By Lily Raphael, Design + Experimentation Lead (Circular Food Innovation Lab)

Welcome to Learning out Loud! This is where CFIL collaborators reflect on what we’ve been learning and trying in this experimental space. Thanks for joining us on our journey, and if you have any thoughts on what you’re reading we’d be happy to hear from you!

Our convening question:

How might we work together to increase circularity in Vancouver’s food system so that food is not lost or wasted; access to food is nourishing, equitable, and culturally appropriate; and habitats are protected for current and future generations of humans and more-than-humans?

Imagining and enacting circularity in the food system

Throughout this lab we are wrestling with what is meant by circularity and what is keeping us stuck in the current dominant economic structure of ‘extract-produce-consume-dispose’. In a circular economy, we use what we already have. Our resources stay in continuous movement and products are used again and again. When it comes to food circularity, rather than going directly to waste if not sold, food is repurposed into a different form of consumption or use, or is redirected to contribute to the regeneration of other elements of our ecosystems. Preventing food waste long before food reaches consumers is also important.

Our ‘north star’

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 Vancouver.
• 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.

Partner and Funders

The Circular Food Innovation Lab (CFIL) is a project co-led by the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC), and Emily Carr University of Art + Design. We are collaborating with Vancouver-based businesses and organizations working in the food system from Spring 2022 to Winter 2023. This project contributes to the priorities outlined in City of Vancouver’s Zero Waste 2040 Strategic Plan, adopted by Vancouver City Council in 2018, as a long term strategic vision for Vancouver to become a zero waste community.

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. MITACS grants link private sector and post-secondary institutions, driving collaborations to develop projects which solve organizational challenges, and develop the nation’s innovation capacity. The learnings generated through CFIL will be applicable and adaptable for use in other cities worldwide.

Our process

The process is being shaped and guided by the Solutions Lab, a Public Sector Innovation Lab at the City of Vancouver. In collaboration with a team of designers from Emily Carr University, we are using systemic design and action research processes to work towards the transformation of Vancouver’s food system. Alongside participating food businesses and project partners, we experiment with ways to intervene on systems, structures, and behaviours, and create enabling conditions to increase circularity and reduce wasted food in- and between food businesses and organizations.

A new iteration

CFIL emerged following the Grocery Retail Solutions Lab, co-initiated by City of Vancouver Solid Waste Strategic Services and the Solutions Lab that ran from 2019 to 2020. A few key learnings came from that experience that helped shape CFIL:

• Other actors in the food system need to be involved in thinking more deeply about this complex challenge, not only grocery retailers.
• More time and resources are needed for prototyping to test whether potential solutions are promising interventions on the complex challenge of food waste.

It’s a tremendous gift to be able to iterate based on learnings from a previous innovation lab journey and experiment with new partnerships, collaborators and tools, all in service of enacting alternative ways of being that we believe are possible.

We look forward to continuing to share what we’ve been learning along the way!

Disclaimer: the opinions and perspectives expressed within each of these posts are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and perspectives of all CFIL participants.

Connect with us! — cfil.vancouver@gmail.com

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