Green Jobs in a Sustainable Food System

The U.S. food sector is among the most productive in the world and is a significant driver of our economy. Yet, it's failing us in major ways -- putting public health, livelihoods and our environment at great risk. Obesity and diabetes rates are rising, communities are plagued by food deserts, and agriculture runoff is the biggest source of pollution in our rivers and lakes.The good news is that communities across the country are addressing this crisis in innovative ways. Through different community-based efforts, local activists and food advocates are finding ways to improve community health and environmental outcomes while creating a more economically equitable food system.It is within this context that this report identifies opportunities to transform jobs in the green economy and enhance environmental and economic equity outcomes in the future. The initial analysis promises opportunities for workers to build long-term skills, and emphasizes the importance of linking local efforts to broader regional and national policy platforms. This multi-level engagement and collaboration will help set in motion the systemic changes needed to create a more sustainable and equitable food system

Immigrant Entrepreneurs Creating Jobs and Strengthening the U.S. Economy in Growing Industries

The focus of this report evolved from a 2010 conference at Babson College on "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Massachusetts" sponsored by The Immigrant Learning Center, Inc. (ILC) from which two key ideas emerged. One is that there is an "immigrant entrepreneurship ecology" that includes immigrant neighborhood storefront businesses; immigrant high-tech and health science entrepreneurs; immigrant non-tech growth businesses; and immigrant transnational businesses. A second idea was that these growing, non-tech industries (including transportation, food and building services) have not attracted much attention. Interestingly, these sectors can be crucial to the expansion of the green economy. Within this context, The ILC decided to look at these three sectors in Massachusetts as well as in New York and Pennsylvania.Moreover, the report dramatically illustrates how immigrant entrepreneurs look for niches in underserved markets. For example, vans and other alternatives to mass transit serve unmet transportation needs in urban areas. Food intended to be a "taste of home" for compatriots in local restaurants and grocery stores becomes popular and influences the eating habits of other Americans. Workers who enter industries like landscaping or cleaning because they don't require much English gain experience and see opportunities to start their own companies. Businesses like these add value to American life by expanding the economy rather than taking away from native businesses

Sustainability in Food Retail Industry through Reverse Logistics

The food retail sector is known for its supply chain dependency. The delicate nature of its products emphasizes smooth movement of forward supply chain. The size of this industry however results in clogging of its supply chain from backward movement of packaging and food materials. The management of these products required adaptation of the supply chain to returns and waste management. This resulted in development of reverse logistics process, which has been successfully accepted by industries across the globe. Studies on reverse logistics adoption across global industries and its complete immersion into global supply chains have been widely conducted. The situation of research on reverse logistics adoption in Malaysian food retail industry is however restricted. The limited number of studies conducted on recent developments in Malaysian food retail industry and reverse logistics indicate a major gap in sustainable logistics studies. Considering the importance given to green movement by the government of Malaysia, it is necessary to understand this sustainable logistics practices. This study aims to investigate the level of reverse logistics adoption by retailers in Malaysia. The results highlight present scenario of reverse logistics processes of return and waste management, determinants to reverse logistics adoption, benefits obtained by retailers from reverse logistics and barriers to adoption of reverse logistics. The indifference of consumers to greening of retail operations acts as a major inhibitor to adoption of reverse practices by retailers. This study could be used as a precursor for further detailed studies on this issue

Drivers, opportunities and barriers for a retailer in the pursuit of more sustainable packaging redesign

Redesign can reduce the environmental impact generated by product packaging. The literature presents the elements to be observed in a packaging redesign, as well as the important role of the retailer in delivering more sustainable outcomes through consideration of product packaging. However, the literature is almost silent on the motivations, opportunities and barriers faced by the retailers that try to improve the packaging of the items sold in their stores. To fill this gap, a case study approach was adopted which investigated a global supermarket chain through interviews with senior management and participant observation. Findings suggest that the greatest motivation to the packaging redesign seems to be the economic gains (for the supermarket and its suppliers), which co-generate environmental gains. The opportunities include the adjustment of the packaging size or type. Sizes could be increased when consumers buy more than one package during a single visit to the supermarket, or reduced when consumers discard part of a perishable product without consuming it (due to over-large packaging). Barriers result from commercial uncertainties associated with: how the new packaging will affect the sales of other items? How the new design will influence the number of times that a consumer visits the supermarket? And how the new design will affect the amount of money spent by the consumer on each visit? Further studies could investigate: how to mitigate these uncertainties? How to leverage sustainability based on the economic focus? How to identify redesign opportunities among thousands of sold items? And how to better convince the suppliers that reject the supermarket proposals? The understanding developed from the case study has facilitated the derivation of a number of propositions aiming to leverage sustainability gains from packaging redesign in practice

Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of Sustainability Education through the Integration of Behavioral Science into Pedagogy and Practice

