our methodology is straightforward to replicate as we have guidelines and criteria for our content curation and how to discover the best projects but also how to engage the community, and that's something we would love to do across Europe. Training people on how to use our methodology and processes would be a beautiful project, and having a complete platform with conscious businesses, news, educational pieces and events across Europe would be a dream we hope to achieve.

At this point, we already have a business model to make the project profitable to ensure that our core goal of keeping the platform free for end consumers is possible. We have a mixed model that combines advertising, content creation for companies and affiliate marketing.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your initiative.
We curate content about sustainable development and conscious consumption using specific criteria and guidelines to ensure that we give reliable information and our users are not victims of greenwashing. Our business directory and news section carefully explain the relation the project highlighted has with sustainability and which SDGs it supports. We tag all our content to ensure it's searchable and easy to find. We always write with a positive tone to motivate an engaged community that is eco-anxiety-free. We plan to educate and inform end-users about sustainability in a way that is easy to digest. We also work with companies to create tailored content on these topics for them to make sure we reach and influence more people and have financial sustainability.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the initiative addresses by providing local solutions
We believe that because we are an aggregator of sustainability and circular economy, we indirectly touch on the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations. However, there are some of them where we have a more significant impact: 4, 11, 12 and 13. There are specific actions of the SDGs that we believe we impact more:

4.7 – Education for sustainable development and global citizenship.
12.5 – By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
12.8 – By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature.
13.3 – Improving education, raising awareness and human and institutional capacity on mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning measures on climate change.

By providing a platform for our local/national community that educates and raises awareness about sustainability and climate change, we are addressing global challenges.

Please detail the scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative. This can include already demonstrated results/outputs related to the chosen Prizes category, and the already achieved benefits from the initiative for direct and indirect beneficiaries. This can also include a development plan of the initiative, with a particular attention to the steps envisaged in the year following the application, and including envisaged results and benefits from the initiative
Our initiative focuses on education and learning, and it's an ongoing project that we plan to continue. So far, we've been growing our community, and we plan to continue reaching more people in 2023. We focus on sustainability and circularity as we write each article, publication, business listing, and reel for Instagram, among others. We provide tools and guidance on several categories of products and services to create a better balance between our lifestyle and nature. Since we started, we have had very good engagement from our community and always motivated people to have an active voice in what they would like to learn about. We created a free ebook on sustainable maternity. Recently, we did a survey, and 84% of the respondents stated that Peggada was essential for them to have a more sustainable lifestyle and 89% believe Peggada is important to find reliable information about sustainability and circular economy. We keep trying to create content about sustainability adapted to the different steps of the sustainable journey - articles for those just starting to think about these topics and advanced content for the ones that have been working on their sustainable lifestyle for years. During our time building the project Peggada was:
- Finalist of the Women4Climate 2020 program of Startup Lisboa and the Municipality of Lisbon
- Winner of the Prize "Go Green, Go Social" 2021 of NOVA FCSH and Santander Universidades
- Finalist of the University Startup World Cup 2021
- Chosen by Made of Lisboa to attend Web Summit 2021
- Ligia was named one of the Top 100 Women In Social Enterprise 2022
- Won the 2nd Place in the Shift Happens 2022

This year we plan to focus on increasing our notoriety in Portugal, finish the English translations, think about expansion to other countries and implement our plan to be financially sustainable so we can keep informing and educating our community about sustainability and circularity with a positive and happy tone.

Please provide documents that demonstrate the maturity level of the initiative and commitment to implement the initiative in practice (e.g.: evaluation report, final or mid-term initiative report, certification, publications, building permit, grant agreement, letter of support, partnership agreement, etc.)
Web link
Web link
- https://peggada.com/
If relevant, please describe how your initiative contributes to developing new competences, especially in the context of the European competence framework on sustainability.
We believe we are aligned with this as our project equips learners with the knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for a greener and more sustainable economy and society.
Please attach at least 6 high resolution images or visual representations of your initiative to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below.
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By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.
Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed initiative has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the initiative and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their initiatives, initiative, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted initiative, initiative is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes