With a global population of over 7.7 billion consumers, there was substantial potential to transform age-old dietary habits for a brighter future. Nevertheless, formidable challenges such as population growth, rapid urbanization, widespread migration, climate change, and resource scarcity loomed ahead. We had been on course to a world with 9 billion inhabitants, with most residing in cities, 3 billion grappling with obesity, and 2 billion confronting food insecurity.
This scenario underscored the urgency of taking immediate steps toward a sustainable transition of City-Region Food Systems, and in this prospect, the Cities2030 project emphasized that consumers should have been central to both policies and solutions.
In the absence of action towards a transition to sustainable City Region Food Systems (CRFS), the environment continued to degrade, diminishing the world’s ability to produce high-quality food for everyone while also reducing our capacity to ensure food access for all.
CRFS presented a global challenge, and Cities2030, a novel initiative, addressed it at both local and regional levels. Its aim was to generate incremental, systemic, practical, actionable, transferable, and sustainable solutions.
The primary aim of Cities2030 was to establish a future-proof sustainable CRFS, underpinned by a connected structure that prioritized citizens and was built on trust. It formed partnerships that spanned the entire CRFS spectrum.
The result-oriented consortium of the Cities2030 project was fully committed to driving transformation and restructuring across the food production, transportation, supply, recycling, and reuse systems in the 21st century.
The project vision was to create a cohesive network that linked together various components of short food supply chains.
This network included consumers, strategic industry partners, complementary businesses, civil society organizations, promising start-ups, established enterprises, forward-thinking innovators, visionary thinkers, leading universities, and cutting-edge research across a wide array of disciplines that pertained to City Region Food Systems (CRFS).
These disciplines encompassed areas such as food science, social science, and the utilization of big data for improving food systems.
Over the next four years, Cities2030 was committed to a multifaceted effort involving mobilizing funds from a diverse range of sources within both the private and public sectors. This initiative was expected to attract substantial investment, enabling the project to achieve its ambitious goals and significantly impact the future of urban food systems.
Cities2030 actively promoted citizen engagement by establishing a reliable Food System, transitioning consumers from passive recipients into motivated agents of change.
This transformation was accomplished through a range of tools and mechanisms provided by the project and shared within the Cities2030 Alliance—a community of practices and a sharing platform that spanned across Europe and beyond.
This approach paved the way for innovative actions and enhancements on a pan-European scale with far-reaching global consequences. Cities and regions strengthened their resilience and sustainability, with their leadership driving the development of short food supply chains and ecosystems that fostered local, cross-border, and transnational investments.
A blockchain-based data-driven platform and a series of community platform tools ensured intelligent and coordinated efforts by delivering an accurate, nearly real-time digital representation of the entire supply chain. This encompassed all aspects, from production to waste management, as well as key elements contributing to resilience and sustainability, such as security, ecosystem services, livelihood (e.g., economic growth), and equity (e.g., inclusivity).
