A Public-Private Initiative to Reduce Food Waste: A Framework for Local Communities

The problem of global food waste is critical to resolve – from the standpoint of both alleviating hunger and improving the environment by reducing carbon emissions and landfill usage. Successfully reducing food waste requires involving many stakeholders – both public and private – and galvanizing them to overcome barriers through positive action. This paper draws on lessons in stakeholder management from an impressive sustainability project involving multiple stakeholders – the implementation of the Vélib’ bicycle program in Paris – and applies them to the issue of reducing food waste at the local community level. The framework is a “start‐small” approach on which to build

Sustainable Food Recovery Programs: Making Connections To Redirect Excess Food To The Needy

Food waste is a significant problem of both social and environmental proportions. For myriad reasons, much of the food produced never makes it to market – but is sent to landfills – where it consumes limited landfill space and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions as it decays. There is much excess food (especially nutrient-rich produce) in the greater Philadelphia region to be captured for the needy, and there are motivated individuals to help in that effort. Food banks must strive to capture this food by creating strong relationships with growers and overcoming barriers to donations through effective planning, increased investment in logistical capability, a high service orientation to donors, and a local focus which harnesses motivated individuals and embraces collaborative partnerships. They must also consider creative approaches such as vertically integrated projects with agricultural schools to capture more produce. Success will spawn new programs. This paper details my effort to create relationships and pilot programs to capture fresh produce that would otherwise go to waste between January and September 2011

The Last Food Mile: Conference Summary

A 2014 report by the Economic Research Service of the USDA revealed that 31% - or 133 billion pounds – of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels went uneaten by Americans in 2010. Such a vast amount of waste is particularly difficult to accept given that roughly one in six Americans experience food insecurity, and that inadequate nutrition is leading to a serious increase in obesity and diet-related illness. Further, food waste involves waste of all associated resource inputs, and it has serious negative impacts on the environment in terms of air and water pollution. Food loss and waste occurs for myriad reasons at all levels of the food supply chain in the US, from the grower to the manufacturer to the retailer and to the consumer (i.e. from field to fork). The Last Food Mile Conference was organized to bring multi-disciplinary thought leaders together in an intensive, two-day format to discuss the amount and causes of food wastage at each stage, the barriers to implementing change, the multiple opportunities in excess food, lessons from current efforts to reduce wastage and how to leverage them, and how to lead behavior change for long-term solutions

Panel III: Food Waste Reduction, Recovery, and Recycling - Overview

The Challenge and Opportunity in Food Waste The problem of global food waste was referred to as a “conundrum” in a recent NY Times article by Emma Bryce. It is indeed a conundrum, and much more. It is a complex problem at global, national, regional, and individual levels. In short, food waste is a massive challenge, with elements of a “social mess.” But it is also a colossal opportunity -- and one that cannot be missed. The world’s population currently exceeds 7.2 billion, of which nearly one billion are hungry and nearly two billion suffer from micronutrient deficiencies per FAO. Yet estimates of global food waste and losses along the supply chain range from 30% to 50% of all food produced for human consumption, with a corresponding waste of all associated resources (most notably water) and substantial environmental harm. By 2050, just 35 years from now, the global population will exceed 9 billion. This brings the ultimate (and urgent) challenge: successfully feeding that increased population while preserving the environment. Feeding 9 billion global citizens in a sustainable manner requires optimizing use of food resources and all associated inputs. In the developed world, this requires mindset change. We need to recognize excess food as a valuable resource – not as waste – and seek to optimize it. Such change starts with increased awareness and education, but it hinges on action. We must overcome the culture of abundance which leads to massive waste from farm to market to fork. Consumers and retailers must collaborate, changing attitudes toward “perfect” produce and 24x7 stocks of infinite variety. Retailers must alter operations to reduce “accepted” levels of food waste and efficiently repurpose excess. Legislators must enact change to demystify “sell-by” dates and incentivize alternatives for excess food beyond landfill. Producers and retailers must form innovative partnerships to redirect excess food to high value uses. Forward-thinking organizations that embrace this opportunity will achieve triple bottom line benefits in the form of an inspired workforce, improved community relations by reducing environmental benefit, and financial savings through reduced costs. In so doing, they will drive positive change through the food system. Such change is hard, but essential: A world of hunger, rising obesity due to poor nutrition, resource shortages and environmental damage is not sustainable -- nor is it a secure world

Last Food Mile Conference Survey Results

Following The Last Food Mile conference in early December, we surveyed well over 150 participants to assess their impressions of the event and to glean information to help us shape future work on food wastage across the U.S. supply chain. Approximately one third of those surveyed responded

Corporate Practices that Inhibit and Drive Innovation for Sustainability

Proposal to the Eastern Academy of Management to conduct a discussion symposium regarding a systematic review of the body of research on innovation for sustainable business

Interleukin-33 contributes to both M1 and M2 chemokine marker expression in human macrophages

