CEF Corporate and Strategic Partner Brunch

On November 26th, 2025, the Cyprus Environment Foundation (CEF) in collaboration with the Conservation Collective (CC) organized a corporate and strategic partner brunch at Stelios Philanthropic Foundation premises in South Ken, London.

The event’s purpose was to bring together corporate and strategic partners of CEF for a breakfast roundtable, networking and discussion of possible next steps that aim to enhance support of CEF’s work in Cyprus. Representatives from the Conservation Collective, Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, the A.G Leventis Foundation, easyJet holidays, TUI Care Foundation, Blue Marine Foundation, the UK Cyprus Enterprise Council and Scott Dunn attended the event and enriched the meeting with their ideas and suggestions.

The event kicked off by the CC’s Executive Director, Jade Brudenell who shared the network’s inspiring achievement of collectively raising over 20 million pounds since 2020 to support local environmental initiatives across the world.

During the event, CEF’s Executive Director, Sofia Matsi shared how maximizing impact in Cyprus through CEF’s work takes a lot of different forms: ‘Sometimes it’s about projects we support that achieve way more than what they initially had planned due to their adamant dedication and niche expertise, others it’s about shared personal stories of people and places we love in Cyprus and other times it’s about harnessing the power of our network, the CC, to share our positive message far and wide.’

CEF’s team went through key impact achieved on the island since its establishment in late 2021 across three pillars: empowering marine literacy, towards a plastic-free island, and supporting sustainable food systems. Sofia shared the inspirational story of Enalia Physis Environmental & Research Center team – the leaders on creative marine literacy in Cyprus. The project not only achieved to train over 1300 children and 400 trainers so far on current marine challenges, but most recently it was awarded with the MakeEUBlue Award, recognizing it as one of the top four initiatives across Europe putting marine literacy in action. On its efforts to support Cyprus’ transition towards a plastic-free era, CEF’s team talked about its partnership with the Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative and the actions to transform beaches and schools into plastic-free as well as raising awareness amongst the public and tourists of Cyprus on how they can become part of the solution. In its efforts to support more sustainable food systems, CEF shared how partnering with the TUI Care Foundation and TUI Field to Fork programme, is helping educate farmers in Cyprus on regenerative organic practices and link them and their products to the hospitality sector. In an exciting new partnership with easyJet holidays kicking-off soon in Cyprus, CEF shared how invasive fish become the target and local fishers, restaurants and hotels will receive training and support to establish a sustainable supply chain for non-indigenous species, helping safeguard our seas in Cyprus.

Although a tremendous impact has been achieved so far on the island through CEF’s work, Sofia shared how critical challenges remain ahead: More actions are required to help safeguard local biodiversity and protect their habitats, climate change poses a growing threat with more sustainable land management and farming systems in need for adoption while actions to protect and restore the island’s natural landscapes should be heavily supported.

During the event, CEF’s partners shared their inspiration behind supporting CEF’s work, and commented on what they wished to see more of in Cyprus in the following years. The attendees further contributed with suggestions on how to grow CEF’s group of supporters not only in Cyprus but globally.

‘The flexibility exhibited when creating a proposal has been brilliant to make a project that works for all parties! And we’re very excited to make a huge impact!’, shared Ollie Payton, the Sustainability Analyst of EasyJet Holidays.

We are thankful to Stelios Philanthropic Foundation for its ongoing support as well as for providing us with the space to host this meeting and funding to cover all occurring event expenses.

The CEF is part of the Conservation Collective, a growing global network of 20+ local Foundations funding impactful grassroots work to protect the environment, restore nature and build climate resilience.

Find out more about CEF’s latest projects’ impact by reading our June 2024-May 2025 annual report.

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