Faced with his tray, the little blond boy hesitates. Should he finish the grapes even though he’s not hungry? Or throw them away? In the end, the 8-year-old boy empties his plate into the bin, not without a guilty look. In the cafeteria of the Olivier-Miannay elementary school in Malaunay (Seine-Maritime), the children have been made aware of the problem of food waste. Here, it’s been reduced to 30 grams per child per meal, the town hall announces, compared to a national average of 70 grams for primary school catering.
Greened bus shelters, rainwater harvesting, bat boxes, restored riverbanks… In Malaunay, a suburban town in the Rouen metropolitan area, sustainable projects are sprouting faster than vegetable gardens. In July, the commune of 6,200 souls received the highest distinction – five stars – from the Agency for Ecological Transition (Ademe). A first in France for a municipality with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. Among the fifteen or so other winners are only medium-sized or large cities, such as Besançon, Nantes, or Strasbourg.
If Malaunay can compete with major cities, it’s because it is one of the pioneers of the ecological transition. This commitment was highlighted, noting that the ecological transition policy, driven notably by a vast building renovation program, has allowed the town to escape the effects of soaring energy prices. Back in 2006, it was primarily because its expenses were skyrocketing that the town launched an energy-saving program. It partnered with Ademe a few years later to make ecology a core part of its local development strategy.