WP5: Balancing the Interests
Lead Partner: GLOBE
Objectives: This WP aims to address SO4 and SO6. We do this by (i) Bringing together multiple actors across the food system, policy and academia to help create more useful and accessible solutions that will shape the food system and how data is used; (ii) conducting primary research among key players across the food system (from producers to retailers) to help identify the most innovative and accessible solutions and ensure alignment between those providing, enforcing and using the solutions; (iii) Exploring trade-offs and synergies across different proposed solutions to identify market readiness, scalability, needs and barriers to use. This WP addresses the Commission’s request to evaluate trade-offs and synergies between environmental concerns and other aspects of the food system (e.g. food accessibility, food security, employment, land use, food waste, packaging etc.). Insights will help to identify policy mixes consistent with a sustainable and equitable food future for all. To explore the full range of trade-offs and synergies, WP5 will run throughout the 4-year project to ensure that a multi-actor approach is utilised at all major milestones. Feedback from key industry, policy and academic experts will be gathered and used to inform decisions made about final solutions to increase the likelihood of uptake of the final solutions proposed. This WP addresses the call requirements to implement the multi-actor approach by involving a wide range of food system actors and conducting interdisciplinary research, and to support actors across the food systems through new available knowledge, shared existing data on environmental and climate impacts of food systems and identification of innovative solutions.
Objectives: This WP aims to address SO4 and SO6. We do this by (i) Bringing together multiple actors across the food system, policy and academia to help create more useful and accessible solutions that will shape the food system and how data is used; (ii) conducting primary research among key players across the food system (from producers to retailers) to help identify the most innovative and accessible solutions and ensure alignment between those providing, enforcing and using the solutions; (iii) Exploring trade-offs and synergies across different proposed solutions to identify market readiness, scalability, needs and barriers to use. This WP addresses the Commission’s request to evaluate trade-offs and synergies between environmental concerns and other aspects of the food system (e.g. food accessibility, food security, employment, land use, food waste, packaging etc.). Insights will help to identify policy mixes consistent with a sustainable and equitable food future for all. To explore the full range of trade-offs and synergies, WP5 will run throughout the 4-year project to ensure that a multi-actor approach is utilised at all major milestones. Feedback from key industry, policy and academic experts will be gathered and used to inform decisions made about final solutions to increase the likelihood of uptake of the final solutions proposed. This WP addresses the call requirements to implement the multi-actor approach by involving a wide range of food system actors and conducting interdisciplinary research, and to support actors across the food systems through new available knowledge, shared existing data on environmental and climate impacts of food systems and identification of innovative solutions.
Tasks
T5.1: Stakeholder Advisory Group and EU engagement
Lead: GLOBE (16PM).
Effort by contributors: ZHAW (1PM). Timing: M4-48. The creation of a multi- actor Advisory Group will ensure there is a dialogue between industry, regulators and scientists throughout WP1-6 during the 4-year project. Members’ unique expert perspectives will enable them to share feedback on deliverables from other WPs, and share ideas, suggestions and improvements that result in the creation of more useful and accessible solutions. The global Advisory Group will incorporate a wide range of food industry actors (suppliers, retailers, farmers), consumer representatives, regulators (government, policy makers, advisors etc.) and scientists (e.g. academic leads from other WPs). Throughout the 4-year project we will ensure at least one in-person workshop takes place each year between the Advisory Group and broader interested parties e.g., policymakers, EU representatives etc. The 1.5 day workshops will be used to bring business, research and legislative stakeholders together to ensure interests are aligned and solutions are effective. The workshops will be used for a variety of things e.g. to share expertise, explore policy requirements, feed into solution design, trial solutions etc. Insights will feed into other WPs throughout the years. These regular meetings will build and strengthen the network across the food system, with the aim of encouraging more uptake and promotion of the proposed end solutions. Additionally, we will create a Governance Committee. Setting up a Governance Committee will ensure successful and efficient running of WP5 as the group will organise, facilitate and execute tasks within WP5, ensure timelines and deliverables are met, and share sector/topic expertise where required. The Governance Committee will consist of 3-4 members, with potential partners including Cool Farm and The Nature Conservancy. The extensive, multi-actor networks of each Governance Committee member will also be utilised throughout the project.
This task is linked to the following milestones: MS5.1 (M8).
