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Summary of wednesday's brainstorming session:

This week we had another brainstorm session on wednesday. This week we came together on wednesday with the goal of generating some essential questions regarding our big idea of food (un)sustainability. With these essential questions we hope to be able to get closer to the final topic and issue that we want to handle in the project.

At the start of the brainstorm session we already came to a consensus about which topic we wanted to focus on, that being food waste. We were asked by our tutors to write down a couple of essential questions in order to gain a better grasp on who is affected by our big idea. Below we will list the questions we came up with

Essential Questions:
What are the economical consequences of unsustainable food practices?
What are the environmental effects of changing the food menu to only vegetarian and vegan options at the University of Twente?
Which effects do unsustainable food practices have on a global scale?

These questions allowed us to hone in on why our big idea could form an issue for society as a whole as well as on a smaller scale. With these questions in mind we decided on a single essential question that we will use to move forward in the coming weeks. That question being:
How can we reduce food waste in UT cafeterias?
We came to the conclusion that this question would allow us to make an impact on a local scale at the university. This led us to finalizing our big challenge that we want to take on during the course of this project. Our finalized big challenge is:

BIG CHALLENGE:
reducing food waste in UT cafeterias.

With this in mind we now in one meeting got from a big idea to the challenge we want to take on.

With the help of our tutor we used the rest of the session to gather online sources that we can use in order to engage further with our chosen direction.
The sources that we found to be of most importance are the sustainability paper that the university of Twente has published and especially its section on food sustainability. From this we noticed that there is a large focus on What is done with waste and there is a large focus on a green and vegetarian diet on campus. For example all faculty lunches are vegetarian. What we noticed was a lack of info on what the university does to reduce the amount of food that is wasted in the first place. Our next source of interest was the caterer of the university. We found a few things of interest on their website, however nothing that is explicitly worth mentioning. We have thought of and plan to reach out to the caterer to gather information about how much food is delivered to the university and what is done when preparing the food in regards to waste. The last source that we want to definitely reach out to is the head of sustainability at the university of Twente to gain some more information of what and how much food is wasted and what plans the university has to mitigate this.
All in all this brainstorming session was the most important session so far and we have definitely grown our understanding of the issues at hand and which direction we want to go in.

We are excited to continue with the project!

Our essential questions are all in regard to our big idea of unsustainable food practices. These essential questions include, What are the economic consequences of unsustainable food practices, What are the environmental effects of changing the food menu to only vegetarian and vegan options at the University of Twente, and Which effects do unsustainable food practices have on a global scale? Now is the second question about the University of Twente very specific and not realistic to find the relevant and necessary information in the Climate Book, however, the book did provide us with information that could help us to determine the relevance of the big idea. The Book stated that - the solid-waste management sector is usually one of the top three greenhouse gas emitters, contributing approximately 5 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and up to 20 per cent of methane emissions. The waste of certain food products would also be included in this sector and therefore contribute to the emissions of these gasses. In a previous section of the book, it was already mentioned that high amounts of these gasses in the atmosphere will lead to climate change. Thus, when we find a way to decrease food waste or the recycling of their packaging we can therefore prevent the emission of a certain amount of these gasses which would help to prevent an even bigger climate change.

In addition, the book states that people in low-income countries generate one-quarter of the waste that high-income individuals generate daily. As this is an enormous difference it shows that reducing the waste of the high-income countries only a little could already make a very big difference. Moreover, it is estimated that 1 per cent of the urban population works informally in waste management and is exposed to health and safety risks such as lower life expectancy. This shows that the waste does not only damage the environment but is also damaging to the individuals.

Lastly, it was found that staple food crops, for example, rice, wheat and soy are losing nutrients that play a central role in maintaining human health. These crops are grown at a carbon dioxide concentration of 550 ppm. If a crop is grown at this concentration it contains lower amounts of iron, zinc and protein. The 550 ppm concentration is not yet the concentration under which it is currently grown, however, this is the level we are expecting to reach halfway through this century. Therefore, it is important to find a way to already reduce our emissions to prevent reaching this concentration level. When we do reach this level this might lead us to eat even more food to reach the required level of zinc and protein and in turn cause food shortages.

This week for the skills seminar we read two things, the first was the very first chapter of the book intelligent research design by Bob Hancke and the second was a choice reading about the particular topic of the group. For us this was an article about sustainable food cities by Moragues-Faus. The first reading was about how to define a problem in a scientifically satisfactory manner and how to derive a research question from it. Defining the problem is an important step in the research process, a well-defined problem is the groundwork for the research and to formulate research questions. Some important things to keep in mind when defining the problem are:

Clarity. The problem statement needs to be clear and don’t consist of vague language or sentences that can be misunderstood. You should be able to easily communicate the problem towards others.
Relevance. The problem needs to be relevant to the field of study and cover something where there is a lack of knowledge or, as in our case, addresses a real issue.

Specific. The problem should be specific, this means that the problem should not be too broad or too vague. This can make the research objective unclear
With this in mind did we define the big problem, “There is too much food wasted in our society.” Next, we need to define our research question. For creating a research question we need to keep the same point in our mind as for the problem but with a few extra points.
Attainability. You need to be able to conduct the research you want to. Limits for this can be money, time and access to data.
Importance. You need to consider if your research will solve the problem and have a meaningful impact.

With the problem and the additional points to look out for we started thinking about the research question for our project and to give us structure. We settled on “How can we reduce food waste in cafeterias of the University of Twente?” This question is clear and easy to explain to others, we deem the question relevant to our topic of unsustainable food practices and the question is specific because we focus on the food waste but only at the cafeteries of the university. We also think that this question is feasible to answer within the time frame set for this project. Also do we think that this is important, it is important because we all need to work together for a more sustainable planet and specifically for the university since they want to become a waste free university by 2030.

The second reading was very interesting to us since it concerns the topic that we are working on. In this reading the research process that led to the development of an indicators toolbox for sustainable food cities as a means to overcome key challenges in current food assessment exercise. This is mainly done through the inclusion of knowledges, addressing conflicting values and interest, and supporting food system transformation. Seeing and reading how a researcher has defined the problem and research question is an inspiration for us and shows us how we can define the problem statement and the research question.