WASTE FEW ULL has mapped and substantially reduced waste in the food-energy-water nexus in cities across three continents: Europe, Africa and South America.
Waste occurs across food, energy and water systems. At the interface of these systems, waste increases significantly the over-consumption of our limited resources. Resource scarcity is not only a matter of efficiency, but of access, distribution and equality. Understanding different pressures and opportunities in distinct urban contexts is important for identifying processes by which cities can identify, test and scale viable and feasible solutions that reduce the most pressing inefficiencies in each context.
The aim of the WASTE FEW ULL project has been to develop and test internationally applicable methods of identifying inefficiencies in a city-region’s food-energy-water nexus. We have undertaken this through an international network of industry/civic society-led Urban Living Labs (ULL) in four urban regions – UK (Bristol), Netherlands (Rotterdam), South Africa (Western Cape) and Brazil (São Paulo). Partners in Norway and the USA have provided economic valuations of potential impact, and impact-led public education, outreach and dissemination.
The Urban Living Labs (ULLs) of stakeholders have been organised to
- map resource flows
- identify critical dysfunctional linear pathways
- agree on the response most appropriate to the local context
- model the market and non-market economic value of each intervention
- engage with decision makers to close each loop.
The project has contributed with policy decision support models for economically viable waste reduction, rethinking waste as a resource as well as establish entrepreneurship networks in each ULL to continue working after the formal end of the project.
