Projects on greenhouse gas emissions

NoFoSYS - Novel food ingredients for large consumer groups to increase the sustainability of food system

The project aims at reducing greenhouse gas emission in the food chain by supporting consumer's acceptance and consumption of food products incorporated with sustainable food ingredients.

The PoC explores what influences environmentally friendly food choices and will demonstrate the effect of fact-, emotion- and social-norm based communication activities depicting the environmental benefits of sustainabile food ingredients and products in order to have measurable effect on consumer's beliefs, attitudes, intentions and even choices of sustainable food products. Based on different approaches, the project will test public engagement activities and measure change. The focus is on current, near future and future ingredients as well as "current" and "future" consumers.

Consortium: VTT, Rikolto, University of Aarhus

InFormPack - An “all you need to know” online guide for sustainable disposal of food packaging

The project explores the cross-cultural variations that exist amongst consumers in terms of awareness, information gaps, and attitudes towards food packaging as related to product choice upon purchase and disposal patterns at home and on the go. Findings will be used to build country-based, tailored consumer-centric engagement activities and incentive strategies based on facts and science.

Consortium: University of Aarhus, University of Reading, VTT, MASPEX, Bioazul

Consumers and supermarkets collaborate to make sustainable and healthy choices easy

A shift in people’s eating patterns is necessary to contribute to better health conditions of our population and mitigate climate change effects. Although European consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the impact of their food choices, making the right option while walking down the supermarket aisles is not self-evident. An enabling environment, in which the sustainable and healthy choice is easy, can help consumers and contribute to a shift in consumption.

We apply three strategies to make sustainable and healthy choises ‘easy’ in supermarket.

1. We create awareness and willingness for a shift towards more healthy and sustainable choices
2. We engage citizens to become active agents in reshaping their food environment
3. We stimulate retailers to adjust their food environment in favour of sustainable consumption. Together with academic partners we figure out how we can test certain tools in supermarkets and have real impact.

During our PoC we will test the effectivity of each of these strategies, applied by different type of partners to reach a diverse audience. On top is, research partners will build strong, scientific evidence for these strategies and identifying gaps in research necessary for a follow-up project

Consortium: Rikolto, KU Leuven, in collaboration with UNiversity Ghent, Test Aankoop, WWF

Helpfood* - Investigating the potential of innovative models of food distribution for fostering transition towards fairer, healthier and environmentally-friendly food systems

By combining multi-level perspectives and practice approaches on socio-technical transitions, HelpFood investigates the potential of innovative online food distribution models in favouring the adoption of a more sustainable and plant-based diet in times of multiple emergencies.

We are interested in investigating innovative approaches of circular economy linked to regeneration of urban and rural communities through the construction of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) and deploy concrete initiatives of education, training, dissemination and communication for the key actors (citizens-producers and citizens-consumers). AFNs are commonly defined by attributes such as the spatial proximity between farmers and consumers, commitment to sustainable food production and consumption and to more democratic, healthy, ethical, culturally appropriate and better quality ways of food provisioning.

In recent years in Europe, the challenge posed to sustainability by the global food system has spurred the rise of alternative practices for food provisioning (European Farm to Fork strategy, being part of the European Green Deal). The emergence of new consumer demands for healthy food products with minimal environmental impact has been followed by the spread of different initiatives, which aim to ‘re-socialise’ and ‘re-localise’ the food production-consumption chain. HelpFood aims to analyse the potential of recent socio-technical innovations occurred in the food systems also as a consequence of the severe COVID-19 lockdown measures.

Consortium: HIT - Hub Innovazione Trentino, UNiversity of Trento, Fondazione Edmund Mach

* RIS PoC