Stéphane Guilbert and Barbara Redlingshöfer
March 27, 2017
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Wastes at household level constitute 53% of total losses in EU and 60% in the USA. It is clear that that people living in towns and large cities tend to produce more waste. Prevention of food losses and bio-waste valorization are quite inefficiently managed. Urban bio-waste, despite their high nutriment value, are marginally recycled and returned to farm soil and therefore, does not contribute to closing bio-geo-chemical cycles and to supporting sustainable food production. A foresight approach was used to i) identify high potential socio-technological innovations in food waste prevention and valorization and ii) extract research questions contributing to fostering and accompanying cities’ breakthrough strategies towards zero waste sustainable food systems, specific to different urban settings worldwide. The exploration of three “food systems scenarios” in the context of “three urban scenarios” allows to highlight requirements and questions for the research which were grouped into five broad categories related to issues or types of impacts expected: i) society, ii) industries, food cycles and systems, iii) health and the environment (animal health, health public, safety and nutrition, environment), iv) technological processes, looping cycles and associated business models and finally v) the information and communications technologies (ICT), data processing and applied mathematics. High potential key measures and generic questions and perspectives for research on the link between cities and Zero waste sustainable food systems are discussed.
Stéphane Guilbert is Professor in Food Science at Montpellier SupAgro and Advisor for sustainability of food systems at the research direction of INRA (French National Institute for agricultural research). Formerly Director of Agreenium (Institut agronomique, vétérinaire et forestier de France), promoter and Director of the Joint research Unit IATE and researcher at the CIRAD and University of Montpellier, he has a large experience in management of public institutions, collaboration with industry, research in agricultural and food area and high education including academic and industrial training, at national and international levels. He is a specialist of food science and food processing and an expert on sustainability of food chain, urban food system, packaging cycle and territorial metabolism. He recently initiated a new collaborative research work on the food biomass system in urban context (North and South Cities) and on the urban biomass metabolism towards the promotion of a circular bio-economy. He has coordinated, for the Inra, a foresight on “Urban food systems: optimization of usage and reducing losses and waste in 2035”. He participated, as an expert to the advisory panel, of the recent study on “The new plastics economy: Rethinking the future of plastics” published in 2016 by The Ellen MacArthur Foundation for circular economy. He is author of more than 140 original peer reviewed publications, 150 communications and 50 book chapters. His h factor is 44. He is fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST).
Date posted
Jun 14, 2019
Date updated
Jun 14, 2019