Publications

Book chapter in: Pace, N., and S. Busetti. “Food Loss and Waste Policy: From Theory to Practice.” (2022): Routledge: London and New York, ISBN: 9781003226932

Chapter Abstract:

In certain national contexts, such as France and Italy, new regulations are encouraging retailers to reduce their food waste, particularly through the redistribution of the edible surplus food they generate. Social innovation around surplus food is also a vibrant arena of action, with grassroots responses to reducing food waste being both well established and emerging, particularly at the urban scale. Examples include surplus food pay-as-you-feel cafes and community kitchens, as well as redistribution initiatives working with fresh and cooked food to connect donors and recipients of surplus, many utilising digital technologies to mediate and up-scale their activities. However, the overall impact of these initiatives, both in terms of food waste reduction and otherwise, is unclear. Interrogating illustrative cases from Dublin, London and Barcelona in terms of their form, function, governance and impacts, we discuss key challenges and opportunities facing these initiatives, and the organisations which supply and govern them, focusing in particular on an innovative tool to assist with impact analysis. In conclusion, we explore the challenges that remain in the arena of surplus food redistribution and set out a prospective research agenda for progressing our understanding of activities for food waste reduction beyond public and private initiatives.

Citation:

Davies, A. R., and McGeever, A.H. “Social innovation for food waste reduction: Surplus food redistribution.” In Food Loss and Waste Policy, pp. 209-223. Routledge.

Available from: https://www.routledge.com/Food-Loss-and-Waste-Policy-From-Theory-to-Practice/Busetti-Pace/p/book/9781032129358

The food system is unsustainable and requires reconfiguration, however more data is required to assess the impacts of action which might contribute to a more sustainable food future. Responding to this, extensive research with food sharing initiatives—activities which have been flagged for their potential sustainability credentials—led to the co-design of an online sustainability impact assessment (SIA) tool to support food sharing initiatives to asses and evidence their sustainability impacts. This paper reports on the initial user testing of the resulting online tool: The Toolshed which forms the indicator based SIA element of the SHARE IT platform. Feedback gathered from the initiatives testing the tool are analyzed and summaries of their reported impacts detailed. This analysis confirms the need for the tool, the relevance of the indicators included and the value of SIA reports for internal reflection and external communication. Nonetheless, challenges remain in relation to resourcing the practice of SIA reporting. We conclude with a plan for expanding engagement with The Toolshed and the wider SHARE IT platform.

Citation: Mackenzie, Stephen G., and Anna R. Davies. “SHARE IT: Co-designing a sustainability impact assessment framework for urban food sharing initiatives.” Environmental impact assessment review 79 (2019): 106300.

Link to publication

Abstract

Credit to Mccormick, K., Leire, C., & van Sprang, H. (Eds.) (2021).

Organised on the 16 November 2020, the roundtable on “Sharing Cities – Shaping Tomorrow” focused on sharing insights and ideas on the future of sharing in our cities and communities. The roundtable gathered over 40 people from around world and formed part of the Smart City Live Conference. This report pulls together the conversations at the roundtable and distils the key findings.

SHARECITY PI Anna Davies was one of the contributors at this roundtable and is featured in this report.

Link to publication

Citation:

Mccormick, K., Leire, C., & van Sprang, H. (Eds.) (2021). The Future of Sharing? A Roundtable for Horizon Scanning on Sharing Cities. (Viable Cities Report Series; Vol. 2021, No. 1). Lund University.

Abstract:
The European Commission’s recently published ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy seeks to transition towards a sustainable food system. The strategy moves from a linear understanding of the food system towards a more circular view of the system’s complex interdependencies. Despite these laudable intentions, it does not follow the guidance of the EU’ Group of Chief Scientific Advisors that the path to a more sustainable food system requires a deeper move, from a ‘food-as-commodity’ framing to one that approaches ‘food-as-a-common good’. Drawing on our recent experience as authors of an Evidence Review Report on the European food system, we discuss how different framings of food (as commodity, human right or common good) shape the development of food policy, using the ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy as a key example.

Citation:

Jackson, P., Rivera Ferre, M.G., Candel, J. et al. Food as a commodity, human right or common good. Nat Food (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00245-5

Briefing Note 4: SHARE IT Sustainability Impact Assessment Toolkit

This briefing note provides a high level summary of SHARE IT, an innovative output from the SHARECITY research project, that delivers multidimensional sustainability impact assessment products and services to help initiatives, local authorities and food retailers identify the impacts of collaborative acts around food (food sharing for brevity) that they support.

SHARECITY has already shown that food sharing practices have significant sustainability potential, but we have found that food sharing initiatives struggle to identify, demonstrate and communicate the impact of their work. The reasons for this are multifaceted.  It is sometimes due to a lack of reporting capacity internally, sometimes it is the high cost of purchasing external consultancy, but it is also because mainstream impact assessment tools have not been designed with food sharing initiatives in mind. We designed the SHARE IT toolkit and supporting services to respond directly to these barriers.

This briefing note:

• Outlines the need for SHARE IT

• Explains the functionality of the SHARE IT tool

• Illustrates outputs of engagement with the tool to date

• Outlines opportunities for engagement with the SHARE IT tool

Please Cite as: McGeever, A.H.  and Davies, A.R. (2021) SHARECITY Briefing Note 4: SHARE IT, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Abstract

Food waste is a global societal meta-challenge requiring a sustainability transition involving everyone, including publics. However, to date, much transitions research has been silent on the role of public participation and overly narrow in its geographical reach. In response, this paper examines whether the Ecologies of Participation (EOP) approach provides a conceptual framing for understanding the role of publics within food waste transitions in Singapore. First the specificities of Singapore’s socio-political context and its food waste management system is reviewed, before discussing dominant, diverse and emergent forms of public engagement with food waste issues. This is followed by in-depth consideration of how participation is being orchestrated by two surplus food redistribution initiatives. Our analysis finds the EOP beneficial in its elevation of participation within the transitions field. It also provides a useful means to deconstruct elements that comprise participation practices and discuss culture-specific motivations, organisational realities and visceral experiences.

Please cite this article as:

Rut, M., Davies, A.R. and Ng, H. (2020) Participating in food waste transitions: Exploring surplus food redistribution in Singapore through the ecologies of participation framework. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, DOI: 10.1080/1523908X.2020.1792859.

Abstract

Science Advice for Policy by European Academies (SAPEA), part of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism, has published an evidence review report summarising social science research seeking a sustainable food system for the European Union. Here, I reflect on its key findings and tease out foundational issues that the document raises for scientists and policymakers.

Please cite this article as:

Davies, A.R. (2020). Toward a Sustainable Food System for the European Union: Insights from the Social Sciences. One Earth, 3(1), 27–31, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.06.008.

Abstract

Credit to: SAPEA 2020.

Food systems have complex social, economic and ecological components, and radical transformation is needed to make them sustainable. This report from SAPEA lays out the science on how that transition can happen in an inclusive, just and timely way.

The global demand for food will increase in the future. To meet this demand, it is not enough simply to increase productivity in a sustainable way. We also need to change from linear mass consumption to a more circular economy — which will mean changing our norms, habits and routines.

The evidence shows that this kind of behaviour change needs to happen collectively, not just individually. So we need joined-up governance at local, national and international levels.

Food systems also contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. This can be addressed by reducing waste or directing it back into the supply chain.

A mix of different measures will be most effective. The evidence shows that taxation is one of the most effective ways to modify behaviour. Accreditation and labelling schemes can also have an impact.

Meanwhile, reform of European agriculture and fisheries policies offer great opportunities to develop resilience and sustainability.

But there is not yet enough evidence to know for sure exactly what works in practice, so the steps we take should be carefully evaluated, and trade-offs anticipated.

*The text of this work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. The licence is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.

*Note: SHARECITY’s work is referenced throughout the SAPEA 2020 Report, however, this piece of work was created by SAPEA and the European Commission.

Please cite this report as:

Science Advice for Policy by European Academies. (SAPEA, 2020) A sustainable food system for the European Union. SAPEA: Berlin. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26356/sustainablefood.

Overview

This handbook includes contributions from established and emerging scholars from around the world and draws on multiple approaches and subjects to explore the socio-economic, cultural, ecological, institutional, legal, and policy aspects of regenerative food practices.

The future of food is uncertain. We are facing an overwhelming number of interconnected and complex challenges related to the ways we grow, distribute, access, eat, and dispose of food. Yet, there are stories of hope and opportunities for radical change towards food systems that enhance the ability of living things to co-evolve. Given this, activities and imaginaries looking to improve, rather than just sustain, communities and ecosystems are needed, as are fresh perspectives and new terminology. The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems addresses this need. The chapters cover diverse practices, geographies, scales, and entry-points. They focus not only on the core requirements to deliver sustainable agriculture and food supply, but go beyond this to think about how these can also actively participate with social-ecological systems. The book is presented in an accessible way, with reflection questions meant to spark discussion and debate on how to transition to safe, just, and healthy food systems. Taken together, the chapters in this handbook highlight the consequences of current food practices and showcase the multiple ways that people are doing food differently.

The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems is essential reading for students and scholars interested in food systems, governance and practices, agroecology, rural sociology, and socio-environmental studies.

Please cite this book chapter as:

Davies, A. R. (2020). Food Sharing. In J. Duncan, M. Carolan & J. S. C. Wiskerke (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Sustainable and Regenerative Food Systems (1st edition, pp. 204-317). Taylor & Francis, London.

Download the chapter.

Overview

In early 2020, as country after country sought to contain the novel coronavirus – COVID-19 – by issuing stay-at-home notices and community lockdowns, incredible images of nature reclaiming human spaces began to emerge from pumas in Santiago to street battles between monkey troops in Thailand. Some of these images reflected conflict within existing urban wildlife communities as their main source of food, the off-cuts of human consumption, dried up under COVID-19. A few, such as the now infamous image of dolphins in Venice, turned out to be fake, but many were extremely effective in showing the extent to which non-human nature would roam if we stayed at home. Could this moment of crisis be the stimulus needed to turn the corner in climate action and create a safe and sustainable planet for all?

Please cite this feature as:

Davies, A.R. (2020, October). Reset, Restructure and Repair: COVID-19 and the Environment. Trinity Today 2020, pp. 28-29, Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved from: https://viewer.ipaper.io/trinity-development-and-alumni/trinity-today-2020/trinitytoday-2020/?page=1

Read it online here:

Abstract

Stigma is often encountered by recipients who receive food donations from charities, while the consumption of wasted food, also traditionally considered to be a stigmatized practice, has recently become part of a popular food rescue movement that seeks to reduce environmental impacts. These two stigmas—charitable donation and the consumption of waste—are brought together at the Open Table, a community group in Melbourne, Australia, that serves community meals cooked from surplus food. This paper examines how Open Table de-stigmatizes food donations through food waste discourse to enable greater social inclusion. I draw on the experiences of donors, cooks, volunteers and eaters gathered from diverse Open Table sites. Taking a ‘follow-the-thing’ approach, I analyze how food ‘waste’ becomes re-valued by embracing goals of environmental justice enacted through local processes of care and conviviality. Relying on networks of volunteers and not-for-profit agencies, Open Table provides a simple, effective and adaptable model for possible replication for overcoming drawbacks of traditional charity practices. Critically though, as hunger in society continues to grow, this approach is increasingly threatened by the need to ‘single out’ disadvantaged recipients to justify continued supply. This paper contributes to food poverty, waste, and Alternative Food Network literature in two important ways: first, by analyzing the outcomes of community food redistribution approaches with regards to stigma and inclusion; and secondly, by arguing that such holistic approaches need to be acknowledged, valued and supported to shift current discourses and practice.

Please cite this article as:

Edwards, F. (2020). Overcoming the social stigma of consuming food waste by dining at the Open Table. Agriculture and Human Values. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10176-9.

Abstract

In many ways, the expansion of commercial for-profit, Peer to Peer (P2P) social dining platforms has mirrored those within mobility and accommodation sectors. However its dynamics and impacts have received less consideration to date, with a notable paucity of attention to the hosts of social dining events. The aim of this paper is to address this research lacuna. Through its exploration of the social dining platforms VizEat in Athens and Eatwith in Barcelona, this paper identifies, analyses and compares the social practices of hosts around their social dining events in two key tourist destinations in Europe. Data is gathered through multiple methods from participating in and observing social dining events in each city to interviews with key stakeholders in the P2P social dining process (such as hosts, platform employees and ambassadors). The research reveals how dynamic rules, tools, skills and understandings shape and reshape the performance of hosting social dining events. It exposes tensions and ongoing negotiations between hosts and guests regarding matters of authenticity and privacy, an uneven risk burden between hosts and platforms with regards liability and scant regard for matters of sustainability. As a result there is little alignment between P2P social dining and the goals of sustainable tourism.

Please cite this article as:

Davies, A.R., Cretella, A., Edwards, F. and Marovelli, B. (2020). The social practices of hosting P2P social dining events: Insights for sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1838526.

Abstract

Following a series of global food crises and an increasing dependence on food imports, the Singaporean government has begun to support local food production as a means to improve the sustainability of its food regime. This extends to the development of state-led ventures which support shared food growing in the city. In parallel, informal citizens’ groups are experimenting with collaborative forms of food provisioning. Both types of initiatives utilise Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to facilitate their practices of shared growing and seek to reorient the current food regime onto a more sustainable pathway. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with two initiatives representative of both organisational positions, this paper critically examines the efficacy of using a transitions thinking approach to assess their actual and potential contribution to the disruption of the food regime in Singapore. The paper first reviews existing approaches to transitions thinking in order to distil insights for examining shared food growing initiatives in Singapore as niche projects. The broader socio-cultural and political context of Singapore’s food system and the food growing niche projects which are emerging within it are then delineated, followed by a strategic niche management (SNM) analysis of the two initiatives. Ultimately, the paper makes two linked contributions: firstly, it diversifies the empirical foundations and the sectoral and geographical reach of sustainability transitions research. Secondly, it provides space for critical reflection on transitions thinking when applied beyond the Western liberal democratic settings from which it emerged.

Please cite this article as:

Rut, M. and Davies, A. (2018): Transitioning without confrontation? Shared food growing niches and sustainable food transitions in Singapore. Geoforum (96), 11/2018, p. 278-288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.07.016.

Abstract

Public fridges are open-access community-stewarded spaces where food can be freely and anonymously shared. As such, they are fertile ground for understanding the obstacles and opportunities for governing food as a commons. This paper examines the governance strategies that have developed within and around Foodsharing.de, a grassroots food-rescue network in Berlin, to manage food as a commons. Analyzing the commoning of food in Foodsharing.de provides a novel entry point into the multi-scalar and multi-stakeholder governance processes that shape our broader food system. In this paper, I further develop the concept of urban food commons to specifically analyze the governance of food and risk. In particular, I draw on qualitative research to analyze a conflict between Foodsharing.de and the Berlin Food Safety Authority over the potential health and safety risks of public fridges. Building on this, I show how different governance practices, informed by different risk ontologies and understandings of the common good/hazard of food, come into tension through the everyday practices of sharing food. This paper departs from previous research that has focused on how the benefits of food commons are shared and regulated at various scales, to also explore how their risks are managed, or could be managed, within an urban food commons framework.

Please cite this article as:

Morrow, O. (2019): Sharing food and risk in Berlin’s urban food commons. GeoForum. Volume 99, February 2019, Pages 202-212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.09.003

Abstract

Attention to value, exchange and circulation has long been a central feature of trade flow analyses. More recently, scholars have sought to extend these frames to examine the ongoing movements of end-of-life goods; essentially examining the waste mobilities of commodities. These flows have particular geographies and practices of valuing and revalorization depending on the material and relational qualities of the commodities in question. However, surprisingly little analysis has taken place of the movement of food surplus within these debates and even less has been conducted with respect to the movements of surplus prepared food. In response, this paper examines the particular value choreography of redistributing surplus prepared food in San Francisco. Four initiatives, which use information and communication technologies (ICT) to help put this particularly challenging form of food surplus to further use, are analysed. Specific attention is given to the transitions, technologies and tensions that shape the [re]valuing of surplus food in places and as it travels across space and time amongst diverse actors. In conclusion, it is argued that while commercial economic values and logics play a pivotal role in opening up particular types of food for redistribution, actual practices of moving food along are suffused with a much more complex and shifting architecture of values and valuers.

Please cite this article as:

Davies, A. and Weymes, M. (2019): [Re]Valuing Surplus: Transitions, technologies and tensions in redistributing prepared food in San Francisco. GeoForum. Volume 99, February 2019, Pages 160-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.11.005

ABSTRACT

The role of urban areas in shaping global futures has never been clearer. However, their complex socio-technical systems are under stress and unlikely to experience any respite as populations grow and as patterns of production and consumption resist transition to more sustainable pathways. Urban food systems are not exempt from these pressures, however they are the subject of ongoing experimentation and innovation, particularly around the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Urban food sharing is one such arena of experimentation. It includes collective and collaborative practices around food, from shared growing, cooking and eating and the redistribution of surplus food, to the sharing of spaces and devices. This themed issue brings together cuttingedge scholarship on what it means to share food in contemporary cities around the globe. All papers contribute to debates about how things become food, whether that is in relation to the rules and governing systems that shape and discipline these becomings, or the practices of exchange and consumption that follow. Together they develop geographically-sensitive approaches to sharing that better comprehend the relations between scale, space and place. This paper maps the terrain of urban food sharing, introduces key conceptual approaches, identifies common themes, and proposes an agenda for future studies.