abstract: For some time it has been recognized amongst researchers that individual and collective change should be the goal in educating for sustainability, unfortunately education has generally been ineffective in developing pro-environmental behaviors among students. Still, many scholars and practitioners are counting on education to lead us towards sustainability but suggest that in order to do so we must transition away from current information-intensive education methods. In order to develop and test novel sustainability education techniques, this research integrates pedagogical methods with psychological knowledge to target well-established sustainable behaviors. Through integrating education, behavior change, and sustainability research, I aim to answer: How can we motivate sustainable behavioral change through education programs? More specifically: How do diverse knowledge domains (declarative, procedural, effectiveness, and social) influence sustainable behaviors, both in general as well as before and after a sustainability education program? And: What are barriers hindering education approaches to changing behaviors? In answering these questions, this research involved three distinct stages: (1) Developing a theoretical framework for educating for sustainability and transformative change; (2) Implementing a food and waste focused sustainability educational program with K-12 students and teachers while intensively assessing participants' change over the course of one year; (3) Developing and implementing an extensive survey that examines the quantitative relationships between diverse domains of knowledge and behavior among a large sample of K-12 educators. The results from the education program demonstrated that significant changes in knowledge and behaviors were achieved but social knowledge in terms of food was more resistant to change as compared to that of waste. The survey results demonstrated that K-12 educators have high levels of declarative (factual or technical) knowledge regarding anthropocentric impacts on the environment; however, declarative knowledge does not predict their participation in sustainable behaviors. Rather, procedural and social knowledge significantly influence participation in sustainable food behaviors, where as procedural, effectiveness, and social knowledge impact participation in sustainable waste behaviors. Overall, the findings from this research imply that in order to effectively educate for sustainability, we must move away from nature-centric approaches that focus on declarative knowledge and embrace different domains of knowledge (procedural, effectiveness, and social) that emphasis the social implications of change.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Sustainability 201

Perceptions of local hospitals and food producers on opportunities and barriers to implementing a farm-to-hospital program

The purpose of this study was to explore current perceptions and attitudes of local food producers and hospital staff towards incorporating locally-sourced foods into hospital food service programs. Perceived opportunities and challenges to procuring and using local products in the hospital setting were identified. Additionally, perceived enablers and barriers of local producers were identified around working directly with institutions. The goal of this study was to integrate perceptions of producers and hospital staff to develop locally relevant suggestions for strengthening producer-hospital relationships and increase the amounts of local foods in hospital food service programs. Qualitative data was collected by conducting interviews with hospital staff involved with food procurement and management, as well as with local producers and food distributors. Demographic data was also collected from participants. Findings resulted in the identification of opportunities and challenges associated with direct working relationships between local food producers and hospitals and the increase of locally-sourced foods in food services. Barriers included price, product availability and quantity while opportunities included positive relationships, product quality, and champion leaders. The integration of results allowed for the development of capacity building suggestions. Such suggestions included the development of aggregated food systems, hospital staff wellness programs and collaborative problem solving processes. Most significantly, this study suggested that efforts to connect producers and hospitals in collaborative dialogue to identify and resolve misconceptions and misinformation may serve to most successfully strengthen Montana’s farm-to-institution system and increase the amounts of locally-sourced foods being used in hospital food service programs

Perception of consumers and companies on the use of sustainable packaging in grocery retail industry

Environmental concerns and the need to incorporate the concept of sustainability into everyday life, have led people and companies to search for eco-friendly ways and lifestyles. The use of sustainable packaging is one of these ways, which has led companies to work on the development of new materials, new shapes, reducing volume and transport, or packaging with multiple uses. Consumers behaviours also demonstrate an environmental concern that leads to more criteria choice of packaging or even the adoption of own packaging usage, namely when buying in bulk. The grocery retail industry, due to the size, has been pioneers in incorporating these principles of sustainability into its business plan. In recent years in Portugal, private labels sold under the retailer´s brand have started to gain market share and are also incorporating these principles of sustainability. The perception that consumers and companies have of the more sustainable form of production and how this impacts consumer choice are recent areas of study. The present work intends to be a contribution to this analysis by studying both perspectives, consumers, and companies on the perception that each one has about the use of sustainable packaging in the grocery retail market. The study on consumer´s perception was performed by quantitative methods applying an online survey and the analysis on companies´ perception on sustainable packaging was carried out through in-depth interviews complemented with document analysis. The results gathered suggest that most consumers and companies are aware of environmental sustainability, perceive it as an on-going development, with results already achieved. Both are aligned with sustainability criteria, but there is still room for improvement, both in consumer behaviour and in corporate communication.As preocupações ambientais e a necessidade de incorporar o conceito de sustentabilidade na vida quotidiana, tem levado consumidores e empresas a procurar formas e estilos de vida ecofriendly. Em particular, a utilização de embalagens sustentáveis tem pressionado as empresas a reconsiderar os processos existentes, como o desenvolvimento de novos materiais, novos formatos, redução de volume e transporte, ou embalagens com múltiplos usos. Relativamente aos consumidores, também tem sido demonstrada uma preocupação ambiental através da escolha mais criteriosa de embalagens ou mesmo a adoção de embalagem própria, nomeadamente na compra a granel. A indústria do retalho, pela sua dimensão, tem sido pioneira na incorporação destes princípios de sustentabilidade no plano estratégico da empresa. Nos últimos anos, em Portugal, as marcas próprias, vendidas sob a marca do retalhista, começaram a ganhar mercado e incorporam, muitas vezes, os princípios de sustentabilidade. A perceção que consumidores e empresas têm da forma de produção mais sustentável e como isso impacta a escolha do consumidor são áreas de estudo recentes. O presente trabalho pretende ser uma contribuição para esta análise, através do estudo das duas perspetivas, consumidores e empresas, na perceção sobre o uso de embalagens sustentáveis em geral e, particularmente, no mercado de marcas próprias. O estudo da perceção do consumidor foi realizado por métodos quantitativos, aplicando um questionário online e a análise da perceção das empresas sobre embalagens sustentáveis foi realizada por meio de entrevistas complementadas com análise documental. Os resultados sugerem que consumidores e empresas estão conscientes da necessidade de sustentabilidade ambiental, compreendem-na como um desenvolvimento contínuo, com resultados já alcançados. Ambos estão alinhados com os critérios da sustentabilidade, mas há ainda campo para melhorias, quer no comportamento dos consumidores, quer na comunicação por parte das empresas