T5.2: Stakeholder insights: Horizon Scanning to Identify Gaps Toward TRL 7
Lead: GLOBE (16PM).
Effort by contributors: ULEI (1PM), UOY (1PM), ETHZ (1PM). Timing: M10-18. Primary research will be conducted with members of the Advisory Group and their wider industry networks of hundreds of food system stakeholders across Europe in the form of an online survey to explore current context around industry use of LCA data e.g. economic and technical barriers to access, consumer expectations, needs, priorities, opportunities, current use patterns, and suggestions for improvements etc. Horizon scanning is a triage-based method designed to elicit top concerns and policy priorities of different groups through workshops or surveys, and will be used to revise, refine and rank research priorities or questions for LCA/footprint tool development, like 'Top 30 food industry priorities for food footprinting tools'.
Additionally as part of this task we will undertake a research and insights dissemination and feedback session. During an in-person or online briefing and collaboration session (online session would utilise GlobeScan’s proprietary collaboration forum software which offers automatic translation into alternate languages) the Advisory Group would be presented with relevant primary data and insights (from Task 3.3 and Task 5.3), plus other proprietary research from the Governance Committee (e.g. EAT/GlobeScan’s Grains of Truth report). Advisory Group feedback and reactions to this data will help identify where there is stakeholder and end-consumer alignment or differences (synergies or trade-offs) in the needs and wants around the environmental information on food and the potential solutions. It will identify areas where solutions are needed, alongside barriers and motivators, with findings from discussions feeding into WP4. Contributes to:
D5.1 (M18).
T5.3: Evaluation of potential solutions for industry readiness
Lead: GLOBE (5PM).
Effort by contributors: ULEI (1PM). Timing: M24-48. In-person workshops or roundtable sessions with the Advisory Group will share some of the solutions explored and developed in WP2 (Task 2.4) and WP4 and gather multi-actor feedback on them. This will allow for deeper engagement, dialogue and alignment between those providing, enforcing and using the solutions to ensure the most innovative and accessible solutions are discovered. They will help identify potential quick-wins, solutions which need more long-term investment, and solutions which may not be appropriate for further investigation. Insights gathered on industry readiness and uptake of solutions will inform assessment of their potential scalability within the EU (Task 3.7). This task contributes to D5.2 (M40). Contributes to:
D5.2 (M40).
T5.4: Standard uptake through engagement with the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group
Lead: CLIMCO (23PM).
Effort by contributors: GLOBE (2PM), NILU (1PM), NILUAB (1PM), ULEI (1PM), UOY (1PM), COOL (1PM). Timing: M1-48. DDMXX this should not appear since we should not re-initailize again in tasks.ts. To support EU disclosure regulation a continuous effort will be dedicated to integrating the insights acquired from this and adjacent portfolio projects into the development relevant sustainability reporting standard setters, including EFRAG and others, e.g. GRI and/or ISSB considering evolving policy contexts. Particular attention will be given to supporting European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), focussing on the sector-specific standards for the food and beverages sector. Two team members from Climate & Company are seconded to EFRAG’s writing team for the sector standards Agriculture, Farming and Fishing as well as Food and Beverages. They will be able to include significant insights from GREENGROCER into shaping the disclosure requirements of the latter. While EFRAG remains a key standard setter to engage, we recommend broadening our engagement to include other relevant standard setters, particularly GRI and potentially ISSB. This broadened approach is especially important considering the EU Commission’s Omnibus Proposal, which increases the relative relevance of voluntary, internationally recognized standards like GRI. Including those stakeholders, too, could enhance the project’s relevance and impact. The development of the Food and Beverages standard relies on leveraging scientific insights into the ESG impacts of food and beverage systems to formulate disclosure requirements that are both ambitious in addressing the needs of people and the planet, while also being practical and feasible for companies to report on. Furthermore, the insights of this project will help to create meaningful and comparable data that is used by financial institutions to make informed investment decisions, necessary for the sustainable transition. Milestones: M5.2 Introduction of GreenGrocer activities to the ESRS working group (M24). In this task we will create an online platform (exact format TBD) that will highlight and help match innovative solutions developed in the project and challenges and information gaps in sustainability disclosure field, especially within regard to the food sector. By explicitly showcasing both solutions and challenges, we can better match innovative approaches with existing needs and help project outputs to take policy needs into consideration more easily and timely. This platform would serve as an interface between solution providers (e.g. researchers from the project consortium) and those that need them (e.g. standard setters). While standard-setters (EFRAG and others) are an important audience, we envision the platform and its content being accessible and informative to a broader group, including companies aiming to improve their sustainability reporting and the financial sector developing financing solutions for the transition. Similarly, we could also showcase relevant solutions beyond the project through the platform. While active engagement by different groups directly on / through the platform would be valuable, the platform can also function as a resource for us to extract insights and share them with relevant contacts. Contributes to:
D5.3 (M22).
