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Circular Food Economy Framework - Feedback on Core Principles
Caroline
Posts: 47 XPRIZE
Hello everyone,
Thank you for your feedback on Defining and Refining a “Circular Food Economy.” As you saw in that thread, we are assessing ways to advance an integrated circular economy, one that is equally just for the 3 pillars on which it stands -- the biosphere, cultural societies, and the economy.
To achieve an integrated circular food economy across these three pillars, we are proposing a framework that brings forward 3 interdependent principles to food systems as defined below (click here for larger chart image):
We’d appreciate your feedback and reactions to this framework and the three principles we are considering.
If you have any questions, clarifications, ideas, or thoughts, please share them in the comments below.
Thank you!
Thank you for your feedback on Defining and Refining a “Circular Food Economy.” As you saw in that thread, we are assessing ways to advance an integrated circular economy, one that is equally just for the 3 pillars on which it stands -- the biosphere, cultural societies, and the economy.
To achieve an integrated circular food economy across these three pillars, we are proposing a framework that brings forward 3 interdependent principles to food systems as defined below (click here for larger chart image):
- An Inclusive and Equitable Food System: Shaped through, for, and by its diversity, empowering and empowered through the system as a whole
- A Regenerative and Resilient Food System: Dynamic and responsive through space and time, non-exploitative to increase quality and enable continuous evolution within a balanced and cyclical system
- A Nourishing and Desirable Food System: Provides viable, energizing, fulfilling, balanced and healthy food-related experiences anchored in culture and identity, enabling communities to thrive in a world of shared abundance
We’d appreciate your feedback and reactions to this framework and the three principles we are considering.
- Are there any missing concepts/principles that cannot be explained or conveyed by the sub-principles (boxes) across the system?
- What do you think of our definitions of each of these principles?
- The framework is characterized by the interaction of interdependent principles, all as central to advancement of the Circular Food Economy as an engine for net positive growth. How do you feel about the interconnectedness of the current diagram? Does it flow, or are there pain points?
If you have any questions, clarifications, ideas, or thoughts, please share them in the comments below.
Thank you!
2
Comments
It strikes me that this topic could potentially be a massive challenge in the sense that there are so many factors that could be considered in its scope. For example:
- Policy, regulation, law and governance
- Paradigm shifts in the socio-economic model
- Scenarios for the short and long term, and for different global and local cases
- Access to resources (including land, water and energy)
- Environmental impacts to land, water, air and climate
- Innovation and new technologies
So I reflected on what XPRIZE challenges are well known for and focused my thoughts primarily on the latter point, with a few references to other points where it seems relevant to the following.A Generic Sustainable Cycle
This concise diagram illustrates how any product (or food) could be created from a basic set of resources by a creation process that assembles the product. In nature plants use nutrients, water, carbon dioxide and energy (from sunlight) to assemble a vast range of molecules that form the plant, and give rise to food. In nature every aspect, including byproducts, are recyclable. We humans use processes to manufacture and construct things but each step may require extra resources (outside the circle) and create pollutants [shown by the arrows attached to each box]. When a product reaches the end of its life some parts may be collected and recycled (or disassembled into basic components and resources).
Note: for a fully self-sustaining cycle there would not be any external resources, no pollution and no unrecoverable waste. In reality, our processes are imperfect. [Perhaps we can learn from nature.]
A fantastic but audacious opportunity exists here for an XPRIZE that copies another Star Trek technology: the Replicator! Okay we're not in the 23rd century and so we might struggle for an exact copy; but within this decade it might well be possible to push 3d printing to the nano-scopic level [in fact some aspects already exist]. Such a device might take a set of atoms or molecules and assemble complex products, and foods. A related device might take waste and disassemble it back into (valuable) resources. If we could achieve this for food then each household might be able to take basic (readily available) raw materials and use this new device to create food. This removes most of the waste and pollution currently associated with the food (and its logistics) industry. If the device became affordable then that would address equality and food poverty aspects too. Just a thought :-)
A Circular Food Cycle
This diagram shows the more complex scenario associated with the typical food cycle today. Transport may take place between most steps, and some of that might be on a global scale - adding to costs and environmental impact.
[By the way the diagram at the top of this page doesn't reference resource consumption and pollution. An important factor in food production, as it includes water and climate issues.]
The diagram illustrates the steps that could be removed if innovations allowed households and local communities to have full control and scope over the entire cycle, rather than relying on distant suppliers. Removable steps being: harvest, process, packaging and transport. (This assumes an innovation that allows an household, or local business, to grow food on demand.)
Similarly, if policies supported local small businesses then this could provide a sustainable, and fairer, local economy. Innovations might also be adopted that allow any locality in the world to produce any type of food product, not just those that are native to the area.
Thanks for the input @barbswartzentruber ! Yes, originally we did have a few works that interconnected the three principles (diverse, sufficient, dynamic), however in our most recent version they were redistributed into the three principles themselves. Curious, are there any other words for the center that inspire you besides 'circular food system'?
How to vet a prize idea like a food replicator?
