Congratulations to the Project Team and the AD WG for their new publication applying systems thinking to food waste reduction and recovery on a University campus.
The paper, published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society, is one outcome from a small project supported by EBNet via our Anaerobic Digestion Working Group (AD WG) which is led by Dr Mark Walker. But it also owes a huge amount to voluntary and in-kind efforts from many others, including EBNet Co-manager Angie Bywater, staff and students at Royal Holloway University of London, Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of West London; and Rokiah Yaman of LEAP Micro-AD.
The paper provides a fascinating study of systemic issues and barriers in avoidance and recovery of food waste, using Soft Operational Research (OR) and other techniques. The project represents an excellent example of EBNet’s Theme 3, on the interaction of techno-economic with societal and environmental factors, and the tools and approaches needed to address the complex multi-faceted problems involved in tacking some key Sustainable Development Goals.
For more information and a short report on the EBNet project, see here. Our appreciation and thanks to all authors, project team members and other contributors for carrying out this work.
A critical systems thinking methodology to explore circularity of food waste in a university campus. Córdoba-Pachón, J.R., Paucar-Caceres, A., Burrowes-Cromwell, T., Bywater, A., Shah, R., Walker, M. and Behzadian, K., 2025. Journal of the Operational Research Society, pp.1-20.