This task is linked to the following milestones: MS5.2 (M24).
T5.5: Develop policy recommendations for selected EU countries
Lead: NILU (3PM).
Effort by contributors: COOL (2PM), NILUAB (1PM), ULEI (1PM), UOXF (0.5PM). Timing: M18-48. The insights from analysis of different improvement domains (waste, diets, sourcing, agri-innovation) and case study analysis (WP3 and WP4) will be contextualised for selected, complementary countries identified as interesting based on the insights gained. This contextualisation will consider the feasibility of food transition pathways with high impact reduction potential, in view of existing national policies, governance, and contexts of food production, consumption and trade. Through the project we will work to facilitate direct conversations between members of the project consortium and key stakeholders, particularly between researchers and: (1) The financial sector (e.g., to help banks develop financing solutions for the food sector’s transition)., (2) Standard setters (e.g., EFRAG, and potentially others such as GRI)., and (3) Companies in the food sector preparing their sustainability reports and facing challenges in assessing risks and impacts within their value chains. We will aim at organizing at least two workshops between project consortium members and decision-makers in these areas to ensure practical, user-informed outputs and visibility / increased impact for project outputs. Contributes to:
D5.4 (M46), D5.5 (M24).
T5.6: Pratice Abstracts
Lead: UOXF (1.5PM).
Effort by contributors: GLOBE (2PM). Timing: M1-48. Practice abstracts (lead: OXFORD, COOL, participants: All, timing: M1-M48). This project requires a multi- actor approach. This means that we should deliver practical knowledge/approaches/tools, following a defined template and disseminate it through appropriate channels. This is done through the so called “practice abstracts”. The project will deliver two (2) Practice abstracts (PAs) in the EIP-AGRI format. Practice Abstracts aim to facilitate the flow of information from projects to end-users and share relevant innovative and practice-oriented knowledge developed in the projects. The resulting innovative knowledge from this project will feed into the EIP-AGRI (The agricultural European Innovation Partnership) website for broad dissemination to practitioners. End-user material will be produced in the form of a number of summaries for practitioners in the EIP common format ("practice abstracts"). The project details will also be submitted to the platform with the first deliverable submission. We will follow the guidance and templates from the EIP-AGRI web site: http://ec.europa.eu/eip/agriculture/en/content/eip-agri-common-format. A total target number of two (2) practice abstracts is foreseen for the project. Contributes to:
D5.6 (M48), D5.7 (M24).
Milestones
Table 3.1d: List of Milestones
| Number | Name | Work Package No. | Lead Beneficiary | Means of Verification | Due Date (in months) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MS5.1 | Creation of a stakeholder advisory group to support throughout WP1-6 | 5 | GLOBE | Group created | 8 |
| MS5.2 | Introduction of GreenGrocer activities to the ESRS working group. | 5 | GLOBE | Communication of the outcomes of the project during a ESRS meeting | 24 |
Deliverables
| Number | Relative Number in WP | Name | Lead Beneficiary | Type | Dissemination Level | Due Date (in months) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D5.1 | 1 | Stakeholder insights report | GLOBE | R | PU | 18 |
| D5.2 | 2 | Stakeholder evaluation | GLOBE | R | PU | 40 |
| D5.3 | 3 | Policy brief 1 | NILU | R | PU | 22 |
| D5.4 | 4 | Policy Brief 2 | NILU | R | PU | 46 |
| D5.5 | 5 | Practice Abstracts Batch 1 | ULEI | R | PU | 24 |
| D5.6 | 6 | Practice Abstracts Batch 2 | NILU | R | PU | 48 |
| D5.7 | 7 | Gaps and Solutions Platform | CLIMCO | DEC | PU | 24 |