ProCEedS · Promoting Circular Economy in the Food Supply Chain

Promoting Circular Economy in the Food Supply Chain

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to mobilise global efforts to ‘transform our world’ so as to address major challenges facing global society, such as achieving food security, reducing food loss and waste and providing healthy nutrition for all. Increasing consumption of food (due to population growth and increases in purchasing power) that has high environmental impact associated is placing massive strain on the global agri-food system. Nonetheless, hunger and malnutrition remains a major problem in developing countries. Also, climate change poses a great threat on food security due to the critical dependence of agri-food production on environmental conditions. A slight change of these conditions can have a direct effect on the crop yield variability and consequently on farmers’ incomes, food prices, trade patterns and investment plans. Within this context, new strategies are needed in order to maximise the yield of food production systems while minimising wastage and reducing environmental impact FAO estimates that, on a global scale, one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally (1.3BN tons per year); even in the EU, despite significant policy efforts, 88MM tons of food are wasted annually, with associated costs estimated at €143BN. This causes waste in production resources (such as land, water, energy and inputs) and avoidable environmental impacts. Also, food production and consumption produce approximately one third of total greenhouse gas emissions. All this represents a real threat to the security and sustainability of food supply chains. The proposed research project will attempt to contribute to the existing fields of both Circular Economy theory and Supply Chain Management by providing insights related to the actual applicability of the Circular Economy (CE) paradigm in agri-food supply chains within free-market contexts. Focus is placed on the examination and involvement of stakeholders covering all stages from primary production to the point of regenerating biological nutrients and redirecting them back to agricultural production. In detail, the aims of this project can be articulated as follows: - To explore the CE paradigms implemented on different system levels of the examined regions and assess the level of their system integration. - To assess the environmental costs and benefits of innovative circular patterns in the agro-industry. - To identify and assess the different drivers and barriers categories that the different system actors experience in the implementation of CE. - To assess whether the inherent structural characteristics of free market economies are able to “close the loop” and facilitate the transition towards a circular agri-food economy.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз