My research fits into a body of work attempting to address the environmental, social, and economic challenges faced by the Food System in the poly-crisis age - where feeding an ever growing population must contend with efforts to avoid the worst affects of climate change, biodiversity collapse, and global chemical pollution.

 

My approach uses frameworks from the sustainability transitions literature to analyse and suggest how sustainability assessment tools such as Life Cycle Assessment can better explore the dynamics between society and technologies during the transition towards a more circular and sustainable Food System. 

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Why food systems? 

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Global food production can be considered the largest driver of environmental change worldwide: it is the main driver of water withdrawals, biodiversity stresses, bio-geo-chemical pollution; and it is second only to the energy industry in its contribution to climate change. But these environmental challenges are intertwined with socio-economic considerations. Only by taking a system-wide view can we hope to see the whole picture, and collectively work towards the transition to a sustainable food system. 

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How can Circular Economy help?

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The vision of a Circular Economy is one without waste, where production and consumption patterns can exist in harmony with the natural world. Whether we can decouple economic prosperity from resource extraction and environmental pollution is an open question, however Circular Economy offers a rallying point for cross-sectoral work in the technologies and organisations that will help us to be smarter about the materials we use and re-use.

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And the role of sustainability assessment?

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Life Cycle Assessment is the premier tool for the environmental, social and economic impact assessment of products, services and organisations. I'm interested in how these tools can go beyond product-level analyses and consider the human elements in production and consumption practices. Only through considering all stakeholders involved can we build towards a Circular Economy in an equitable and sustainable way, ensuring that trade-offs and rebound effects do not end up undoing progress we can make.

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