ZeroW

Overview

FLW (Food Loss & Waste) reduction is essential for the transition to sustainable food systems through the substantial reduction of resource use and GHG (Green House Gases) emissions.

ZeroW will provide credible solutions for significantly reducing FLW, involving all actors in the food system in a collaborative framework, to accelerate the just transition to a social, economic and environmentally sustainable food system for all.

Along with ZeroW’s demonstrative creative solutions, the importance of food systems in providing secure, nourishing, and affordable foods for all citizens, including vulnerable groups, is incorporated.

ZeroW has set the ambitious target of playing a key role in the transition of current food systems towards halving FLW by 2030 and reaching near-zero FLW by 2050.

The global food system is a major contributor to climate change as it accounts for more than 30% of the global greenhouse gas emissions.

Approximately one third of the food produced is never consumed but either lost or wasted somewhere in the value chain.

This is a major problem that urgently calls for systemic innovation and the ZeroW project is working on developing just that.

Implementation

Systemic Innovations Towards a Zero Food Waste Supply Chain

The methodology that ZeroW uses to coordinate our multi-organizational innovation process is the Living Lab approach.

It is focused on a systemic co-creation methodology that involves the full scope of food chain actors and beyond: introducing social and governance dimensions to industrial partners in a real-life setting.

ZeroW has built up 9 real-life Living Labs embedding systemic innovations with the potential to lead to fundamental changes in both social dimensions (values, regulations, attitudes) and technical dimensions (infrastructure, technology, tools, processes) and, most importantly, in the relations between them.

One aspect that ZeroW will attempt to tackle is how to utilize data for FLW reduction. To get a clear view of the amounts of waste along the food chain, we outline a conceptual framework for measuring FLW and determining the economic effects. Furthermore, we will work towards creating semantic interoperability which is the ability of computer systems to exchange data with unambiguous, shared meaning. This will be done through a managed European FLW Data Space for the digital support needed for reducing FLW. A suite of Data-driven intelligent services and smart applications will be developed to support key aspects of FLW management.

Key Objectives

ZeroW provides significant impacts through the demonstration of innovations in nine real-life food chains, by employing a systemic innovation approach, to effectively address the multidimensional issue of FLW. This involves:

(i) pre-identifying systemic innovations, that incorporate multiple interlinked dimensions (process, organisational, strategy, marketing, product, technological, governance, etc.), which are tested and demonstrated;

(ii) steering the evolution of innovations towards higher levels of systemic readiness and impact, using a Living Lab co-creation and multi-actor collective learning approach;

(iii) enhancing the Living Lab actors’ innovation advancement capability with shared resources facilitating new ways and means of cooperating and co-developing innovations;

(iv) developing context-specific trajectories for the systemic innovations (from ideation to scaling-up and commercialisation) leading to the provision of currently missing end products and services that align with consumer attitudes, food actor needs and policy trends.

Moreover, ZeroW establishes a clear ‘FLW impact trajectory’, from demonstrator results (2025), scaled up to meet the F2F 2030 goals, and steered through a ‘just transition pathway’ towards a near-zero FLW in 2050.