Seminar - Transition towards sustainable food systems: Needs and possibilities to act

Session Chairs: Felix Schottroff and Lukas Luggin 

This seminar is part of the series  'Sustainable Food Systems: Connecting Expertise in Academia and Industry'  organized by the  EFFoST Working Group on Sustainable Food Systems and  Young EFFoST held on 28 May 2021. The seminar series aims to provide detailed insights into various facets of sustainability in the food sector. 

In order to implement the 17 UN sustainable development goals, the food industry must act now, by lowering its environmental impact. Our sector needs to go beyond greenwashing and purely marketing-based approaches, to show consumers and other stakeholders that we are committed to accomplishing the transition towards enhanced sustainability. 

Talk 1 - Overview on sustainable food systems: where are we now?
Hugo de Vries, INRAE, France
Many concepts and campaigns have been proposed already to reach a higher degree of sustainability for food value chains and its actors. This talk specifies what it means for food systems to evolve sustainably and the impact on future developments in food science and technology.
Access the presentation slides and for more information please contact Hugo de Vries.

Talk 2 - True value of food as a tool for multinational companies to manage food system sustainability
Urs Schenker, Nestlé, Switzerland
True value approaches allow multinationals to better understand their impacts and dependencies on sustainable food systems. By evaluating a large range of natural, social, and human capital impacts, multinationals can better understand how they can holistically manage their role in sustainable food systems, and understand the benefits that can be achieved by protecting the planet, ensuring health, and improving livelihoods of food system stakeholders.
Access the presentation slides and for more information please contact Urs Schenker.

Talk 3 - Circular bioeconomy: A way towards more sustainability?
Klara Hauser, RethinkResource GmbH, Switzerland
In 2016, RethinkResource was founded with the mission to support the producing industry in the transition to a closed-loop economy. In this framework, the company acts as a consulting business, innovation agency, and circular engineering office, bringing together upcycling innovations from across the world to the European manufacturing and producing industry. As such, RethinkResource has cooperated with numerous renowned food producers and will share some insights in this talk.
Access the presentation slides and for more information please contact Klara Hauser.

Talk 4 - Barriers for the transition towards more sustainable food systems and how to overcome them
Alexander Mathys, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Although many sustainability concepts have been proposed already, there is still a long and winding road ahead of us. In order to be able to overcome barriers to the development of more sustainable food processing and production, the current bottlenecks and challenges will be identified and an outlook towards future developments will be given.
Access the presentation slides and for more information please contact Alexander Mathys.

After the presentations, the speakers were available for a panel discussion involving the audience.

For more information about this webinar, please contact the session chairs Felix Schottroff and Lukas Luggin

Cookie settings