Home-Grown School Feeding


Book Description

This framework fosters the replication and scaling up of home-grown school feeding models and the mapping of opportunities for linking such programmes with relevant agricultural development and rural transformation investments.




Sustainable Food Systems


Book Description

In response to the challenges of a growing population and food security, there is an urgent need to construct a new agri-food sustainability paradigm. This book brings together an integrated range of key social science insights exploring the contributions and interventions necessary to build this framework. Building on over ten years of ESRC funded theoretical and empirical research centered at BRASS, it focuses upon the key social, economic and political drivers for creating a more sustainable food system. Themes include: regulation and governance sustainable supply chains public procurement sustainable spatial strategies associated with rural restructuring and re-calibrated urbanised food systems minimising bio-security risk and animal welfare burdens. The book critically explores the linkages between social science research and the evolving food security problems facing the world at a critical juncture in the debates associated with not only food quality, but also its provenance, vulnerability and the inherent unsustainability of current systems of production and consumption. Each chapter examines how the links between research, practice and policy can begin to contribute to more sustainable, resilient and justly distributive food systems which would be better equipped to ‘feed the world’ by 2050.




Sustainable Diets


Book Description

This book takes a transdisciplinary approach and considers multisectoral actions, integrating health, agriculture, environment, economy, and socio-cultural issues, to comprehensively explore the topic of sustainable diets. Consideration is given to the multi-dimensional nature of diets and food systems, and the book explores the challenging issues connecting food security and nutrition to sustainability, culture, tradition, and a broader range of scientific topics. The first section, 'Grand Challenges' (chapters 1-9), positions sustainable diets in the multi-perspective context of food systems. Within the current international debate, it introduces some overarching wicked problems, resistant to resolution in spite of the dire consequences of inaction. The chapters cover multi-sectoral policy, public health, sustainable food systems, climate change, biodiversity loss, agro-ecology, indigenous peoples, the role of cities, and food and waste. The contributions in the second section, 'Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches' (chapters 10-17) discuss the topic of sustainable diets from different cultural, sectoral and disciplinary angles. The issues are analysed with data and methods derived from social sciences, clinical sciences and experimental sciences. Perspectives and solutions, with evidence, are presented to underpin policies and interventions. The last section, 'Moving Forward' (chapters 18-29) deals with selected innovations, initiatives, projects, case studies and programmes enhancing sustainable diets by linking nutrition to food systems.




Sustainable food consumption


Book Description

Agricultural and food consumption practices are the most important contributors to ecosystem degradation and climate change. Consumers are called on to take responsibility for sustainable development; to consider the environment in their everyday life, to choose more sustainably produced goods and services. However, often consumers are not directly involved in food production and preparation. Today many of the meals we eat are prepared by someone other than ourselves. In addition, environmental and social issues of food production might be important to us but they have to be weighed up against a range of situational and personal considerations. Thus 'making a sustainable choice' can be far from straightforward. This book explores the question 'how sustainable food consumption can be encouraged' using social practices theory. This approach focuses not on the individual behaviour of consumers, but on everyday food practices (like shopping for food, eating lunch at work, etc.) and their context. The book discusses how Dutch consumers engage in sustainable food consumption on an everyday basis, and how consumers with different grocery shopping practices differ in this engagement. A second study considers the sustainable development of food provisioning within business catering (food procurement and provisioning). Here we discover the importance of food professionals and the opportunities that canteens and kitchens offer to explore more sustainable ways of eating. Both studies illustrate how a context-oriented approach leads to insights on where we find leverage points for changing consumption patterns.




Green Public Procurement Strategies for Environmental Sustainability


Book Description

The worldwide consumption of resources is causing environmental damage at a rate that cannot be sustained. Apart from the resulting environmental and health problems, this trend could threaten economic growth due to rapidly decreasing natural resources and the cost of addressing these issues. The public sector has a responsibility to stimulate the marketplace in favor of the provision of more resource-efficient and less polluting goods, services, and works in order to support environmental and wider sustainable development objectives. Green Public Procurement Strategies for Environmental Sustainability provides innovative insights on the adoption and implementation of green public procurement for sustainable practice in order to contribute to environmental protection. The content within this publication examines climate change, sustainable development, and document analysis and is designed for policymakers, environmentalists, managers, suppliers, development agencies, government officials, academicians, researchers, students, and professionals.




