A publication of the United Nations Environment Programme titled launched in 2022 says that “Excessive consumption of animal-based food and food wastage are two major contributors to lifestyles carbon footprints and major causes of other environmental challenges (…) Meat and dairy products, as well as certain kinds of seafood, have high environmental impact, not only per kilogram of food but also per calorie and per gram of protein. Plant-based protein sources (…) can meet nutritional needs of most healthy adults with a far smaller carbon footprint and reducing food waste.
The ‘VU Living Lab,’ created in January 2023, is a dynamic innovation ecosystem operating within the college cafeteria of?, a member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in The Netherlands. It aims to leverage iterative diet feedback from students, staff, and catering service providers to facilitate a steady transition towards a future-proof and planet-friendly dietary system in the university. This open innovation environment takes a lifecycle approach, carefully cultivating sustainable nutritional solutions to pressing climate change challenges through experimentation and collaboration.
By harnessing the power of the institution’s community-driven innovation, the lab is helping to co-create a more sustainable and responsive food future for all academic community members. The ‘VU Living Lab’ is founded on two main pillars: research and practice. The first pillar of the lab is “research-led” and employs novel, interdisciplinary research in social and behavioral sciences to design sustainable dietary transition plans for the university’s restaurants. Researchers and staff members can conceptualize and administer continuous interventions, sometimes through randomized controlled trials, to promote sustainable diets.
Set up this way, the lab aims to produce evidence-based insights on fiscal (such as meat taxes or vegan subsidies) and behavioral interventions, which can facilitate a long-term dietary change. This initiative draws inspiration from similar models implemented at cafeterias of other academic institutions in different countries. Meanwhile, the second pillar of the lab is “practice-oriented” and involves co-creation through a knowledge-transfer partnership with key university stakeholders, including those with expertise in sustainability. The aim is to develop sustainable food and drink policies that consider the unique needs of the academic community.
By involving stakeholders in the process, the initiative hopes to learn from current and past sustainability practices and facilitate long-term change. The ‘VU Living Lab’ was conceived when Dr. Sanchayan Banerjee and Dr. Meike Morren joined forces to scale up their research on promoting sustainable diets in organizational settings. The project was seed-funded by the university’s Amsterdam Sustainability Institute and is part of the proactive stance of the institution in the fight against climate change. In its?Roadmap to Sustainability by 2025, the university identified the adoption of planet-friendly diets as an operation priority.
Over the past two years, the university has implemented various initiatives, including piloting plant-based oat milk in coffee machines, and promoting Meat-Less Mondays and Waste-Free Fridays in campus cafeterias. Despite these efforts, there remains to be much work to be done, particularly to understand how to encourage dietary behavior change among students and staff effectively. To meet its targets, the university, according to the researchers, needs to integrate current findings in academic research about promoting dietary change and requires scientific (experimental) evidence on the most effective strategies for promoting dietary change.
This, in turn, includes understanding the university community’s diverse dietary preferences and attitudes to garner support for plant-based canteens and other initiatives. The ‘VU Living Lab’ was precisely inspired by these gaps and aimed to produce evidence-based recommendations to help the university achieve its goals of transitioning to future-proof and planet-friendly diets. As part of the implementation of the project, a survey was conducted to learn more about visitors’ attitudes and recruit people to join a panel. A first iteration of a lab-in-the-field experiment took place already in June 2023.
In transitioning towards a more plant-based diet, key stakeholders also work towards a vegetarian assortment. Their plans for accomplishing this are outlined in their future-friendly planet-proof report. Dr. Banerjee and Dr. Morren are involved in this transition and provide regular academic insights in designing the next steps. They hope this close collaboration as part of the ‘VU Living Lab’ will foster a deep integration of current academic knowledge in the changes implemented, more communication among crucial actors, opening possibilities for more data gathering and increasing monitoring of attitudes through the transition.
"Current dietary patterns are unsustainable and incompatible with our climate goals. We hope with our dynamic innovation ecosystem, we can bring forward steady changes in our university cafeterias to build a planet-friendly, future-proof dietary system," says Dr. Banerjee.
