The Circular Food Innovation Lab (CFIL) is a project of the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC), Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and Vancouver-based businesses and organizations working in the food system. This project takes place within the setting of a public sector innovation lab and uses systemic design, action research and design processes to work towards the transformation of Vancouver's food system. We experiment with ways to intervene on systems, structures and behaviours to prevent and reduce food waste, and create enabling conditions for circularity in and between food businesses and organizations.
CFIL is funded by the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA)’s Game Changer Initiative and MITACS Accelerate. The Game Changer grants are intended to mobilize the development, adoption and implementation of game-changing climate policies in cities around the world. The learnings generated through CFIL will be applicable and adaptable for use in other cities worldwide.
The North Star is the larger vision that we are working towards. We envision a food system in Vancouver where:
• Food isn’t wasted. Circular systems are in place so foods easily flow to their next use
• Access to healthy, gorgeous, and delicious food is affordable, just, and culturally appropriate for all residents in
• Jobs support a multitude of livelihoods in a regenerative economy
Food is not reduced to a commodity but rather respected as an integral part of human and planetary well-being
• Our food system is rooted in place and reflects care for local, regional and global ecosystems
• Food is centered in family, community, and cultural lives. It grounds important moments and movements.
• Our food system moves beyond human exceptionalism and recognizes that we are part of a complex balance held between all beings
Addressing food waste is a complex challenge. Complex challenges are unpredictable, and characterized by having competing ideas and no right answers; there are unknown unknowns, and solutions are pattern-based and emergent. The complex challenges of today and tomorrow can’t be solved by yesterday’s approaches. Delving deeply into our systems and the thoughts and beliefs that keep our problems in place are important first steps in becoming aware of our collective and individual roles and responsibilities towards finding solutions.
CFIL is an action research innovation project. Unlike a conventional research project where a researcher is performing research on a subject, in action research stakeholders and researchers co-exist as co-creators to generate knowledge and action with one another. Prototyping involves testing out potential solutions before committing to a larger solution. Prototypes are small, quick, low risk and have a very low investment of time and resources, and they help us to learn about and think through many dimensions of a potential solution before building out an elaborate and concrete program, project or service. They aren’t precious, and help us to move quickly and not fall in love with our ideas before we know if they are actually good ones that are worth scaling.
Below are the food businesses based in and around Vancouver who are co-creating solutions to public sector innovation
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