Sustainable Procurement in Supply Chain Operations


Book Description

Sustainable Procurement is an emerging concept in supply chain and operations management. Manufacturing industries have made improvements in moving from cost-based to quality-based, and customer-focused supply chain management strategies. This is becoming an integrated component in the supply chain system, with players becoming aware of the regulations and needs of the customer. It is imperative for production firms to look at the procurement activity as one of the strategic enablers for sustaining the business in the competitive global environment. This book will provide industries with an understanding of the concepts related to sustainable procurement policies and its implementation. Provides decision and theory development models in sustainable procurement supply chains Includes contributions in all three major analytics: descriptive, predictive, and perspectives in the context of sustainable procurement supply chain Discusses new business models with suppliers and opportunities for co-branding Covers how to develop new tools to measure and allocate the gains from sustainable practices among stakeholders Analyses the science of translating data into meaningful and actionable insights




Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers


Book Description

Institutions like schools, hospitals, and universities are not well known for having quality, healthy food. In fact, institutional food often embodies many of the worst traits of our industrialized food system, with long supply chains that are rife with environmental and social problems and growing market concentration in many stages of food production and distribution. Recently, however, non-profit organizations, government agencies, university research institutes, and activists have partnered with institutions to experiment with a wide range of more ethical and sustainable models for food purchasing, also known as values-based procurement. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers brings together in-depth case studies from several of promising models of institutional food purchasing that aim to be more sustainable, healthy, equitable, and local. With chapters written by a diverse set of authors, including leaders in the food movement and policy researchers, this book: - Documents growing interest among non-profit organizations and activists in institutional food interventions through case studies and first-hand experiences; - Highlights emerging evidence about how these new procurement models affect agro-food supply chains; and - Examines the role of policy and regional or geographic identity in promoting food systems change. Institutions as Conscious Food Consumers makes the case that institutions can use their budgets to change the food system for the better, although significant challenges remain. It is a must read for food systems practitioners, food chain researchers, and foodservice professionals interested in values-based procurement.




Sustainable Food Supply Chains


Book Description

Sustainable Food Supply Chains: Planning, Design, and Control through Interdisciplinary Methodologies provides integrated and practicable solutions that aid planners and entrepreneurs in the design and optimization of food production-distribution systems and operations and drives change toward sustainable food ecosystems. With synthesized coverage of the academic literature, this book integrates the quantitative models and tools that address each step of food supply chain operations to provide readers with easy access to support-decision quantitative and practicable methods. Broken into three parts, the book begins with an introduction and problem statement. The second part presents quantitative models and tools as an integrated framework for the food supply chain system and operations design. The book concludes with the presentation of case studies and applications focused on specific food chains. Sustainable Food Supply Chains: Planning, Design, and Control through Interdisciplinary Methodologies will be an indispensable resource for food scientists, practitioners and graduate students studying food systems and other related disciplines. - Contains quantitative models and tools that address the interconnected areas of the food supply chain - Synthesizes academic literature related to sustainable food supply chains - Deals with interdisciplinary fields of research (Industrial Systems Engineering, Food Science, Packaging Science, Decision Science, Logistics and Facility Management, Supply Chain Management, Agriculture and Land-use Planning) that dominate food supply chain systems and operations - Includes case studies and applications




Sustainable Food Procurement


Book Description

The book examines sustainable food procurement policy and practice in the European Union and beyond, exploring the extent to which sustainability objectives have been achieved and evaluating the new developments taking place at both EU and national levels. While there is a growing recognition that public authorities can use public procurement as a policy tool to pursue multiple environmental, health and socio-economic objectives, contracting authorities still face many challenges. This volume investigates the scope for pursuing sustainable objectives in public procurement of food and catering services, examining different regulatory contexts and organisational models to answer the overall question of how to integrate sustainability concerns into the various phases of public food procurement processes. Contributions in the book examine the policy and legal procurement framework and practices for sustainable public catering in three EU Member States: Italy, France and Spain. There is a comparative survey of the Baltic Region, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland and Russia, and moving beyond the EU, there is examination of the UK and Brazil, as well as a cross country comparison of the UK with Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on the expertise of an interdisciplinary and intersectoral team of contributors allows the book to benefit from the insights of different disciplines, including business sciences, anthropology and law. Tapping into the global discussion on public food procurement as a means to achieve multiple social and environmental goals, this work will stimulate readers looking for new creative ways to create value through public food purchasing. This book will be of great interest to students, researchers, policymakers and public- and private-sector representatives interested in public procurement, food policy and law, sustainable food sourcing and supply chain management.




Sustainable food planning: evolving theory and practice


Book Description

With over half the world's population now deemed to be urbanised, cities are assuming a larger role in political debates about the security and sustainability of the global food system. Hence, planning for sustainable food production and consumption is becoming an increasingly important issue for planners, policymakers, designers, farmers, suppliers, activists, business and scientists alike. The rapid growth of the food planning movement owes much to the fact that food, because of its unique, multi-functional character, helps to bring people together from all walks of life. In the wider contexts of global climate change, resource depletion, a burgeoning world population, competing food production systems and diet-related public health concerns, new paradigms for urban and regional planning capable of supporting sustainable and equitable food systems are urgently needed. This book addresses this urgent need. By working at a range of scales and with a variety of practical and theoretical models, this book reviews and elaborates definitions of sustainable food systems, and begins to define ways of achieving them. To this end 4 different themes have been defined as entry-points into the discussion of 'sustainable food planning'. These are (1) urban agriculture, (2) integrating health, environment and society, (3) food in urban design and planning and (4) urban food governance.