That's a great question and it leads us into the challenge of, the more parameters and criteria that we use the more complex scoring becomes. Sometimes in such complex scenarios the decision maker has to rate the relative priorities of parameters, and that introduces the challenges of bias and perspective. Sometimes it isn't obvious which parameters are most important, or what formula to use to combine the scores for each parameter into one summary score - used to pick a winner. For example, we touched on lots of potential parameters: food availability; sustainability; environmental impact; equality; empowerment; affordability and availability; socio-economic impacts; etc. It's not always obvious which parameter is most important, and for different people experiencing different perspectives they may choose different answers as their scenario changes over time.
It might be worth consulting with the XPRIZE team to see how they have addressed this in previous challenges.
Here's my initial thoughts on the replicator idea... An ideal device would be:
We could apply some perspectives to this as well. For example prizes might exist for:
You pose a good question regarding the impact on business interests and worker livelihoods. This is the subject of much ongoing debate with regard to the radical innovative disruptions we will see from exponential technologies. Socio-economics, generally, are likely to see significant change. In the medium term the above offers opportunities for local businesses and societies. The replicators will need supplies of raw materials, energy, and water; and services to procure and maintain such devices. I envision that different nations and regions might progress at different rates, and adopt different levels of advancement depending on their initial circumstances.
A new, and hopefully improved food system should include a way to not only measure the nutrition of the foods it produces but to raise the bar on the health value of the final product available to the consumer at the point of purchase, or even at the time of consumption.
Could it be that over-eating is at least in part due to a lack of available nutrients in the food and an attempt to make up for that lack? Could it be that abundantly nutritious food would sate the appetite quickly, thereby satisfying with less?
I suggest the proposed framework should seek to continually raise the bar on the nutritional value of food and to measure it as close to the time of consumption as practical.
Imagine shopping with a handheld scanner that lets you know the nutritional value of the foods on offer. IMHO that would be one helluva driver for raising the bar on the quality of food we eat.
If such a device were available, I expect hyperlocal food would have a distinct advantage over its counterpart grown hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. Not everything can be grown locally, but such a device would raise the bar universally.
How are these measurements currently done? Can the technology be miniaturized? Can it also detect harmful substances? Can it be manufactured at a scale to bring it to mass markets?
Imagine the impact it would have on an integrated food system.
One thing I think you've got wrong is your inclusion of the word "Regenerative". Everything you state in the sub-principles fits with "Resilient", but you have not actually described anything regenerative. As such the framework seeks to extract value from naming the popular/trending concept "regenerative", without understanding what it means. These features speak to reducing harm and a little bit of "net positive"/doing good (within a bounded "cyclical system"), but do not emerge from a Regenerative paradigm or include any of the 7 First Principles of Regeneration.
I don't think this is an issue at all – Regeneration is very different than Circularity – but I do think that the framework should not use the term regenerative to attempt to describe what is circular.
For more on the Regenerative Paradigm applied to economics:
Thank you for your comment, @SteveK8 . I think you are raising very interesting points that help exemplify some of the aspects we hope to achieve through the framework, through its interdependence.
You've mentioned the example of nutritious food (which we strongly agree with and highlight in the framework), alongside "Imagine shopping with a handheld scanner that lets you know the nutritional value of the foods on offer." Looking at the framework, this mention of the 'handheld scanner' taps right into the principle of Inclusive & Equitable and its focus on empowering agency, in this case of the consumer. I just wanted to share this with you, as, at its core, the framework is designed to ensure that we account for the core principles that will help drive a transformation towards a circular food economy that advances environmental, societal, and economic goals alike.
Specifically, regarding the visibility into the food we consume, this is a gap we usually hear about from the industry (visibility into the supply chain, for example). Thinking of the busy modern life, do you think the consumer would be interested in such technologies?
Thank you so much @Ethan for your insightful comment and for sharing these links! We've read Carol Sanford's Medium series when you first shared it with us and were very much inspired and captivated by it. I was hoping to get a little more of your opinion regarding the 'regenerative and resilient' principle/category. When exploring core concepts for regenerative and resilient (separately), and perhaps the diagram exemplifies it better than the draft definition, we came to realize the interdependence and constant exchange b/w the two principles. i.e., for a system to be truly resilient, it must account for diversity in timelines and scale; as such, it can't be just nonexploitative and circular but must continue to be responsive - dynamic and evolving, to continuously be viable and resilient. What do you think of this dependency between regeneration and resilience? Can regeneration inform better circularity discussions?
Net-positive was originally nested under the regenerative principle. As we looked at the interdependence b/w of all principles while rethinking the concept of economic growth, we found them all necessary to interact and inform each other to drive towards a complex sense of 'growth' that goes beyond (not limited to nor defined by economic growth). Indeed, circularity as a bounded concept was challenging when we accounted for complex diversity; it's one reason we began exploring the food system in a broader sense. If I'd attempt summarizing our process -- our research indicated that approaches to sustainability via circularity fall short due to the emphasis on interlinks, and as you mentioned, heavy economic focus. So, when rethinking the path to the concept, turning it from theory (in which it doesn't account just for the economy) to practice (in present, heavily focused on economy), we proposed an integrated approach. The principles are the future food system we hope to see, while their integrated application (across biosphere, society, and economy) will help bridge the theory and practice.
This is a concise description of the process we've done, so I hope it allowed some insight... I would love to hear your thoughts.