The increasing rate of urbanization along with its socio-environmental impact are major global challenges. Therefore, there is a need to assess the boundaries to growth for the future development of cities by the inclusion of the assessment of the environmental carrying capacity (ECC) into spatial management. The purpose is to assess the resource dependence of a given entity. ECC is usually assessed based on indicators such as the ecological footprint (EF) and biocapacity (BC). EF is a measure of the biologically productive areas demanded by human consumption and waste production. Such areas include the space needed for regenerating food and fibers as well as sequestering the generated pollution, particularly CO2 from the combustion of fossil fuels. BC reflects the biological regeneration potential of a given area to regenerate resources as well to absorb waste. The city level EF assessment has been applied to urban zones across the world, however, there is a noticeable lack of urban EF assessments in Central Eastern Europe. Therefore, the current research is a first estimate of the EF and BC for the city of Wrocław, Poland. This study estimates the Ecological Footprint of Food (EFF) through both a top-down assessment and a hybrid top-down/bottom-up assessment. Thus, this research verifies also if results from hybrid method could be comparable with top-down approach. The bottom-up component of the hybrid analysis calculated the carbon footprint of food using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The top-down result ofWrocław’s EFF were 1% greater than the hybrid EFF result, 0.974 and 0.963 gha per person respectively. The result indicated that the EFF exceeded the BC of the city of Wrocław 10-fold. Such assessment support efforts to increase resource efficiency and decrease the risk associated with resources—including food security. Therefore, there is a need to verify if a city is able to satisfy the resource needs of its inhabitants while maintaining the natural capital on which they depend intact. Original article at: https://doi.org/10.3390/resources7030052 © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI.
MULTIFILE
Making food packaging more sustainable is a complex process. Research has shown that specific knowledge is needed to support packaging developers to holistically improve the sustainability of packaging. Within this study we aim to provide insights in the various tradeoffs designers face with the aim to provide insights for future sustainable food packaging (re)design endeavors. The study consists of analyzing and coding 19 reports in which bachelor students worked on assignments ranging from (1) analyzing the supply chain of a food product-packaging combination to (2) redesigning a specific food packaging. We identified 6 tradeoffs: (1) Perceived Sustainability vs. Achieved Sustainability, (2) Food Waste vs. Sustainability, (3) Branding vs. Sustainability, (4) Product Visibility vs. Sustainability, (5) Costs vs. Sustainability, and (6) Use Convenience vs Sustainability. We compared the six tradeoffs with literature. Two tradeoffs can be seen as additional to topics mentioned within literature, namely product visibility and use convenience. In addition, while preventing food waste is mentioned as an important functionality of food packaging, this functionality seems to be underexposed within practice.
MULTIFILE
Purpose: Food waste occurs in every stage of the supply chain, but the value-added lost to waste is the highest when consumers waste food. The purpose of this paper is to understand the food waste behaviour of consumers to support policies for minimising food waste. Design/methodology/approach: Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a theoretical lens, the authors design a questionnaire that incorporates contextual factors to explain food waste behaviour. The authors test two models: base (four constructs of TPB) and extended (four constructs of TPB plus six contextual factors). The authors build partial least squares structural equation models to test the hypotheses. Findings: The data confirm significant relationships between food waste and contextual factors such as motives, financial attitudes, planning routines, food surplus, social relationships and Ramadan. Research limitations/implications: The data comes from an agriculturally resource-constrained country: Qatar. Practical implications: Food waste originating from various causes means more food should flow through the supply chains to reach consumers’ homes. Contextual factors identified in this work increase the explanatory power of the base model by 75 per cent. Social implications: Changing eating habits during certain periods of the year and food surplus have a strong impact on food waste behaviour. Originality/value: A country is considered to be food secure if it can provide its citizens with stable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. The findings and conclusions inform and impact upon the development of food waste and food security policies.
MULTIFILE
Chemical preservation is an important process that prevents foods, personal care products, woods and household products, such as paints and coatings, from undesirable change or decomposition by microbial growth. To date, many different chemical preservatives are commercially available, but they are also associated with health threats and severe negative environmental impact. The demand for novel, safe, and green chemical preservatives is growing, and this process is further accelerated by the European Green Deal. It is expected that by the year of 2050 (or even as soon as 2035), all preservatives that do not meet the ‘safe-by-design’ and ‘biodegradability’ criteria are banned from production and use. To meet these European goals, there is a large need for the development of green, circular, and bio-degradable antimicrobial compounds that can serve as alternatives for the currently available biocidals/ preservatives. Anthocyanins, derived from fruits and flowers, meet these sustainability goals. Furthermore, preliminary research at the Hanze University of Applied Science has confirmed the antimicrobial efficacy of rose and tulip anthocyanin extracts against an array of microbial species. Therefore, these molecules have the potential to serve as novel, sustainable chemical preservatives. In the current project we develop a strategy consisting of fractionation and state-of-the-art characterization methods of individual anthocyanins and subsequent in vitro screening to identify anthocyanin-molecules with potent antimicrobial efficacy for application in paints, coatings and other products. To our knowledge this is the first attempt that combines in-depth chemical characterization of individual anthocyanins in relation to their antimicrobial efficacy. Once developed, this strategy will allow us to single out anthocyanin molecules with antimicrobial properties and give us insight in structure-activity relations of individual anthocyanins. Our approach is the first step towards the development of anthocyanin molecules as novel, circular and biodegradable non-toxic plant-based preservatives.
Flying insects like dragonflies, flies, bumblebees are able to couple hovering ability with the ability for a quick transition to forward flight. Therefore, they inspire us to investigate the application of swarms of flapping-wing mini-drones in horticulture. The production and trading of agricultural/horticultural goods account for the 9% of the Dutch gross domestic product. A significant part of the horticultural products are grown in greenhouses whose extension is becoming larger year by year. Swarms of bio-inspired mini-drones can be used in applications such as monitoring and control: the analysis of the data collected enables the greenhouse growers to achieve the optimal conditions for the plants health and thus a high productivity. Moreover, the bio-inspired mini-drones can detect eventual pest onset at plant level that leads to a strong reduction of chemicals utilization and an improvement of the food quality. The realization of these mini-drones is a multidisciplinary challenge as it requires a cross-domain collaboration between biologists, entomologists and engineers with expertise in robotics, mechanics, aerodynamics, electronics, etc. Moreover a co-creation based collaboration will be established with all the stakeholders involved. With this approach we can integrate technical and social-economic aspects and facilitate the adoption of this new technology that will make the Dutch horticulture industry more resilient and sustainable.
An important line of research within the Center of Expertise HAN BioCentre is the development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal testing replacement organism. In the context of this, us and our partners in the research line Elegant! (project number. 2014-01-07PRO) developed reliable test protocols, data analysis strategies and new technology, to determine the expected effects of exposure to specific substances using C. elegans. Two types of effects to be investigated were envisaged, namely: i) testing of possible toxicity of substances to humans; and ii) testing for potential health promotion of substances for humans. An important deliverable was to show that the observed effects in the nematode can indeed be translated into effects in humans. With regard to this aspect, partner Preventimed has conducted research in obesity patients during the past year into the effect of a specific cherry extract that was selected as promising on the basis of the study with C. elegans. This research is currently being completed and a scientific publication will have to be written. The Top Up grant is intended to support the publication of the findings from Elegant! and also to help design experimental protocols that enable students to become acquainted with alternative medical testing systems to reduce the use of laboratory animals during laboratory training.