Abstract Background Interleukin-33 is a member of the IL-1 cytokine family whose functions are mediated and modulated by the ST2 receptor. IL-33-ST2 expression and interactions have been explored in mouse macrophages but little is known about the effect of IL-33 on human macrophages. The expression of ST2 transcript and protein levels, and IL-33-mediated effects on M1 (i.e. classical activation) and M2 (i.e. alternative activation) chemokine marker expression in human bone marrow-derived macrophages were examined. Results Human macrophages constitutively expressed the membrane-associated (i.e. ST2L) and the soluble (i.e. sST2) ST2 receptors. M2 (IL-4 + IL-13) skewing stimuli markedly increased the expression of ST2L, but neither polarizing cytokine treatment promoted the release of sST2 from these cells. When added to naïve macrophages alone, IL-33 directly enhanced the expression of CCL3. In combination with LPS, IL-33 blocked the expression of the M2 chemokine marker CCL18, but did not alter CCL3 expression in these naive cells. The addition of IL-33 to M1 macrophages markedly increased the expression of CCL18 above that detected in untreated M1 macrophages. Similarly, alternatively activated human macrophages treated with IL-33 exhibited enhanced expression of CCL18 and the M2 marker mannose receptor above that detected in M2 macrophages alone. Conclusions Together, these data suggest that primary responses to IL-33 in bone marrow derived human macrophages favors M1 chemokine generation while its addition to polarized human macrophages promotes or amplifies M2 chemokine expression.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78250/1/1471-2172-11-52.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78250/2/1471-2172-11-52.pdfPeer Reviewe

Assessing U.S. Food Wastage and Opportunities for Reduction

Reducing food wastage is one of the key strategies to combat hunger and sustainably feed the world. We present a comprehensive analysis of available data, despite uncertainties due to data limitation, indicating that the U.S. loses at least 150 million metric tonnes (MMT) of food between farm and fork annually, of which about 70 MMT is edible food loss. Currently, \u3c2% of the edible food loss is recovered for human consumption. A reasonably-attainable goal of food waste reduction at the source by 20% would save more food than the annual increase in total food production and would feed millions of people. This is an opportunity of significant magnitude, offering food security and resource and environmental benefits with few negatives. Seizing this opportunity requires technological innovation, policy intervention, and public outreach. This U.S.-based analysis is pertinent to other mid- to high-income countries

A comparison of admission and worst 24-hour Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II scores in predicting hospital mortality: a retrospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION: The Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score is widely used in the intensive care unit (ICU) as a scoring system for research and clinical audit purposes. Physiological data for calculation of the APACHE II score are derived from the worst values in the first 24 hours after admission to the ICU. The collection of physiological data on admission only is probably logistically easier, and this approach is used by some ICUs. This study compares the performance of APACHE II scores calculated using admission data with those obtained from the worst values in the first 24 hours. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study using prospectively collected data from a tertiary ICU. There were no missing physiological data and follow-up for mortality was available for all patients in the database. The admission and the worst 24-hour physiological variables were used to generate the admission APACHE II score and the worst 24-hour APACHE II score, and the corresponding predicted mortality, respectively. RESULTS: There were 11,107 noncardiac surgery ICU admissions during 11 years from 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2003. The mean admission and the worst 24-hour APACHE II score were 12.7 and 15.4, and the derived predicted mortality estimates were 15.5% and 19.3%, respectively. The actual hospital mortality was 16.3%. The overall discrimination ability, as measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, of the admission APACHE II model (83.8%, 95% confidence interval = 82.9–84.7) and the worst 24-hour APACHE II model (84.6%, 95% confidence interval = 83.7–85.5) was not significantly different (P = 1.00). CONCLUSION: Substitution of the worst 24-hour physiological variables with the admission physiological variables to calculate the admission APACHE II score maintains the overall discrimination ability of the traditional APACHE II model. The admission APACHE II model represents a potential alternative model to the worst 24-hour APACHE II model in critically ill nontrauma patients

Phase-resolved NuSTAR and Swift-XRT Observations of Magnetar 4U 0142+61

We present temporal and spectral analysis of simultaneous 0.5-79 keV Swift-XRT and NuSTAR observations of the magnetar 4U 0142+61. The pulse profile changes significantly with photon energy between 3 and 35 keV. The pulse fraction increases with energy, reaching a value of ~20%, similar to that observed in 1E 1841-045 and much lower than the ~80% pulse fraction observed in 1E 2259+586. We do not detect the 55-ks phase modulation reported in previous Suzaku-HXD observations. The phase-averaged spectrum of 4U 0142+61 above 20 keV is dominated by a hard power law with a photon index, $\Gamma$ ~ 0.65, and the spectrum below 20 keV can be described by two blackbodies, a blackbody plus a soft power law, or by a Comptonized blackbody model. We study the full phase-resolved spectra using the electron-positron outflow model of Beloborodov (2013). Our results are consistent with the parameters of the active j-bundle derived from INTEGRAL data by Hascoet et al. (2014). We find that a significant degeneracy appears in the inferred parameters if the footprint of the j-bundle is allowed to be a thin ring instead of a polar cap. The degeneracy is reduced when the footprint is required to be the hot spot inferred from the soft X-ray data.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap