Observatory Food Sustainability (Politecnico of Milan)
The agri-food sector is facing epochal challenges, made even more dramatic by the Covid-19 emergency. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from which emerges the centrality of agri-food for global sustainability, require additional efforts from governments and all components of society to be pursued, reacting and innovating in the face of changes in the global economic context and emerging environmental and social challenges.
The pandemic has had a major impact on urban food systems worldwide, confronting cities and local public administrations with increasing difficulties related to physical and economic access to food, particularly for the most vulnerable groups.
To pursue these objectives, the Observatory of Food Sustainability of Politecnico di Milan has defined three directions of work involving all the actors of the players in the agri-food system, exploring some particularly interesting innovations and successful practices and analysing and successful practices and analysing the enabling factors and barriers that encourage or hinder their implementation:
- Fighting the paradox of food insecurity and food waste through innovative models of recovery and redistribution of surplus food for social purposes in urban areas.
- Work to prevent and valorise surplus food generated along the supply chain, by leveraging organisational practices and technological and packaging solutions for circularity at individual company and supply chain level.
- Communicate and promote sustainable behaviour and foster the inclusion of the weakest actors “from farm to fork”.
FEBA external experts (Fabio Fraticelli – COO, TechSoup and Laura Gavinelli – Management Consultant & Trainer) leading the FEBA project “Quantifying the impact of European Food Banks – from Farm to Fork” were invited on behalf of FEBA as speakers on the annual conference of the Observatory on July 2nd, 2021. They presented the status of art, the work done together with FEBA members and the next steps. Moreover, also Emma Walsh (International Partnerships Director at FoodCloud) participated with a video message as representative of a FEBA member participating in the Pilot Group of the project.
To discover more, please visit the dedicated website of the Observatory Food Sustainability.
