Exploring co-creation with agri-food smallholders in Vietnam

The food system in Vietnam is changing whilst the middle class is growing. Agrifood smallholders have the strengths of responding to the changing needs of the middle class by offering freshness, proximity and convenience but they also face increasing competition from larger and international firms. At the same time, issues with food safety are...

A future-proof food box: Making sustainable consumption choices easier with design

Our food system has a huge impact on the environment and is one of the largest contributors to a global threat: climate change. The meat industry alone accounts for 15% of the greenhouse gas emissions. So, the solution would be eating less meat and dairy. But although the Dutch eat most meat replacers in Europe, the annual meat consumption hasn...

Intensified Protein Structuring for more sustainable foods: Development of the up-scaled Couette Cell for the production of meat replacers

To meet the increasing need for protein-rich food of an ever growing population, plant-based proteins are being utilized in meat products as replacements for animal-based proteins. Legumes such as soy can serve as an alternative protein source, by featuring both high protein content (36%) and protein functionality (gelation). Nowadays various...

Agrolab India

Agrolab India focuses on the design of a small-scale aquaponic farming system targeted at urban dwellers in India. Aquaponics is the combined culture of fish and plants in a recirculating, symbiotic system. The term aquaponics derives from the words aquaculture (the raising of aquatic animals for food) and hydroponics (the process of growing...

Design for attitude-behavior consistency: A study on sustainable meat consumption

This research and design graduation project revolves around two topics: sustainable meat consumption and the impact design can have on attitude-behavior consistency. The project is a collaboration between Wageningen UR Livestock Research (WUR) and Delft University of Technology. WUR is currently seeking solutions to increase the sustainability...

Mothers, grow your baby a bottle! A toolkit to grow vegetables at home in the city of Hanoi

Vietnam has developed very fast over the past decades and is growing both in population and economic power rapidly. Especially the march of a middle-class is pushing the consumerism to a higher level; people have more money to spend on for example luxury items and food. Private food consumption is one of the most important areas with a big...

United Nations Environmental Council: The Vertical Farm

Sustainability of consumption patterns: Historic and future trends for Europe

The EU FP7 research project “European Policies to Promote Sustainable Consumption Patterns” (EUPOPP) analyses the impacts of policy strategies and instruments on consumption patterns in order to identify which sustainable consumption policies and instruments are effective, can be improved, and be implemented successfully. A focus is on the need...

Designing for sustainable food practices in the home

Activities around food have implications for the environment, personal nutrition, identity, and social relationships. As a way of understanding how daily routines evolve, practice theory (a theory of social action from sociology) provides a framework through which the complexities around consumer food habits can be understood and reveal avenues...

Designing for sustainable food practices in the home

Activities around food have implications for the environment, personal nutrition, identity, and social relationships. As a way of understanding how daily routines evolve, practice theory (a theory of social action from sociology) provides a framework through which the complexities around consumer food habits can be understood and reveal avenues...

Policies to promote sustainable consumption: First results from an EU-wide impact evaluation project

The development of policies to promote sustainable consumption is a growing and demanding task of today. Many different actors have to cooperate, or even integrate their strategies and portfolios from the local to the international level, and across sectors. In order to achieve effective and coherent policies, many uncertainties have to be dealt...