Please cite this article as:

Davies and Evans (2019) Urban food sharing: Emerging geographies of production, consumption and exchange, GeoForum. Volume 99, February 2019, Pages 154-159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.11.015

Abstract

Commensality, the act of eating together, is an important human ritual that benefits beyond the biological need for food and it is well established amongst food studies scholars. At the same time, novel forms of social eating are emerging in urban contexts, especially mediated by new technologies. Yet, ICT-mediated urban food sharing and the moments of commensality they generate have received limited attention to date. In response, this paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork with three urban food sharing initiatives in London – a city which exhibits an active and dynamic urban food sharing ecosystem, to explore the experiences of commensality that are produced. By employing qualitative methods of enquiry, I illustrate how these initiatives go beyond the food offered by engaging with the material and affective elements of cooking and eating together and how they attempt to nurture collective spaces of encounter. Social isolation and loneliness emerge within this research as central drivers for participating in food sharing initiatives. The paper concludes that these collective spaces and the affective qualities that they generate are particularly vital in urban contexts in times of austerity, as these initiatives have capacity to embrace social differences and to facilitate the circulation of ideas and practices of care and hospitality. They operate as provisional bridging mechanisms between people, communities, projects and services, providing the connective tissue in ways which are hard to measure through simple quantitative measures and, as a result, are rarely articulated.

Please cite this article as:

Marovelli, B. (2019): Cooking and eating together in London: Food sharing initiatives as collective spaces of encounter. Geoforum. Volume 99, February 2019, Pages 190-201.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.09.003

SHARECITY Bites is a compilation of blogs written by SHARECITY team members between 2016 and 2019. SHARECITY Bites has three parts, Part I outlines the structure and focus of the research phases, documenting our collaborations along the way. Part II provides insights from our in-depth ethnographic fieldwork across nine cities around the world and Part III provides reflections from the research team on key themes that have emerged in our research.

We would like to thank all contributing authors for their hard work both as researchers in the field and also for their commitment to science-communication beyond academic circles illustrated by the contributions in this document. We would also like to thank the food sharing initiatives, urban food activists, and academics who have inspired us along our SHARECITY journey.

We hope you enjoy these nuggets of food sharing!

This publication was authored by Anna Davies and Vivien Franck of the SHARECITY research team. All or part of this publication may be reproduced without further permission provided it is acknowledged.

Please cite as: Davies, A.R. and Franck, V. (2019) SHARECITY Bites, Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

This book explores the history and current practice of food sharing. Illustrated by rich case studies from around the world, the book uses new empirical data to set an agenda for research and action. The book will be an important resource for researchers, policy makers and sharing innovators to explore the impacts and sustainability potential of such sharing for cities.

“A promising and original contribution to studies on the socio-technical processes that underpin urban food system transitions to sustainability….innovative and timely.” Rositsa T. Ilieva, Urban Food Policy Institute, City University of New York

“This smart book helps us to recognize how destructive the commodification of food has been and the social isolation it has fostered given that all human life requires food to survive.” Nik Heynen, University of Georgia

Urban Food Sharing: rules, tool & networks by Anna Davies is available for free download from: http://www.oapen.org/search?identifier=1004846 Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence.

Abstract

This chapter provides an empirically grounded contribution to better understanding the logics of surplus food redistribution for human consumption and develops contingent insights into food redistribution’s benefits and limitations for simultaneously reducing food waste and food injustice. It considers the practice of redistributing surplus food from businesses to charities. The chapter explains contemporary collision of extended food mobilities and social justice concerns that emerges when surplus food that would have previously gone to waste is redistributed to people for consumption. Retailers additionally benefit from the increasing protection provided through an expanding governance architecture around food donations that sets out clear requirements for safe redistribution. A mobile ethnography of the assemblage of actors engaging with one surplus food redistribution initiative in Ireland was conducted between 2015 and 2017. In Ireland, the Waste Management Regulations 2009 specify that most businesses selling or serving food must segregate their food waste at source and that it must not be sent to landfill.

Please cite this chapter as:

Davies, A.R. (2019) Redistributing surplus food: Interrogating the collision of waste and justice. In Butz et al., (Eds.) Mobilities, Mobility Justice & Social Justice. Routledge, London.

ISBN:  9780429434587

Download the chapter.

Please cite this article as:

Morrow, O. (2019) Community Self-Organizing and the Urban Food Commons in Berlin and New York. Sustainability 11.13 (2019): 3641. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11133641

A B S T R A C T
Urban food systems must undergo a significant transformation if they are to avoid impeding the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goals. One reconfiguration with claimed sustainability benefits is ICT-mediated food sharing – an umbrella term used to refer to technologically-augmented collective or collaborative practices around growing, cooking, eating and redistributing food – which some argue improves environmental efficiencies by reducing waste, providing opportunities to make or save money, building social networks and generally enhancing well-being. However, most sustainability claims for food sharing have not been evidenced by systematically collected and presented data. In this paper we document our response to this mismatch between claims and evidence through the development of the SHARECITY sustainability Impact assessment Toolkit (SHARE IT); a novel Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) framework which has been co-designed with food sharing initiatives to better indicate the impact of food-sharing initiatives in urban food systems. We demonstrate that while several SIA frameworks have been developed to evaluate food systems at the urban scale, they contain few measures that specifically account for impacts of the sharing that initiatives undertake. The main body of the paper focuses on the co-design process undertaken with food sharing initiatives based in Dublin and London. Attention is paid to how two core goals were achieved: 1) the identification of a coherent SIA framework containing appropriate indicators for the activities of food sharing initiatives; and 2) the development of an open access online toolkit for in order to make SIA reporting accessible for food sharing initiatives. In conclusion, the co-design process revealed a number of technical and conceptual challenges, but it also stimulated creative responses to these challenges.

