Food and the circular economy

Just finished teaching a two week course for students in China.  It was a great experience, bit intense for all of us, but rewarding at the same time.  Thank you to the university that gave me the opportunity and the students who enrolled.  

In the course, I included some papers about the circular economy in relation to food.  What seems to be going on is a rethink of what food is in supply chains.  Food could be considered a secondary resource.  And this means that it could go back to earlier processes of production and supply.  Elements of food that cannot go back could then be decomposed.  Food could then be catalogued as edible or non edible, the former also considered as surplus as the following diagram aims to show:

Source:  Teigiserova et al, 2020, doi:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136033 

In this context, there is is scope to apply our creativity in making sure that food is not wasted and its overproduction prevented.  There are experiences around the world that show this.  For instance, my friend Carmen, a very experienced consultant in ecosystems told me recently about regenerative agriculture, a new 'technology' that aims to protect the soil from damaging practices and renew it more adequately than with intensive agriculture.  The downside of this could be that feeding larger populations is not yet possible with this type of agriculture.  And there are important costs involved.  

In terms of the circular economy, food could also be reused with the help of technologies like anaerobic digestion or AD.  With colleagues from other UK universities and Leap-AD, we are currently looking at the feasibility of implementing this technology in university campuses.  As mentioned in a previous post, there is the issue of how decision makers see feasibility in terms of long-term costs and benefits.  

In addition, universities are also subject to league tables like the People and Planet.  One possible way forward is to collect and show data about our efforts to create awareness in our student populations, using behavioural theories like nudge.  Another is to use other, intelligent technologies (i.e. sensors) to detect changes in food waste and help decision makers react more instantly to them.  

My course also included the use of systems techniques like the rich picture and creativity ones to foster divergent and convergent thinking.  We also looked at six sigma and lean to improve processes.  A quick review of lean in the hospitality, restaurants and catering sector showed that there are important developments to help reduce waste in terms of time and food production.  What is less clear is how this sector is moving or could move towards preventing food waste.  

Perhaps this means that there are big challenges to do so.  And in addressing them, one thing that could really help is to consider circular economies as systems, where different elements interact to generate diverse purposes, some of which need to be further studied if not nurtured.  Not only economic or regenerative purposes, but those related to improving the quality of life of everyone if possible.  There is scope to enrich circular economy food programmes with this idea.  And use techniques or methods that could help us align if not revisit purposes.  

Impact and data - not really a short cut when it comes to (food) waste

The last couple of weeks have been somehow surreal.  I got in touch again with a good friend and also with a former student of mine.

  

In both cases there are possibilities for collaboration and further research if not more practical projects.  We have met (online, over the phone) and talked things through.  

I call the experiences surreal because they came out of the blue.  I was not expecting them.  It was refreshing to talk to two people I knew and know they are doing very well in their own field.  

And my motivation to talk to them is also driven by my work environment.  Universities now are to generate more impact.  This means whatever we do has to change the life of organisations, communities or other groups in society.  We are to finally put our knowledge to the service of others.  

The UK government has evaluated us in this regard, and there are talks that this is going to continue and increase.  We are to show more impact.  More engagement.  Perhaps more commitment with those who could benefit from our research or other activities.  

Myself, I consider I do practical things with companies (mostly in the social entrepreneurship or innovation domain) and with my students.    During these weeks I have also met my group of academics and practitioners with we have been working for about a year.  

We meet to discuss how a project is going.  We would like to better understand how it is that people behave towards food waste and recycling.  We would like to collect more data to better understand such behaviour.  And it looks as if we need to spend more time than initially expected doing that.  

There seems to be no short cut for this.  We need to talk and listen to managers and consumers (students).  We also need to assess how it is that organisations like universities are sending recycling messages to their audiences.  Do we need to adopt a firm, punishing attitude to those who do not recycle or waste food?  

Perhaps not.  We have this summer to find out what has been going on in this area, what people have done to motivate consumers and others to pay more attention to the (food) waste in campuses, and if possible, design better messages or campaigns which, supported by appropriate data, could give us a better chance to prevent if not reduce waste.  

Wish us good luck in this effort!

The Disappearance of Rituals

 The philosopher Byung-Chun Han provides a telling narrative about rituals in his book The Disappearance of Rituals.

It is a well written and short account to help us understand when and how rituals have been present in our society.  Han argues that they are disappearing, as we have all been swamped by neo-liberalism and its relentless drive for individuality.  

Rituals are needed, according to Han, to maintain the cohesiveness of our communities, and protect us from our excessive attempts of 'being'.  Information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to this excess.  Their 'transparency' and the continuous having to show oneself as news (or as data as Han will argue later in the book) contribute to fragment communities, and also to the fragmentation of our senses of self.  

Rituals can provide us with a sense of permanence, place and wonder among other things.  We can lose ourselves in rituals, submit our inner wills, abide by the forms and signs that rituals bring.  The festival, the village, the silence, the duel, the tea ceremony, the kimono, politeness, these are examples that Han uses to show how we need them as a way to cope with the chaos and fragmentation of our societies.  

Rituals, processes of symbolic embodiment, could help us recreate key features of our social life.  What matters is not our individuality but that which we submit too: a narrative, a form,  a way of relating to each other which is different from what we are now used to: transactions, short and intentional exchanges where we compete for our own image.  

With his historical analysis of rituals, Han (2020) is inviting us to rediscover them, to re-enchant our world with rituals, to spend time just observing in silence, or finding ways to elevate ourselves to the sacred, that which is timeless and which does not require us to continuously play to the gallery.  How we are to do that requires imagination and caution.  Imagination because we are to revive things we used to do, or do them in new ways, for example through the internet.  And caution because we are to avoid simply creating rituals as events that can be recorded and disseminated.  The excessive presence or absence of ritual, according to Han, can lead us to violence.  

I found the book very engaging.  I spent more time than initially planned, as Han writes short but very powerful sentences that required me to stop and digest what I was reading.  I also found that he provides good examples of rituals.  The narrative was clear, only that there was a big influence of Han's critique on modern society throughout the whole book.  

As an engineer or problem solver, I wish Han could have been a bit more specific on how we can make ritual coexist with practices of self.   Perhaps this is my own task now.  

Reference:

Han, B.C (2020). The Disappearance of Rituals.  Cambridge (Mass): Polity Press.