StratKIT Sustainability Toolkit for greener public procurement and catering services in Baltic Sea Region and beyond

Making changes for more sustainable actions in relation to the public meal is not easy and much can be done through local initiatives. The StratKIT Sustainability Toolkit is developed to support the change process and provides a comprehensive set of tools that can be used to motivate, guide and facilitate actions that enhances the sustainability of public meals. The tools can be used by kitchen professionals, civil servants dealing with public procurement, supply chain actors, providers of catering services, policy makers, and others. The tools are organised in eight Gateways, each representing a sustainability dimension such as organic food, healthy and plant-based meals, preventing food waste, or resource efficiency. The toolkit also includes tools that facilitate strategy making or support public procurement officers to include sustainability criteria in their calls for tenders. In addition, the toolkit provides support for communication actions and for strengthening supply chain collaboration with particular emphasis on connecting with farmers. The complete toolkit is available in six languages on www.sustainable-public-meals.eu

Urban Agriculture Oriented towards Self-Supply, Social and Commercial Purpose: A Typology

Urban agriculture, a dynamic multifunctional phenomenon, affects the spatial diversification of urban land use, its valorization and its governance. Literature acknowledges its contribution to the development of sustainable cities. The dimension and extent of this contribution depends significantly on the particular form and function of urban agriculture. However, the complexity of interests and dimensions is insufficiently covered by theory. This paper proposes a typology for urban agriculture, supporting both theory building and practical decision processes. We reviewed and mapped the diversity of the types of agriculture found along three beneficial dimensions (self-supply, socio-cultural, commercial) for product distribution scale and actors. We distinguish between ideal types, subtypes and mixed types. Our intention is to include a dynamic perspective in the typology of urban agricultural land use because transition processes between types are observable due to the existence of complex motivations and influences. In a pilot study of 52 urban agriculture initiatives in Germany, we tested the validity of the typology and discussed it with stakeholders, proving novelty and relevance for profiling discussions

Contributing to food security in urban areas: differences between urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North

Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess (unused) potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures

Toward Sustainability: Novelties, Areas of Learning and Innovation in Urban Agriculture

Given the search for new solutions to better prepare cities for the future, in recent years, urban agriculture (UA) has gained in relevance. Within the context of UA, innovative organizational and technical approaches are generated and tested. They can be understood as novelties that begin a potential innovation process. This empirical study is based on 17 qualitative interviews in the U.S. (NYC; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Chicago, IL, USA). The aim was to identify: (i) the most relevant areas of learning and innovation; (ii) the drivers of innovation; (iii) the applied novelties and their specific approach to overcoming the perceived obstacles; (iv) the intrinsic challenges that practitioners face in the innovation process; and (v) the novelties’ potential to contribute to sustainability and societal change. As the results of the study demonstrate, learning and innovation in UA occur predominantly in four areas, namely, “financing and funding”, “production, technology and infrastructure”, “markets and demands” and “social acceptance and cultural learning”. The described novelties include approaches to enhance the positive impacts of practicing agriculture within urban areas, and some of them have the potential to contribute to societal change and open up opportunities for social learning processes

International retirement migration in the Alicante region, Spain: process, spatial pattern and environmental impacts

International retirement migration has become an increasing phenomenon in the Mediterranean region of Alicante, Spain. Through an interdisciplinary approach, relationships between the migration process, landscape change and environmental impacts are examined. Lifestyle-related perceptions and demands of UK retirees are studied as a major driving force of urbanisation. The extent and quality of the process is assessed by statistical and land use data analysis. Results reveal a distinctive spatial pattern of in-migration and the emergence of an archetypical landscape, consisting of a mosaic of remaining natural and urbanised landscape along the Mediterranean coast. The paper discusses the necessity of retirees' integration into sustainable planning and decision making.retirement migration, land use change, landscape, environmental impact, coastal area,