Please cite as:

Mackenzie, S. G., Davies, A. R. (2019): SHARE IT: Co-designing a sustainability impact assessment framework for urban food sharing initiatives.
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Volume 79, 2019, 106300, ISSN 0195-9255, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2019.106300.

Abstract

Calls for greater food democracy in Europe have emerged as the limitations of urban food systems dominated by commercial organisations are documented, but little attention has been paid to how policy arrangements affect attempts to transition to more democratic food futures. This article examines food sharing initiatives—increasingly facilitated by the use of information and communication technologies—as a potential means to enhance urban food democracy, and explores the role of policy in shaping those practices in three European capital cities: Berlin, London, and Dublin. We pose two related questions: To what extent are diverse food sharing initiatives exemplars of food democracy, and to what extent do policy arrangements affect food sharing practices and the nature of any food democracy they might embody? Our empirical evidence demonstrates where the goals and impacts of food sharing initiatives align with key dimensions of food democracy. We also consider how food sharing initiatives—and any food democracy dimensions that they support—are affected by the policy environment in which they operate. The food sharing initiatives examined revealed to be agents of pro-democratic change, at least within the boundaries of their spheres of influence, despite policies rarely having their activities and aspirations in mind.

Please cite this article as:

Davies, A.R.; Cretella, A.; Franck, V. (in press): Food Sharing Initiatives and Food Democracy: Practice and Policy in Three European Cities, Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463), 2019, Volume 7, Issue 4, Pages 8–20. DOI: 10.17645/pag.v7i4.2090

Frontrunner regions for urban sustainability experimentation in Europe: A quantitative approach

Author: P. W. J. (Pim) Verhagen, BSc

Master’s Thesis – master Innovation Sciences. Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. July 31, 2019. 

Supervisors: dr. Gaston Heimeriks, drs. Harm van den Heiligenberg (PhD)
Second reader: dr. Frank van Rijnsoever

Abstract

This paper studies the geographically uneven distribution of sustainability experiments in Europe. It develops a conceptual model based on the synthesis of different pieces of literature to systematically analyse various demographic, socio-economic, and socio-cultural context factors. A better understanding of favourable context factors for sustainability experiments may help to explain why urban sustainability experiments emerge more in certain locations than in others. In doing so, it addresses the research gap of how spatial contexts affect the emergence, development and diffusion of urban sustainability experiments. The paper presents a first quantitative study to analyse sustainability experiments by drawing on a dataset of over 1200 urban food sharing experiments across 29 cities in Europe. Thereby, it complements existing qualitative studies on this topic.
Results suggest that urban food sharing experiments emerge, develop and diffuse in a variety of contexts. The paper shows that the number of food sharing experiments per capita is associated with a diverse set of favourable context factors, including technological specialisation, skilled labour, creative employment, cooperative culture, counterculture, place-reputation, openness, international meetings, quality of government and economic well-being, of which the latter two are novel contributions to the literature. In general, city-regions with a high number of food sharing experiments per capita (e.g. Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, London and Zurich) offer more favourable environments for urban sustainability experimentation than city-regions with a low number of food sharing experiments (Moscow, Naples and Thessalonica). It appears that the density of urban food sharing is higher in Northwestern Europe, in city-regions characterised by their devotion to sustainability and high quality of living. Interestingly, some city-regions such as Cologne have a high density of food sharing experiments but do not perform well on most of the context factors. The opposite applies to cities like Stockholm. Based on two brief case studies, the paper describes possible reasons for these contrasting findings.
The paper discusses the results and critically reflects on the usefulness of the conceptual model. Finally, the paper discusses its main limitations and argues that more research is needed on this topic. Future research avenues should focus on studying a larger sample of sustainability experiments, different types of experiments, differences within cities and the actual upscaling of experiments. Scholars are also invited to further develop the proposed conceptual model.

Keywords: urban sustainability experiments, sustainability transitions, geography of transitions, geography of experimentation, food sharing

Abstract

Sharing economies are being identified across diverse territories, including the food sector, as potential means to enact urban sustainability transitions. Within these developments ICT (information and communication technologies) are seen as a crucial enabler of sharing, stretching the spaces over which sharing can take place. However, there has been little explicit conceptual or empirical attention to these developments within the broad landscape of food sharing. In response, this paper provides the first macro-geographical analysis of urban food sharing mediated by ICT. Focusing on individual food-sharing initiatives drawn from a scoping database of 468 urban areas and ninety-one countries, this analysis reveals a variegated geography of food sharing in terms of location, what is being shared and the mode of food sharing adopted. Also documented is the extent to which these initiatives articulate sustainability claims and provide evidence to substantiate them. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the work that such a scoping database can do in relation to wider challenges of transforming urban food systems.

Please cite this article as:

Davies, Anna R., and Robert Legg. “Fare sharing: interrogating the nexus of ICT, urban food sharing, and sustainability.” Food, Culture & Society 21.2 (2018): 233-254. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2018.1427924

SHARECITY Briefing Note #3: Communicating goals and impacts of food sharing in online spaces

This briefing note provides a summary of the ways in which a suite of ICT-mediated food sharing initiatives from diverse cities around the world communicate both the goals and the impacts of their activities through their online profiles. These initiatives were selected from the SHARECITY100 Database (See Briefing Note 1) and nine case study cities: Athens, Greece; Barcelona, Spain; Berlin, Germany; Dublin, Ireland; London, UK; Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco, USA; and Singapore. Profiles of sharing in these cities can be found in Briefing Note 2. This analysis is a preliminary step in a process of establishing the sustainability impact and potential of diverse ICT-mediated food sharing initiatives. Further in-depth research has been conducted with each of the initiatives detailed in this document and findings will inform a process of co-designing a flexible, open-access toolkit for identifying and measuring sustainability impacts.

Please cite as: Davies, A. et al. (2018) SHARECITY Briefing Note 3: Goals & Impacts, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. ERC Grant No: 646883 

Urban Agriculture Magazine, 34: Measuring Impact

Anna Davies, Marion Weymes, Stephen MacKenzie

Urban food sharing – which includes collective or shared practices around growing, preparing, eating and redistributing food – is experiencing a technology-fuelled renaissance, but are these activities contributing to more sustainable food systems? Delving into the project’s research findings, this article analyses the goals of ICT-mediated urban food sharing initiatives from nine global cities and examines the ways that these organisations are communicating their activities and impacts through their online profiles. Five categories – social, environmental, economic, health and political – are used to classify goals and impacts. The article concludes by distilling the key challenges of establishing sustainability impacts.

SHARECITY Working Paper 3

Weymes, M. and Davies, A. R. (2018) Disruptive technologies? Scaling relational geographies of ICT-mediated surplus food redistribution, SHARECITY working paper 3, Trinity College Dublin.

Abstract
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is increasingly mooted as a disruptive and even empowering tool for improving food systems, not least with respect to food waste prevention and the redistribution of food surplus. However, detailed analysis of the practices and impacts of such ICT-mediated redistributive mechanisms is limited. In response, this paper draws on a collaboratively designed database and interviews with key stakeholders in a redistribution ecosystem in order to critically examine how ICT is being used to augment surplus food redistribution, and to interrogate the contention that its role in the process is disruptive and empowering. First, the landscapes of ICT-mediated surplus food redistribution initiatives across 100 cities are mapped, detailing their location, form, function and ICT-mediation, followed by an in-depth analysis of one transnational ICT-mediated surplus food redistribution initiative, FoodCloud, who has matched thousands of retailers and charities and redistributed nearly 10,000 kilograms of surplus food across the UK and Ireland since 2014. Although ICT has been a necessary element in their rapid scaling and radical disruption of the landscape of surplus food redistribution, particularly within Ireland, this research finds that ICT alone is insufficient to build and maintain the required relationalities between donors and recipients, and systemic restructuring of agri-food systems to eliminate food waste and food insecurity is not resolvable by a technical fix. Ultimately, the impact of ICT-mediated surplus food redistribution efforts on state, market and society is still emerging and requires longitudinal analysis and agreed systems of assessment to capture both the affect and effects of ICT-mediated surplus food redistribution.

Food sharing is experiencing a renaissance in cities around the world. By food sharing, we mean the collaborative growing, cooking, eating and distributing of food
as well as sharing food-related skills, spaces and tools. This is nothing new, of course, but new socio-technologies are being used to reshape food-sharing opportunities. These range from apps for sharing home-cooked meals to online maps showing surplus harvests in the city.

SHARECITY100, a database covering 100 cities, ranks Melbourne as the third most active food-sharing city, after London and New York. Melbourne is home to more than 100 diverse food-sharing initiatives mediated by information and communication technology.

Published online: 29 May 2018.

Read the full article here

Ferne Edwards and Anna Davies

Connective Consumptions: Mapping Melbourne’s Food Sharing Ecosystem

Food sharing, understood as the collaborative growing, cooking, eating and distributing of food, as well as the sharing of food related skills, spaces and tools, is experiencing a renaissance in cities. From meal sharing apps that are used to exchange home-cooked meals to online maps that reveal surplus harvests, innovative technologies are reshaping food sharing practices. Such initiatives intersect with other food and social movements to form what could be described as “food sharing ecosystems”. This paper applies assemblage theory to four food sharing initiatives in Melbourne, Australia, to ascertain the implications of their ecosystems for urban planning and policy.

To cite this article: Ferne Edwards & Anna R. Davies (2018): Connective Consumptions: Mapping Melbourne’s Food Sharing Ecosystem, Urban Policy and Research, DOI: 10.1080/08111146.2018.1476231

Ferne Edwards and Anna Davies

Book chapter in: Plows (ed.) 2018: Messy Ethnographies in Action, Vernon Press: Wilmington, DE. 978-1-62273-329-3. pp 167-175

Abstract

Food sharing practices, including food sharing mediated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), are evolving across urban foodscapes globally. Using ethnographic case studies of ICT-mediated food sharing, this chapter explores the ways in which food sharing has developed in Singapore and connects with, or diverges from, broader narratives and practices around the smart governance of food in the city-state. This chapter first reflects on the methodological messiness inherent in researching social phenomena, such as food sharing, in different political and socio-cultural contexts. It is then argued that the milieu of food sharing itself is ‘messy’ as it includes a diverse range of practices and participants that ebb and flow over time and space connected through both physical spaces and virtual platforms. The research presented in this chapter highlights community actions related to food sharing that point towards a new understanding of what it might mean to transition towards a smarter and more sustainable city.

Please cite this book chapter as:

Rut, M. and Davies, A.R. (2018) Sharing foodscapes: shaping urban foodscapes through messy processes of food sharing, in Plows (ed.) Messy Ethnographies in Action, Vernon Press: Wilmington, DE. 978-1-62273-329-3. pp 167-175

Available from: https://vernonpress.com/book/385

SHARECITY Briefing Note #1

This briefing note provides a high level summary of findings from the SHARECITY100 Database, the initial phase of the SHARECITY project, which details and categorises more than 4000 initiatives from 100 cities across 44 countries and six continents. The resulting food sharing database is both productive and performative; progressing understanding of, and making visible, the multiple and hybrid ways in which food (and food-related stuff, spaces and skills) is shared across diverse urban settings.

Please Cite as: Davies, A., and Weymes, M. (2017) SHARECITY Briefing Note 1: The SHARECITY100 Database, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Please view full paper here.

Activities utilising online tools are an increasingly visible part of our everyday lives, providing new subjects, objects and relationships – essentially new landscapes – for research, as well as new conceptual and methodological challenges for researchers. In parallel, calls for collaborative interdisciplinary, even transdisciplinary, research are increasing. Yet practical guidance and critical reflection on the challenges and opportunities of conducting collaborative research online, particularly in emergent areas, is limited. In response, this paper details what we term the ‘creative construction’ involved in a collaborative project building an exploratory database of more than 4000 food sharing activities in 100 cities that utilise internet and digital technologies in some way (ICT mediated for brevity) to pursue their goals. The research was undertaken by an international team of researchers, including geographers, which utilised a combination of reflexive coding and online collaboration to develop a system for exploring the practice and performance of ICT-mediated food sharing in cities. This paper will unpack the black box of using the internet as a source of data about emergent practices and provide critical reflection on that highly negotiated and essentially handcrafted process. While the substance of the paper focuses on the under-determined realm of food sharing, a site where it is claimed that ICT is transforming practices, the issues raised have resonance far beyond the specificities of this particular endeavour. While challenging, we argue that handcrafting systems for navigating emergent online data is vital, not least to render visible the complexities and contestations around definition, categorisation and translation.

Please view full paper here.

In periods of turbulence, the tendency to simplify messages and polarise debates is nothing new. In our hyper-mediated world of online technologies, where it seems that even national policy can be forged in the 140 characters of Twitter, it is more important than ever to retain spaces for in-depth debate of emergent phenomena that have disruptive and transformative potential. In this article, we follow this logic and argue that to fully understand the diverse range of practices and potential consequences of activities uncomfortably corralled under the ambiguous term ‘the sharing economy’ requires not a simplification of arguments, but an opening out of horizons to explore the many ways in which these phenomena have emerged and are evolving. It is argued that this will require attention to multiple terrains, from diverse intellectual traditions across many disciplines to the thus far largely reactive responses of government and regulation, and from the world of techno-innovation start-ups to the optics of media (including social media) reporting on what it means to ‘share’ in the 21st century. Building on this, we make the case for viewing ‘the sharing economy’ as a matrix of diverse economies with clear links to past practices. We propose that to build a grammar for understanding these diverse sharing economies requires further attention to: (1) The etymology of sharing and sharing economies; (2) The differentiated geographies to which sharing economies contribute; (3) What it means to labour, work and be employed in sharing economies; (4) The role of the state and others in governing, regulating and shaping the organisation and practice of sharing economies; and (5) the impacts of sharing economies. In conclusion, we suggest that while media interest may fade as their presence in everyday lives becomes less novel, understanding sharing economies remains an urgent activity if we are to ensure that the new ways of living and labouring, to which sharing economies are contributing, work to promote sustainable and inclusive development in this world that ultimately we all share.

Please view full paper here.

Interpersonal sharing of food has been an omnipresent feature of human civilisation from hunter-gatherer societies to the present, both as a mechanism through which sustenance is secured and as a means to cement social relations. While the evolutionary dynamism of this food sharing is relatively well documented, critical scholarship has tended to examine contemporary food sharing practices beyond family and friends through case studies of individual initiatives. A broader view of food sharing practices is absent. In addition, there has been little examination of the role that emerging information and communication technologies (ICT) are having on food sharing, despite claims that such technologies offer transformative potential to achieve more secure, sustainable and just food systems. In response, this paper presents a novel landscape level analysis of more than 4000 ICT-mediated urban food sharing activities operating across 100 cities in six continents. Adopting conceptual insights from the intersection of social and economic practice-oriented approaches, the resulting foodsharing database progresses understanding of, and makes visible, the ways in which food (and food-related skills, stuff and spaces) is being shared across diverse urban settings. To conclude, it is argued that the database plays an important productive and performative role in mapping and comparing diverse food sharing economies. Importantly, it provides a springboard for further explanatory research to fine-tune our understanding of the evolution, governance and sustainability potential of urban food sharing.

SHARECITY Briefing Note #2

This briefing note provides an introduction to ten cities – Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, London, Melbourne, New York City, San Francisco, Singapore and Zurich – in terms of their food sharing landscape and wider socioeconomic, environmental and governing context. These cities have been selected from the SHARECITY100 database, and researchers will build on these
profiles through in-depth ethnographic research with a number of ICT-mediated food sharing initiatives and wider stakeholders in each city.

Please Cite as: Davies, A., and Weymes, M. (2017) SHARECITY Briefing Note 2: The SHARECITY100 Database, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

MSc Environmental Sciences – Dissertation – Alan Dowdall

Sustainability is a major issue facing society today, posing a number of challenges to our food, water, energy and human systems. Various international and regional attempts have been made to tackle these issues (UN, 2015; EC, 2015), with the aim of creating a more sustainable and circular economy which uses resources more efficiently. Food waste is one of the most pressing issues which must be dealt with, due to growing populations and increased pressure on land use (Scanlon, et al., 2017). The redistribution of surplus food has been identified as one of the most innovative and effective methods to help reduce food waste (Capodistrias, 2015), and its expansion and growth is encouraged by the EU (Vittuari, et al., 2016; Vituarri, et al., 2015). Food safety and hygiene regulations have been highlighted as a major barrier to this growth (Vituarri, et al., 2015). This study aims to assess the place of food safety regulation in European food redistribution organisations (FRO), and elicit the views of these organisations on regulations and how they should develop in the future. This will be carried out through a multilevel governance analysis, including European food safety policy review, national policy content analysis, surveys with local FRO and a case study on the operation of public fridges, including surveys and media analysis.

This study found that food safety has an important place in European food policy, outlining the general risk-based, scientific approach to food safety management in several regulatory instruments. National food safety policy channels these principles into set standards and procedures, providing more practical regulation of food businesses. National food safety authorities provide viewpoints on the importance of food safety and its place in food redistribution. Local FRO place a high level of importance on food safety and clearly understand the risks it poses. They implement these standards and procedures in a number of ways to maintain food safety and prevent public health risks. The majority of FRO surveyed in this study believed that current regulations are restrictive and too strong, and would like to see changes to education and awareness are food waste issues, as well as guidelines on the interpretation of food safety regulations in redistributive services and the creation of a standard quality system for all actors involved in redistribution.

The novel data collected in this study highlights the complexity of food waste and food safety management and the difficultly in reconciling both of their aims. Dealing with barriers such as food safety to innovative solutions like food redistribution is important to allow for their expansion and growth in accordance with proper regulations. Tackling this issue now, thorough official guidance and interpretation, allows for the optimal performance of both food redistributors and the regulations which govern them in the future.

Keywords: food safety, food sharing, food redistribution, European policy, policy analysis.

Sharing economies, particularly those enabled by internet, smart or mobile technology, are being identified across diverse territories, including the food sector, as potential means to enact urban sustainability transitions. However, to date, there has been little conceptual or empirical attention to these developments within the broad landscape of food sharing, with case study analyses of individual enterprises dominating empirical work in the field. This paper provides the first macro-geographical analysis of urban food sharing enabled by such technologies. Focusing on individual food sharing enterprises drawn from a database of more than 5000 enterprises, within 468 urban areas and 91 countries, this analysis reveals a variegated geography of food sharing in terms of location, what is being shared and the mode of food sharing adopted. Also documented is the extent to which these enterprises articulate sustainability claims from their activities and provide evidence to substantiate these claims. In conclusion, the paper outlines a strategy for connecting this macro-level analysis with the contingent material and relational practices of urban food sharing to establish more precisely its practice and sustainability potential.

Sharing economies, particularly those enabled by internet, smart or mobile technology, are being identified across diverse territories, including the food sector, as potential means to enact urban sustainability transitions. However, to date, there has been little conceptual or empirical attention to these developments within the broad landscape of food sharing, with case study analyses of individual enterprises dominating empirical work in the field. This paper provides the first macro-geographical analysis of urban food sharing enabled by such technologies. Focusing on individual food sharing enterprises drawn from a database of more than 5000 enterprises, within 468 urban areas and 91 countries, this analysis reveals a variegated geography of food sharing in terms of location, what is being shared and the mode of food sharing adopted. Also documented is the extent to which these enterprises articulate sustainability claims from their activities and provide evidence to substantiate these claims. In conclusion, the paper outlines a strategy for connecting this macro-level analysis with the contingent material and relational practices of urban food sharing to establish more precisely its practice and sustainability potential.

Assessing the Sustainability of ICT Enabled Urban Food Sharing in Dublin

Benjamin Murphy

MSc. Environmental Sciences
Trinity College
University of Dublin
Supervised by Dr. Anna Davies

Word Count: 15,785 (Including headings and in-text references)

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Environmental Sciences, Trinity College, University of Dublin.
October, 2016

Anna R. Davies

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Working Paper – INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS CONFERENCE

Contact: daviesa@tcd.ie

Following the rhetoric of an impending “perfect storm” of increasing demand for energy, water, and food, it is recognized that ensuring sustainability will require significant shifts in both production and consumption patterns. This recognition has stimulated a plethora of future-oriented studies often using scenario, visioning, and transition planning techniques. These approaches have produced a multitude of plans for future development, but many valorize technological fixes and give limited attention to the governance and practice of everyday consumption. In contrast, this article presents empirical findings from a practice-oriented participatory (POP) backcasting process focused on home heating, personal washing, and eating. This process provided spaces for collaborative learning, creative innovation, and interdisciplinary interaction as well as producing a suite of ideas around promising practices for more sustainable household consumption. Further action is required, however, to explore how such ideas might be translated into action. The article concludes by outlining how collaborative experiments among public, private, civil society, and citizen-consumers, or HomeLabs, provide a means to test and evaluate the promising practices developed through POP backcasting. Key Words: governance, social practices, socioecological systems, sustainable consumption, transformations.

This article explores the implications of conceptualising, designing and implementing experimental sites seeking to support more sustainable home-based eating practices, or HomeLabs for brevity. Building on earlier phases of practice-oriented participatory backcasting and transition framework construction, the HomeLabs involved collaboration with public, private and civil society sectors and with the members of participating households. These collaborations identified a suite of supportive socio-technological, informational and governance interventions that mimicked, as far as possible, the characteristics of promising practices for sustainable eating developed through backcasting and transition planning. The implemented interventions enabled householders to question, disassemble and reconfigure their eating practices onto more sustainable pathways across the integrated practices of food acquisition, storage, preparation and waste management. This process generated manifold insights into household eating practices, and this article focuses specifically on key outcomes of the HomeLabs, and the significance of social context, social relations and micropolitics of everyday life in shaping those outcomes. In particular, the HomeLabs findings reinforce calls to connect, combine and align product, regulatory, informational and motivational supports across the interdependent practices of eating (acquisition, storage and preparation and waste recovery) to optimise transitions towards sustainability. Offering a lens to interrogate interventions for sustainable food consumption in the home, this article provides a novel exercise in operationalising social practice theory.